Five Ways to Enhance Your Writing

Inspire Christian Writers

Nothing like a five-day conference to put a spring in your step and a smile on your face—that's after catching up on sleep, of course. I'm back from the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference already putting to use what I've learned.

Seeing people I met last year and meeting new people is a highlight of the conference. I got to meet Andrea Doering of Revell Publishing. They're publishing the dog anthology where my dog story will appear. Meeting Sheila Seifert of Focus on the Family was a treat, having just sold my dog jobs article to Clubhouse Jr.

To get feedback on our writing, to make a connection that sells a manuscript, and to learn new techniques and skills that strengthen our writing is the veritable feast we enjoy at the conference. Here are five nuggets that I gleaned from a number of workshops that can help you enhance your writing:

• Use humor to reinforce a point. Humor has proven to increase retention. It makes your writing more memorable and effective.
• Include stories of real people that relate to your target audience. That goes for fiction as well—they say that truth is stranger than fiction. And strange makes it memorable.
• Make every word count. Ask yourself, "Does this sentence or word need to be here?" Tight writing moves your readers along.
• Keep the reader guessing. Every time you answer a question, let it bring up another question.
• Remember to entertain, entertain, entertain!

I hope these help to enhance your writing.

One of two hotspots on the conference grounds called the Central Lounge. Look at all those writers sucked into cyber space... and that's not all of them.

Hardy Inspire Writers hiked to the cross at the top of the conference property to see the sunrise on Palm Sunday. Yes... it was cold!