Wise words for writers from “Alpha Better Juice”

Rereading your drafts results in better writing. That’s the bottom line of the following quote from Roy Blount Jr.’s Alpha Better Juice or, the Joy of Text:

The web is a wondrous thing…, but so many people who publish things on it seem not be aware of that heretofore traditional stage of composition that involves reading over what you have written before you present it to the world. That’s one of the key advantages of writing as opposed to chatting: you can look at what you wrote and see whether it makes sense to, for starters, yourself, in which case it might make sense to somebody else.

 

I know it’s tempting to hit “publish” or” send” as soon as you finish a blog post draft or email. I’ve done that many times myself. But next time you finish a draft, please pause to reread it. There’s often one little thing you can tweak to improve the odds that your communication will achieve its goal.