Colloquial versus formal perhaps isn’t the best title. I don’t mean colloquial language versus academic language. No. No matter if you’re writing a blog or an academic research paper, the expression of the ideas should still be conversational. Between different types of writing your audience will change and so the words will change, for example, if you’re explaining a technical concept to a colleague, you should use academic jargon to best explain it, but the language should always be conversational. A better title would be conversation language versus writerly language.

Here’s writerly language from my last scene: Don’t write: Watching Powder out of the corner of my eye, it visited me, how we would be a good fit together. Rather: Watching Powder out of the corner of my eye, it struck me, how we would be a good fit together.

NOT: She’s over there laughing and giggling and socializing, and she’s always out and about at events, out building a network of friends. RATHER: She’s over there laughing and giggling and socializing, and she’s always out and about at events. She’s extroverted, like me.

Here I was describing my character answering questions on a piece of paper: NOT: The content in my manic state was infused with disdain for Dave. RATHER: The answers in my manic state were infused with disdain for Dave.


This will be the easiest mistake for me to fix. All it requires is imagining one person in my audience, and then reading it out loud to them.