The Complete Guide to Improving Your Writing Skills as a Nonnative English Speaker
By: Sadia M.
Tags: Writing, Blogging, Writing Tips, Creativity, Freelancing

Write a lot

The next big thing you need to do is write a lot. Nobody turns pro in a day or two. All good writers start by writing trash and getting better with time. The key is to write consistently and not give up.

Even though I’m only 22 as I’m writing this, I’ve been writing for more than a decade (not exaggerating!). I wrote my first poem at the age of nine and since then I’ve been writing almost every day of my life. In elementary school, I began contributing stories to a local children’s newspaper. In high school, I began academic writing. In college, I began blog writing. Now I’m not saying you need a decade of experience to become a great writer. You can become really good in a couple of months provided you stay consistent.

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all: read a lot and write a lot”. — Stephen King

So how do you begin writing? The answer is to start by writing in private. A lot of people suggest writing in public but I don’t recommend that. Because when you’re a beginner and a nonnative English speaker on top of it, your confidence in your writing abilities is fragile. The internet is full of trolls. If you go public and immediately start receiving negative comments on your writing, your confidence will be shaken and you might give up.

Secondly, writing in public comes with claps, comments, and shares. You might get a lot of those or you might get none of those. In the latter case, you may start to think your writing sucks. You don’t want to get attached to this stuff at this stage. It will distract you.

Third, there are a lot of successful writers on the internet, and going public will make you compare yourself to them a lot. Comparison is pointless but for beginners it’s lethal.

The bottom line is you want to stay away from comparison, analytics, and trolls in the beginning and instead focus on practicing writing and tracking your progress. You can always switch to writing in public later.

Buy a notebook

This is where you will write daily. If you don’t know what to write about, here are several websites where you can get writing prompts:

Pick a prompt each day, set a timer for thirty minutes, and start writing whatever comes to mind. Then edit it.

Start a WordPress.com blog

Writing by hand makes you creative, deepens thinking, and increases memory and retention which is why I recommend you write in a notebook. However, if you’d rather write digitally then start a blog. Some of the earliest blog posts I wrote were on my WordPress.com blog and they were nowhere close to the quality of my writing today. But they were a starting point. And all good writers have to start somewhere.

Start a WordPress.com blog and publish blog posts weekly or better yet, daily. Write on any topic you can think of. In the beginning, my blog posts were so general that they looked more like academic essays than blog articles. But I got better with time.

I don’t recommend Medium for beginners because the prospect of making money and getting views can distract you from your main goal which is to improve your writing skills 1% at a time. So start with a simple WordPress.com blog that only you (and perhaps your cat) will read.

Make sentences

An article is composed of sentences, and if your sentences suck then your whole piece will suck. So you need to get really good at how to use words in sentences.

Pick a newspaper article. Underline words you find difficult. Now open a notebook, write down each word, and make at least three sentences under it. Try not to make your sentences too simple such as, “The cat was sitting on a mat”, or “I saw a flock of birds and went to sleep”. Instead, try to make longer and meaningful sentences. For example, if your word is ‘gratitude’, a sentence you can make is “The happiest and most successful people practice gratitude in their daily lives.” This is a better sentence than “Gratitude is a good thing.” Challenge yourself to write better sentences each time.