How To Develop Your English Writing
So how do you develop a simple, conversational, and direct writing style? It
turns out you already know the answer! In the last chapter we discussed the
importance of pleasure reading. The research shows that this kind of
reading is not only a great way to improve your reading speed, reading
comprehension, and vocabulary — it’s also the best way to improve your
writing.
Just as listening is the key to speaking, reading is the key to writing. The
same principle applies: Understandable, compelling input is the foundation
for effective output. In other words, listening is the foundation for speaking
and reading is the foundation for writing.
Just as you focused on fairly easy listening to improve your speaking,
you’ll focus on fairly easy reading to improve your writing. Just as you
focused on listening to real stories and authentic audios to master English
speaking, you’ll read stories and authentic books to master English writing.
You needed a lot of listening to speak effortlessly and you’ll now need a lot
of reading in order to write effortlessly.
This is why your number one activity for writing is reading. Nothing
beats high-volume pleasure reading for improving written grammar, written
vocabulary, sentence structure, spelling, and clarity. The more you read for
pleasure, the more you intuitively absorb English sentence structures. In
other words, you learn to write best by modeling your writing after good
writers. The best way to imitate good writers is to read their books.
Remember, when it comes to pleasure reading, the amount is what is
most important. Your goal is to constantly increase the number of pages you
read in English every week. Read novels that you love. Read non-fiction
books that fascinate you. Read comic books. Read simple articles. It’s the
amount you read that is most important, not how difficult it is. In fact,
easier material is usually best, especially for the purpose of improving your
writing.
