Reading is one of the great pleasures of life , what a doubt. A few days ago we echoed our particular ranking with 50 essential books that must be read once in a lifetime, and today we return for more, although from another point of view.

Writing and Psychology, Much in Common

We are constantly communicating with written words; they are part of our life and our cultural heritage. We have all felt at some point the need to write down our thoughts or stories, and writing can be therapeutic.

We may not be literary geniuses like Gabriel García Márquez or William Shakespeare , but the appeal of paper and pen (or keyboard for digital natives) is often presented to us. However, putting down on paper the ideas and thoughts that pass through our minds can be a complicated undertaking, and if not, ask the writers and their dreaded “blank page syndrome”.

Steven Pinker gives us the psychological keys to better writing

One of today’s most renowned psychologists, Steven Pinker, a linguist and cognitive psychologist at Harvard University, has some answers to help us progress in the art of writing.

In his book The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century ( ), published in 2014, Pinker gives us advice and offers a complete guide for those of us who want to improve as writers .

Furthermore, his suggestions and teachings are based on a multitude of scientific research in the field of neuroscience and cognitive psychology: Pinker reviews the findings in our brain’s functioning system and teaches us how to improve our ability to write. The author proposes a series of techniques and strategies aimed at understanding how our mind works so that we can get the most out of it, in this case to be more creative and efficient when writing.

The 6 Psychological Tips for Writers

Below, we have summarized the six points on which Steven Pinker’s teachings are based. If you want to be a writer and improve your stories, this can help you.

1. Put yourself in the reader’s skin (and mind)

The readers don’t know what you know . This seems a very obvious point, but it is not so obvious. If there are people who don’t quite understand what you are trying to convey to them through your texts, the problem is not theirs, but yours. I’m sorry.

The psychological reason for this failure to write is that our brain tends to take a lot of knowledge, data and arguments for granted because you already know them, but do your readers know them as well as you do? Probably not, and this is a frequent problem and one that must be dealt with, with self-criticism and reflection.

Steven Pinker calls this error the “curse of knowledge”, and it is the inability of many writers to understand that others do not know what they know . This leads to unclear texts, where things are taken for granted that upset the reader. In his book, Pinker states that the best method to avoid falling into this error (which by the way is one of the most common according to the publishers) is to send a draft of the text to a person without specific knowledge, and ask him or her if he or she understands everything, or not.

2. Use a direct style, with images and conversations

Cognitive psychology never tires of repeating that more than 30% of our brain has functions associated with vision . Pinker also points out that there is a lot of scientific evidence showing that readers understand and are able to remember more elements of text that have to do with language that evokes images.

In addition, it is convenient to use a conversational style and to conceive the reader as a familiar person: this will make him/her feel part of the story and of the writer’s inner world. However, says Pinker, writing in a style that focuses on impressing the reader has the opposite effect, and the reader may feel overwhelmed and notice a great deal of distance from what the author wants to convey.

In fact, research found that many university students were deliberately using highly complex vocabulary to appear more intelligent . In fact, the simplest texts at the lexical level coincided with authors of higher intelligence.

The trick to finding a good rapport between reader and author, Pinker says, is that as a writer you imagine you’re in a conversation with someone who has a similar cultural level to you, but who has some less knowledge than you in the field you’re talking about. This way you can guide the reader and get him to discover some things that you already know but he doesn’t yet.

3. Putting the reader into context

You need to explain to the reader what the purpose of the text is, why you are telling him/her something, what he/she is going to learn from it . One study reported that readers who know the context from the beginning of the reading are better able to understand the text thoroughly.

Pinker himself emphasizes this point, and points out that readers must know the background to be able to read between the lines and connect all the concepts and arguments in a more intuitive way. This means that the reader places himself in the text based on his previous knowledge, and this helps him to better understand what he is reading. In fact, if he does not find any reference to contextualize, the reader will be unable to properly understand the lines in front of him, it will be a superficial reading.

The advice is clear: as authors we must locate the reader, show him/her what the subject of the text is and what we want to explain to him/her . Although some writers refuse to do this because they do not want to take away the suspense and mystery of the text, the truth is that it seems much more reasonable to conquer the reader from the first moment and make him/her maintain his/her attention and interest throughout the reading than not to trust that, without being able to contextualize, he/she will manage to finish even the first paragraph.

4. Creativity (but common sense) in following the rules

This is not to say that we should not respect the rules of spelling and grammar, but when we are writing we should also leave some room for creativity and improvisation. The dictionary is not a holy book, Pinker argues. What’s more, dictionary publishers are in charge of capturing the trends and uses of certain terms in each new edition, and this can only be achieved by being connected to society, which is the engine that gives meaning to language.

However: it is necessary to know the rules well in order to be able to break them from time to time with a good dose of creativity . Creativity, of course, should be a sign of quality, not an opportunity to show that we wanted to “go overboard”. If you do not know the rules of writing a language in depth, it is better not to try to reinvent the wheel and stick to orthodox canons in your texts. There will be time for innovation later on.

5. Never stop reading

This and other writing guides are interesting and valuable tools, but if you want to improve as a writer you need to read a lot, day by day .

Pinker’s vision is very clear: to be a high quality writer, one must immerse oneself in books and varied texts, trying to learn new languages, literary resources, new terms and set phrases with which to grow as a thinker and, therefore, as a writer.

It’s simple: keep learning and researching, it’s one of the keys to broadening your mental horizons and, consequently, your writing skills.

6. Review the texts thoroughly and patiently

To be an excellent writer, it is not recommended that you try to write magnificent texts at first, against the clock. In fact, that is a skill that few, very few, master. In fact, it is much better that you spend a lot of time and care reviewing and reconstructing your texts .

Steven Pinker believes that review is one of the keys to good writing. “Very few authors are self-serving enough to put down the exact words that best explain what they want to convey. Less is more. This is achieved with the ability to know how to revise and refine each paragraph, each sentence. When we write, we need to review and reformulate to make the message clear and reach the reader properly,” argues Pinker.

One last thought

The ability to communicate through texts and books is something that can be learned. It is only necessary to practice and put our talent into action.

These strategies and techniques to improve writing provided by Steven Pinker can help us empathize with our readers and get our message across in the best possible way. Let’s write!