There’s an anecdote which I’ve heard attributed to a few different famous authors, including Margaret Atwood, though I read somewhere that she says it didn’t originate with her. It goes like this:

A famous writer is at a party. She’s chatting with a brain surgeon. The brain surgeon, upon hearing who she is, gets excited, and says that when he retires he’s going become a writer. The writer quips snidely, “Oh really? When I retire, I’m going to become a brain surgeon.” The author, here, implies that writing should be left to professionals.

Here’s where I think she gets it wrong. Of course there are activities we wouldn’t ever do without years of formal training and professional licensing, like brain surgery, nuclear-reactor design, and fighter jet piloting, because lives depend on our performance. But there are also activities that many of us do as a part of our ordinary lives that don’t carry such risks. We write. We tell stories. We create art. We make music. For these activities, I don’t think it serves us well to draw too hard a line between being a professional and being an amateur, or to assume that we can’t succeed at them as avocations or as second careers.

There’s no shortage of famous writers who had another day job, or who started writing later in life. One of America’s most revered poets, Wallace Steven, spent his days as an insurance executive. Raymond Chandler turned to writing only after losing his job as an oil company executive. Sue Monk Kidd, the author of The Secret Life of Bees, was a writer all her life, but didn’t publish her first book until she was in her fifties. Others notables include Richard Adams, Bram Stoker, Tillie Olson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Anthony Burgess.

Here’s where I think the author in the anecdote gets it right. You shouldn’t fool yourself that just because you write for your job, for school, and in your daily life, that being a good writer is any easier than being a good brain surgeon. Achieving mastery in writing can be every bit as difficult and complex as achieving mastery in brain surgery, and usually takes years of dedication and effort whether you are a professional, an amateur, or embarking on it as a second career.

Guest post by Barbara McNichol, a nonfiction book editor and creator of WordTrippers Tips, a fun resource for better writing skills. www.BarbaraMcNichol.com & www.WordTrippers.com

Whether it’s an email, a marketing message, or a chapter in a book, are you sometimes challenged to make your writing easier for your readers to follow? How can you create a smooth flow that guides them with ease and doesn’t leave the impression it’s tedious to read?

Give these five techniques a try:

Use subheads: When you use subheads throughout your piece, readers can skim your content and quickly discern what’s intended to follow. Even more, subheads indicate a change of subject has occurred. In turn, that subhead allows readers to find the related topic quickly. Your guide: new subject, new subhead.

Convey one idea per paragraph: If you pack a paragraph with more than one idea, it creates difficulty following the meaning. In an email about a talk, for example, you might use three separate paragraphs: one explaining the subject of the talk, one explaining who the presenter is, and the third showing the date, time, and place of the event. You can also add subheads to separate each paragraph.

Use bullets points and numbered lists: When you list similar things (such as names, steps, benefits, requirements), you help readers recognize similar content quickly. With lists, you can leave out transitional words that paragraphs command. It aids the understanding when you use the same part of speech (e.g., a verb or a noun) at the beginning of each point. Note: When crafting a list, use numbers when the order of the points matters; otherwise, use bullets.

Vary sentence length: Although short, concise sentences are easy to read, a string short sentences can feel disjointed. You can add interest by varying the length of your sentences. My rule of thumb is keeping sentences shorter than 21 words so readers don’t get bogged down. Instead, they follow your meaning more easily.

Vary sentence structure: Building your sentences in the order of subject-verb-object (active structure) is simple and clear. But if all your sentences are constructed that way (passive structure), it can come across as monotonous. Along with varying your sentence length, remember to break out of the mold (command). Use a combination of commands, passive, and active structure to create variety that keeps readers interested.

Practice these techniques to make your writing easy to follow, and you’ll get better responses from your readers every time.

Billionaire oil magnate J. Paul Getty quipped: “Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil.” He was, of course, highlighting how important luck is as a component of success. This same sentiment can easily apply to writing and publishing a book, “Formula for success: rise early, write well, and get discovered.” If you try to get published by a major New York publisher, you will soon find, that unless you have published with them before, or are a famous movie star or politician, you have little chance. Even if your book is incredibly well-written and interesting, you, as a first-time author have to somehow get discovered by the right person at the publisher. Without some lucky accident, like a personal or professional connection on the inside who can champion your manuscript, it’s very tough. If you decide to self-publish, luck will also be a factor in your success. (Of course, if you are famous movie star or major politician, luck has already favored you, and your chances of self-publishing success are high.) Otherwise, you and your book still need to get discovered, but, in this case, by readers, which requires both hard work (marketing) and luck.

Discouraged? You shouldn’t be. Achieving success in anything worthwhile requires “hard work,” and always depends to some degree on luck.
You have complete control over the “rise early, work hard” part of the formula. You can study the craft of writing, re-write your book until it is as perfect as you can make it, and work with professional editors and book designers to get an outstanding finished product.

You can even do things to minimize how important luck is to your success. If you want to get discovered by a major New York publisher, you can network with right people in the industry. If you self-publish, you can market directly to the right groups of readers. (Talk to us about Amazon Advertising opportunities.)

You may not have the good fortune to become a world renowned author, but, even if you don’t, the other rewards of writing and publishing are powerful; the sense of achievement, the satisfaction of sharing your message or story, and the authority and credibility that being a publishing author can afford you. I’ve worked with thousands of authors over the years, and rarely have they regretted their decision to publish. They may have regretted that they didn’t have a book edited just one more time, that they decided on a certain cover design, or that they didn’t have enough time and money to do more marketing, but not that they wrote and published.