Write Like You Talk
Have you ever been reading something—a book, a blog, an email, a cry for help—and found yourself thinking, “who the fuck talks like this?” Maybe it’s the sentence structure, phrasing, or style. Maybe it’s all of it. Something just makes it sound…weird even though you know damn well it was written by a human being who up until that point had given you the impression that they were a competent member of society. It’s because the way they wrote it strayed too far from the way most people talk in the 21st century.
Now, before we dive into this cesspool of subjectivity, let me start off by saying that I’m rarely ever in the same headspace, mood, or creative bubble when I write. Few people are. We have good days and we have bad days. The result is often inconsistent writing that can feel disjointed from one THING to the next—or if the THING is written over the course of several days/weeks/years. Sometimes, what we write comes out looking and sounding like a psychopath’s ransom note cut out of twenty magazines instead of something with a passable amount of coherent thoughts strung together. With practice and experience, that becomes less common but I don’t think it ever disappears entirely.
That being said…
How to sound like a human being when you write
When you’re talking to someone in the wild or on the phone, you don’t say shit like “I will travel to your home in one-quarter of an hour.” No. You say, “I’ll head over in 15 minutes.” You’re not a robot. If you were, Arnold Schwarzenegger would have already come back from the future and blown a hole in your alloy ass.
Unless you’re writing an essay, scientific paper, letter to your probation officer, or something that demands the highest levels of formality, your writing should be brimming with contractions, slang, and simple language. Excessively formal writing in a casual setting is jarring to most readers. So, how can you stop sounding like an alien who just possessed someone’s body and is still in the infancy of learning how to communicate?
Uh, just write like you talk?
It feels weird to walk you to the door on this, but here we are. After you write something, read it back to yourself and ask, “would I sound like this in a conversation?” If the answer is no, rewrite it until the answer is yes. If you go off on tangents, put them in your writing. If you curse like a drunken sailor with Tourettes, fucking slip that shit into your stupid little sentences. If you truly don’t use contractions or slang when you talk, then it’s amazing that you’re still here reading my bullshit.
Forget most of what you learned in school
All your teachers did was teach you how to write a formal essay with a structured argument. And unless you need to remind Jeffery in sales who the fucking boss is around here, you’ll probably never write like that in your daily life. Nobody says “therefore” and “in conclusion” in a normal conversation, so don’t write it unless the situation absolutely calls for it.
Start sentences with conjunctions and end them with prepositions
Starting your sentences with conjunctions (but, and, or, because, etc.) or ending them with prepositions (to, at, in, of, for, with, etc.) is 100% legal. The grammar police won’t kick down your door in the wee hours of the morning and slap you around with some antiquated rule book. Not only are those “rules” a heaping pile of bullshit anyway, but we also do this all the time when we talk.
Vary your sentence length and structure
If everything looks, sounds, and flows the same from one sentence to the next, people will blackout from the repetition. The rhythm lulls them into a catatonic state and they’ll stop retaining anything you’re saying. Keep them on their toes! Bounce from shorty, punchy statements to long, whimsical diatribes that push the boundaries of what they can handle. Just make sure every word is worth the effort. I write sentences that are way too long all the time because I’m an egomaniacal narcissist who loves to fondle my own keys. It’s probably why only, like, seven people read this blog.
Know your audience
You’re usually going to be writing a specific THING for a specific audience with specific expectations for what you’ll say and how you’ll present it. Snobby business executives and academic-type folks will probably appreciate a bunch of fart jokes and borderline pig Latin as much as your friends will appreciate a 300-word treatise about what you want to do on Saturday night. If you want to survive out there, you need to be a writing chameleon that adapts to its environment.
But also—fuck the audience
Not literally. Well, unless they ask you to and you’re cool with it. What I mean is: don’t change the way you write just because you think it will please someone who reads it. Write what you want the way you want. Anybody who doesn’t like it will never be worth your time anyway. The race toward homogeneity is one you should strive to lose.
When NOT to write like you talk
I’m far less articulate in person than I am when writing, which is saying something. Luckily, the written word allows us to wash away the evidence of our poor speaking habits and verbal diarrhea.
Don’t get too casual
Just like wearing sweatpants to the office on “casual Friday,” it’s possible to take things too far. When we speak out loud, we say things like “gonna” and “woulda,” but that level of hyper-contraction can look odd when written into anything that’s not a text message or dialogue between characters in a story. Sometimes, you have to keep the sand in the sandbox.
Don’t use filler words
We use “um” and “ah” to fill the void while we think of what to say next, but they look weird in the middle of a sentence. Similarly, you’re probably better off not ending a statement with “right?” like the youths do when talking these days. The exception here would be if you’re writing dialogue, quoting someone, or doing it as a stylistic choice.
We write to tell stories or communicate our thoughts, ideas, and feelings. So long as your writing achieves one of those goals, you can get away with adding your own style and voice on top of it. Your writing should sound like you, even if the reader has never heard you speak before.