How To Improve Your Writing by Treating it Like a Train

Do you know why we read books on trains? Because trains are like books. They take us places.

Welcome aboard! This is your driver for the day. We are about to start a journey to [insert destination here]. It might be a destination for financial improvement or even better. Writing improvement. It will be a ride, literally and figuratively, so sit tight fellow readers.

The problem is, as you are on a journey to your destination, that something is keeping you from building speed and momentum. Passengers are angry at you for wasting their time. Some of them jump out of the train and you are left alone wondering what went wrong.

You take a look at your train and here it is…A wagon is broken. It’s the Creativity wagon. It seems that your lack of creativity left passengers off the train.

By creating an analogy about writing you can identify the problems more easily. I have chosen a train in this scenario.

Let’s head into relating the parts of a train with writing below.

The train

It’s what you are writing about. It’s the final product and it’s what passengers see before they enter it.

Concept

Let’s assume that you are writing fiction. Something that will take the reader on a journey.

You want that train to look like the one in my story above. It’s about to take you on a slow ride around Europe. It’s beautiful and it looks like a 19th-century train. The floor will be made out of wood. It will go through forests and fancy bridges. A treat to the eye.

Let’s assume you are writing about self-improvement, financial tips, etc. Something that the reader needs to read and apply right away. Fast and useful.

You want this train to look like one in the Shinkansen. The Shinkansen is a network of high-speed trains in Japan. No delays. It gets the job done. Fast and effective. The readers don’t ride for the journey. They are riding for the destination.

Title

If your train looks like a wreck on the outside, you can’t expect anyone to ride it. You want to polish the title to draw some passengers.

It is also related to what kind of train you choose to use for the ride. If it’s the fiction train, go with something creative. If it’s the tips train, go for something that shows the exact point (destination) of your train.

The wheels

An important piece of the train. You want to keep your train in motion. The railways are a straight line. You can’t just turn left or right with your journey.

But you also want the wheels to not be rusty.

Maintaining a flow when you write, keeps the passenger engaged. Your story can’t be all over the place. It needs to be linked together.

The fiction train needs to be in motion constantly. Filling passengers with great images to keep in their minds. You want them to be one with the journey.

The informational train needs to be fast. Maintaining a flow keeps the train steady. Bound to make it fast to the destination.

Now, into the important part of your train that will make the passengers come back and ride it again and again.

The Wagons

The Polishing Wagon

You get on the train. Seats are destroyed. The floor makes weird sounds and windows are blurry from the dirt. You get off immediately.

Sorry, but I can’t get into a mediocre wagon. A polished wagon looks like one in The Orient Express. Passengers will enjoy a ride that offers them quality.

They will choose again the ride that made them feel complete. The ride that they know is made for them.

Try to keep your train polished by taking care of the details. Grammar mistakes, formatting, you name it.

The creativity wagon

I’m sure you are all bored reading stories that say the same thing over and over again.

When it comes to the fiction train, you want to see something new every time you go on a journey. You want it to have new elements. Creativity comes with capturing the interest of your passenger.

When it comes to the informational train, you still want to witness new ways of learning something. New ways of getting to your destination. Like this story, I’m writing. I’m presenting the way of writing in a new way. Unique but informational still — I hope.

The relativity wagon

You are about to enter the train that goes around Europe. You await an old 19th-century design inside and are thrilled to start your journey. You get in and…Yikes. It turns out to be filled with high-tech screens and it’s full of technology. Really out of focus.

The inside of your train (the concept) needs to look like the outside. You can’t clickbait a reader. You need to offer them the same quality that they saw outside. Before they enter. Or else you’ll lose their trust. They won’t prefer your services again.

Stay relevant to the topic, folks.

The inspiration wagon

A passenger expects to get thrilled by your train. Both trains offer their kind of service.

A fast train makes the passenger inspired about professionalism and perfection. They subconsciously want to get clinical with their work too.

While the fiction train makes the passenger daydream. They get into the storytelling. They get inspiration from a great moving piece that gets them into euphoria.

Final thoughts

If we create analogies, we further understand sections of what we are trying to analyze.

Writing can be compared to a train. And a quality ride depends on having every piece of your train in the best quality possible.

The outside of a train is what will make the reader get in. The inside is what will make the reader stay and ride your train again.

Now ask yourself. Which part of the train keeps your writing back?

Originally published on Medium.