Basic Writing Critique

I'm sure a number of people can and will critique your writing. You need to develop a bit of a thick skin about the process. Some of the criticism will be constructive. Some of the criticism will be destructive. You'll need to be able to wade through the difference, harvest the constructive and eliminate the destructive from your memory cells.

Its important to remember that even the great authors, Hemmingway, Plato -- you name the author -- you'll find someone who didn't like him or her. Several world class authors were ignored by the publishing world until they finally found someone who actually read the material. At Hub Pages, you're lucky! You don't have to depend upon someone to read it to publish it. You are your own publisher!!!

Publish a hub! People will comment on it. Some will be useful comments. Learn from them. Use a good word processor and use the spelling and grammar checker frequently. Also, use the reading scale tool to determine how readable your writing is. Generally speaking, unless you're addressing a technical subject for a technical audience, an 8th Grade reading level is the goal. If it's spelled correctly, grammatically correct and readable; then all you need to do is practice, practice, practice.

And, don't be afraid to rewrite! Practice makes perfect! Though, shoot for good. Perfect is too high a standard.  Writers like Louis L'Amour made a great living writing many books well.  Others die broke having had only one really great book in them.

• Get your basic ideas down on paper in good form.
• Review and rewrite it to polish the ideas
• Read it out loud!  If it doesn't read well, it probably isn't written well.  People often overlook how words sound.
• Use the spellchecker.  
• Use the grammer checker.  It may not always be right, but it should give you cause to think!
• Use the reading ease tool.  I may be optimistic; but an 8th Grade level is good target for most writing.
• Set it aside for a day or two and then return to step one above.