Psychology gives you 6 tips to write better

Reading is one of life's great pleasures, what a doubt. A few days ago we echoed our particular ranking with 50 essential books that you have to read once in your life, and today we return for more, although from another point of view.

Writing and psychology, much in common

We are constantly communicating with written words; they are part of our life and of our cultural heritage. We have all felt at some point the need to write our thoughts or our stories, and it is that writing can become therapeutic.

We may not be literary geniuses like Gabriel Garcia Marquez or William ShakespeareBut the call for pen and paper (or keyboard for digital natives) comes up to us often. However, putting on paper the ideas and reflections that go through our minds can be a complicated company, and if not, ask the writers and their dreaded "syndrome of the page in White".

Steven Pinker brings us the psychological keys to writing better

One of the most renowned psychologists today, Steven Pinker, a linguist and cognitive psychologist at Harvard University, has some answers to help us progress when it comes to the art of writing.

In his book The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century (Sense of Style: The Thinker's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century), published in 2014, Pinker advises us and offers us a complete guide for those who want to improve as writers.

In addition, his suggestions and teachings are based on a multitude of scientific research in the field of neuroscience and cognitive psychology: Pinker reviews the findings in the functioning system of our brain and it teaches us to improve our ability to write. The author proposes a series of techniques and strategies that have the objective of understanding how our mind so that we know how to get the most out of it, in this case to be more creative and efficient when it comes to to write.

The 6 psychological tips for writers

We have summarized the six points on which Steven Pinker's teachings are based below. If you want to be a writer and improve your stories, this can help you.

1. Put yourself in the shoes (and in the mind) of the reader

Readers don't know what you know. This seems like a very obvious point, but it is not so obvious. If there are people who do not understand well what you are trying to convey to them through your texts, the problem is not theirs, but yours. I am sorry.

The psychological reason for this failure to write is that our brain tends to take for granted a lot of knowledge, data and arguments because you already know them, but do your readers know them as well as your? Probably not, and this is a frequent problem that must be dealt with, with self-criticism and reflection.

Steven Pinker calls this error the "curse of knowledge," and it is the inability many writers have to understand that others they don't know what they know. This leads to unclear texts, where things are taken for granted that mislead the reader. In his book, Pinker affirms that the best method to avoid falling into this error (which by the way is one of the most common according to editors) is to send a draft of the text to a person without specific knowledge, and ask him if he understands everything, or not.

2. Use a direct style, with images and conversations

The cognitive psychology he never tires of repeating that more than 30% of our brain has functions associated with vision. Pinker also notes that there is a lot of scientific evidence showing that readers understand and are able to remember more elements of the text that have to do with a language that evokes images.

In addition, it is convenient to use a conversational style and conceive the reader as a well-known person: this will make them feel part of the story and the inner world of the writer. However, says Pinker, writing with a style focused on impressing the reader achieves the effect Otherwise, and the reader may feel overwhelmed and notice a great distance from what the Author.

In fact, a investigation he discovered that many college students deliberately used complex vocabulary to appear smarter. In fact, the simplest texts at the lexical level coincided with authors of superior intelligence.

The trick to finding a good harmony between reader and author, according to Pinker, is that as a writer you imagine that you are in a conversation with someone who has a similar cultural level to yours, but who has some less knowledge than you in the field you are dealing with talking. In this way you will be able to guide the reader and make him discover some things that you already know but that he still does not.

3. Put the reader in context

It is necessary that you explain to the reader what the objective of the text is, why you are telling him something, what he will learn from it. A investigation reported that readers who know the context from the beginning of the reading are better able to fully understand the text.

Pinker himself emphasizes this point, noting that readers should know the background to be able to read between the lines and connect all concepts and arguments in a more intuitive. This means that the reader is located in the text from his previous knowledge, and that helps him better understand what he is reading. In fact, if he does not find any reference to contextualize, the reader will be unable to adequately understand the lines in front of him, it will be a superficial reading.

The advice is clear: as authors we must locate the reader, show him what the subject of the text is and what we want to explain. Although some writers refuse to do this for not removing suspense and mystery from the text, the truth is that it seems much more reasonable to conquer the reader from the first moment and get him to keep his attention and interest throughout the reading than not to trust that, without being able to contextualize, he will manage to finish even the first paragraph.

4. Creativity (but common sense) when it comes to following the rules

With this we do not mean that we do not have to respect the rules of spelling and grammar, but when we are writing we must also leave some margin for the creativity and improvisation. The dictionary is not a holy book, Pinker argues. What's more: dictionary editors are responsible for capturing in each new edition the trends and uses of certain terms, and that is only achieved by being connected with society, which is the engine that gives meaning to the language.

Yes indeed: you need to know the rules well to be able to break them from time to time with a good dose of creativity. Creativity, of course, should be a sign of quality, not an opportunity to show that we have wanted to “get smart”. If you do not know the writing rules of a language thoroughly, it is better that you do not try to reinvent the wheel and stick to some orthodox canons in your texts. There will be time to innovate, later.

5. Never stop reading

This and other writing guides are interesting and valuable tools, but if you want to improve as a writer you need to read a lot, day by day.

Pinker's vision is very clear: to be a high-quality writer, one must immerse oneself in a variety of books and texts, trying know new languages, literary resources, new terms and phrases with which to grow as a thinker and, therefore, as Writer.

It's simple: keep learning and researching is one of the keys to broadening your mental horizons and, consequently, your writing skills.

6. Review the texts thoroughly and patiently

To be an excellent writer, it is not recommended that you try to write great texts the first time, against the clock. In fact, that is a skill that few, very few, master. Actually, it is much better that you dedicate a lot of care and time to review and reconstruct your texts.

Steven Pinker believes that revision is one of the keys to good writers. “Very few authors are self-demanding enough to capture the exact words that best explain what they want to convey. Less is more. This is achieved with the ability to know how to review and refine each paragraph, each sentence. When we write, we need to review and reformulate to make the message clear and reach the reader appropriately, "argues Pinker.

One last thought

The ability to communicate through texts and books is something that can be learned. It is only necessary to practice and start our talent.

These strategies and techniques for improving writing that Steven Pinker has given us can help us to empathize with our readers and get our message to get through in the best way possible. Write!