MS OFFICE SKILL BLOG

When you are writing your first novel, the language you use will ultimately decide its fate. If it’s badly written, the only thing your novel will do is gather dust. An infant will spend a vast proportion of its early life learning and developing its verbal abilities. Speech, understanding it, reading and writing, it doesn’t matter which part of the world the youngster is native to it will naturally spend many hundreds of hours becoming proficient and expert in its native language. Yet, once we have reached what could be classed as a competent level, how sad it is then that many of us choose to stop learning.

Have we taken it all for granted, maybe? We learn to talk, read and write, then move on to other things with never a thought of sharpening up on our verbal skills which are probably the most important skill in our mental toolbox. As we depend on it for so many varied tasks, we would serve ourselves well by maintaining it. Here are a few ideas to help extend this very important tool and your word power.

EMBRACING NEW WORDS – Most of us, the majority of the time, will completely bypass a new word, passing it over as not required and insignificant. What we should be doing, though, is getting out the dictionary and learning the meaning and etymology of the word. We should be a lot more disciplined. It’s another way of expanding on your word power which is so very important in your goal of writing your first novel.

MENTAL EXERCISES – Stimulate your brain power by doing all manner of word puzzles and games. Exercising your brain on a daily basis will vastly increase your word power so, every day, start your daily exercises doing anagrams, crosswords and word searches, etc. Just as a child at school does, set aside something you find enjoyable to exercise and improve your word power.

THE SPOKEN WORD – Do you have any video footage of yourself talking? Most people have so take the whole speech apart and break it down completely. Now put it all back together on paper using synonyms. Pretend you are making an important speech somewhere and this is what you are preparing for.

BE HONESTLY CRITICAL – Most days, everyone of us will write something in some way or form to someone whether it be an email, a text message or a letter. Be very critical and honest about what you have written. There is always room for improvement. Ask yourself these questions!

a) Does what I’ve written convey exactly what I wanted to say?
b) What can I do, if anything, to make it netter or more accurate?

Exercising your mind on a regular basis will really expand your word skills, helping you to reap the benefits tenfold when you embark on writing your first novel.

“There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written” – Oscar Wilde, preface to The Portrait of Dorian Gray.