To improve your prose writing, stay focused with an outline, give readers the key facts up front, cut the fluff and flowery words, and use the passive voice where it fits. Then practice, and check your text before anyone reads it.
Prose is ordinary writing without a metrical structure: its sentences and paragraphs flow naturally, without rhyme. If you need an example, just look around you. People normally think, speak, and write in prose, and most novels and short stories are written in it. Simply put, everything that is not poetry or verse is prose.
How to improve your prose writing
Whether you write fiction or non-fiction, these tips help you write better prose.
1. Stay focused
Good prose stays focused on its elements: theme, character, setting, plot, and point of view.
The best way to do this is to write a detailed outline first. The premise, the basic idea, should be clear when you read the outline, and each idea in it must connect with the others.
Consult the outline as you write. That way, you won't get sidetracked halfway through.
2. State the facts up front
Never assume that your readers have enough background knowledge to know what you are writing about right away. Put the crucial information up front, so your audience has a good idea of the main topic.
This does not mean you have to reveal everything at the beginning. Just give enough to keep your readers informed and hooked.
3. Remove the fluff
Some fluff is necessary. Too much of it, though, makes your writing longer than it needs to be. Your readers can get lost in it and need a moment to get back on track.
In the same way, avoid flowery words. They distract readers from the theme and topic of your writing. If you want to use fancy words, use them sparingly, and make sure they support the topic. Also steer clear of clichés: whenever you feel you need one, look for another way to say it.
4. Use the passive voice wisely
Some say the passive voice is boring, a bad writing habit, or a grammatical error. It is none of these. It is a choice of style. Look at these two examples:
- Active voice: Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created Spider-Man.
- Passive voice: Spider-Man was created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.
Use the active voice when you want to talk about Stan Lee and Steve Ditko and what they achieved. The passive voice is better when your subject is Spider-Man, the hero, and his crime-fighting adventures.
The passive voice is common in legal, formal, and professional writing. If your story is set in such a world, don't be shy about using it.
Practice, then check
That's it for the simple ways to improve your prose writing. All that is left is to practice: the more you write, the better you get. And remember that prose is still an art form, even without rhymes. Being creative is not taboo here.
One more thing before you pat yourself on the back: make sure your writing is free of spelling and grammar mistakes. The Spell Checker marks them for you to fix. A typo is cute when you are a 6-year-old still learning to write, but not so much when you are all grown up.