HOW TO WRITE: THE PRACTICAL STUFF

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Expand your brain.

Writing is basically managing the brain, the brain you've got so far.  The more you can know it, support it, and fit your kind of writing to it, the better.  If you think mostly with the prefrontal cortex, a place where morality and executive analysis are kept, use that.  If you think with your limbic system, emotional and full of sense memory, use that.

Once you have chosen a subject, don't write.  Sit and center.  Maybe play music.  Maybe keep silence.  The brain operates by making connections with neurons sending tiny filaments to find and plug into other neurons.  Let this happen by blocking distractions.  It needs time.

After ten minutes or more, use mapping, webbing, free association, doodling, or lists of sensations (3 each for taste, smell, sound, sight, temperature, texture, etc.)  

Then write.  As much and as long as you can.  Take a break and let it sit for as long as you can.

When you come back, go through the writing and knock out every single word you can without changing the meaning.

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The following will only work for standard English because things like grammar depend upon word order and particles, which may not be present or needed in nonstandard English.  Stuff like number, size, and gender don't matter to everyone.

Propriety in grammar and so on has changed radically in the past decade.  There are still relict distinctions that should be known and considered carefully because they are markers of high education to those who can recognize them and then approve or disapprove of the writer.

Consider every phrase: preposition, appositive, subordinate clause, etc. and ask yourself if it could be punchier if shortened.  Like make the prepositional phrases into adjectives.  Integrate adverbs by using descriptive verbs.  Or maybe the phrase should be longer -- stretched out, elaborate, with more phrases or clauses appended.  Suit the form to the content.

Consider the order of the concepts.  Give readers thoughts as they will need them to understand.

Read the writing out loud while recording it.  Listen and ponder.

Look up the real meaning of every Latinate word, esp. if it's long and composite.  Not just Latin but also Euro languages, which are often Latin-based.

If you make up words, you may need hyphens.

Consider using foreign words AS foreign words.  They are a continuum from completely absorbed into English ("shit") to still unfamiliar.  (No examples.  Too unfamiliar.)

Eliminate all passive sentence constructs unless the passivity is part of the overall scheme of the writing or if it is a way of ducking a source of an action.

Eliminate all beginnings that begin "there is". 

Knock out as many "that's" as you can without changing meaning.  If necessary, rethink and rewrite the sentence.

If writing for an older and generally retro person, use as few neologisms and as little slang as possible.  For a Millennial, an ESL person, or a techie, suit yourself to them.  If you can. 

Correlation, references, and parallel construction are all ways of preserving meaning by connecting concepts.  "He" should stay male.  "Ing" words should not change to being "ed" words. and so on.  Writing a sequence that does not pay attention so that participles are in sequence with prepositional phrases or the like means that the writer is not paying attention or not clear-headed.

Metaphor is the most powerful instrument, even more than grammar.  It might be a description.  "Her face was like a birthday cake with candles lighted." Which is better than "lighted birthday cake" if you want the reader to imagine the cake first, then candles.  Or something far more elaborate to match a fantastic scene.  "The woman dressed in flame came out of the burning building onto the highest of the fire department's ladders and unfurled dark wings studded with diamonds before flying away in an explosion of light."

But metaphor might be much deeper, the control of the structure of the entire piece but never expressed.  Maybe recorded on a sticky note to the side.  Is this really a court trial, a circus, the fun house, a rodeo for the exorcism of a demon horse?  Or a demon cowboy?  Or a demon "buckle bunny?"

There's a lot more, but I'm writing something else and want to go back to it, so you're on your own -- a little short of words on this post.