Edit Your Substack Posts, Please

The 9 easiest ways to become a better writer

This post contains some of the juiciest, most salient advice I can give you. This is (I promise) the quickest way to dramatically improve your writing.

The nine techniques I outline here are little miracles. They’re also really easy fixes.

Before we get started, note:

» You should separate macro-editing from micro-editing and proofreading.

• Macro-editing is where you look at what you’re saying: Is it clear? Is it rich? Does it go deep enough into my topic? For narrative, does it have imagery, a narrative arc, and a character arc? This is also called revision. (For more on this, go here.)

• Proofreading is where you look for errors. (For more, go here.)

• Micro-editing is where you uplevel your writing and enhance what many people call “flow” or “sounding good.” This is where you flaunt your stuff.

» Don’t berate yourself

You haven’t proofread yet; typos aren’t a reason to berate yourself. Leave them to the proofreading stage.) Please know that these “errors” don’t make you a “bad writer.” We all do them, but good and great writers know to fix them.

» Use the search tool

If you don’t know or aren’t familiar with it, go here for Windows and here for Mac. Google Docs and Pages also have it. You can do it on a Substack post, by pressing Control + f.

9 ways to make your writing flow