Be Deliberate

It really bothers me when people do something "to be different". That is no reason to do anything. For one thing, you probably aren't being different; you're probably using a style from somebody you haven't heard of. More importantly, you're wasting precious resources.

There are so many aspects of writing. Specific meaning, rise and fall of tones, use of soft and hard sounds, lengths of sentences, rhythm of sentences, all of these and countless more each affect how the audience will receive your writing.

When you write, you should be deliberate with your words. Make each one do as much as it can. If you choose empty words, you will either use several times as many words as you need to express yourself or you will not be as clear as you could.

This principle is crucial in prose writing because it is completely unregulated. When you look into other forms of writing, they are self-evident. Poetry is about capturing the essence of a scene with as few words as possible. The quintessential form of poetry is the haiku, which comes with self-imposed limitation. Haiku is so iconic because from the great limitation comes great creation. People are forced to be masterfully precise, forced to be deliberate with every decision, and the work shines because of it.

Treat all of your writing like haiku. Force yourself to be masterfully precise. If you do, then people will recognize your work as masterful. If you fail, you're still probably doing pretty darn good.