Regardless of the form of writing or its content, delivery means a great deal. For example, the choice of font can set mood and give some information about the writer's mindset before a single word of the content has been grasped. Times New Roman? That might communicate to a traditional book publisher that you're taking submission requirements seriously, which cues the reader that you'd like to have your manuscript taken seriously. But Times New Roman would be too staid for the menu screen of an edgy horror game and not elegant enough for invitations to a black-tie event. Arial (which I use here) is unfussy and easy to read, making it a good choice for easy-to-digest online text content, but it lacks the playfulness one might want to see in a greeting card or the captions of a look-at-the-cute-funny-animals video. The important thing is that the chosen font should complement and further the use to which it is being put, not work at cross-purposes with it. Likewise, color and background schemes furnish cues as to your writing's intended tone and audience, again before there is any conscious comprehension of the actual content.
Another area that can enhance or diminish the effectiveness of your writing is the attention given to grammar, spelling, and punctuation. At the risk of sounding like an old-fashioned schoolmarm, I cannot emphasize enough that sloppiness in these areas hurts you in two ways. First, it communicates a degree of laziness on your part and a corresponding lack of respect for your readers. It is one thing to make the occasional mistake or typo; we all do. It is another when you can't be troubled to clean up your writing and free it of potential distractions---and an egregious misspelling or obvious subject-verb disagreement can be more distracting than you might think. Second, these errors---particularly misplaced punctuation---can make your writing more difficult to understand than it needs to be or even convey a meaning that is not the one you intended. Don't count on an AI resource to bail you out of these sorts of mistakes, either; while AI can be useful for basic proofreading, it tends to be weak regarding words that can have any of a number of meanings depending on context, and AI does not usually handle the fine points of English usage any too well.
Finally, word selection can be critical in conveying shades of meaning, and this is one area where a background in poetry (an area in which I am admittedly no expert) can be of considerable help. Training in poetry helps one to consider not only the exact meaning and imagery one wishes to convey with limited words but also develops an ear for the flow and meter of one's writing even when composing prose. The noted Christian writer C. S. Lewis often read passages from his works aloud as he was writing them in order to assess how his writing might sound to a reader's inner ear, and this is not a bad practice to follow in improving readability.
One caution here: when it comes to word selection, avoid making choices based on whatever the current virtue signaling of the moment is. It will be out of fashion next year, if not next month, and will leave your writing feeling dated, tendentious, or both. Common sense and common courtesy, used together, will get you much further in appealing to as wide an audience as possible without giving unnecessary offense.
Happy writing!
Another area that can enhance or diminish the effectiveness of your writing is the attention given to grammar, spelling, and punctuation. At the risk of sounding like an old-fashioned schoolmarm, I cannot emphasize enough that sloppiness in these areas hurts you in two ways. First, it communicates a degree of laziness on your part and a corresponding lack of respect for your readers. It is one thing to make the occasional mistake or typo; we all do. It is another when you can't be troubled to clean up your writing and free it of potential distractions---and an egregious misspelling or obvious subject-verb disagreement can be more distracting than you might think. Second, these errors---particularly misplaced punctuation---can make your writing more difficult to understand than it needs to be or even convey a meaning that is not the one you intended. Don't count on an AI resource to bail you out of these sorts of mistakes, either; while AI can be useful for basic proofreading, it tends to be weak regarding words that can have any of a number of meanings depending on context, and AI does not usually handle the fine points of English usage any too well.
Finally, word selection can be critical in conveying shades of meaning, and this is one area where a background in poetry (an area in which I am admittedly no expert) can be of considerable help. Training in poetry helps one to consider not only the exact meaning and imagery one wishes to convey with limited words but also develops an ear for the flow and meter of one's writing even when composing prose. The noted Christian writer C. S. Lewis often read passages from his works aloud as he was writing them in order to assess how his writing might sound to a reader's inner ear, and this is not a bad practice to follow in improving readability.
One caution here: when it comes to word selection, avoid making choices based on whatever the current virtue signaling of the moment is. It will be out of fashion next year, if not next month, and will leave your writing feeling dated, tendentious, or both. Common sense and common courtesy, used together, will get you much further in appealing to as wide an audience as possible without giving unnecessary offense.
Happy writing!