Maybe we underestimated you folks. Judging from the comments in 13 Things to Avoid When Writing About Games and Want Your Article Publicly Critiqued?, a lot more of you are interested in improving your written work than we realized. (And if you're not, please move on -- this post is not for you.)

Here are a few more tips we editors share among ourselves here at Bitmob and at the former Electronic Gaming Monthly. For future reference, you can follow these types of posts via the Bitmob Writing Tips tag (whose link you can always find on the About page).

Paint a picture

What's better?

1. The game has great controls and beautiful graphics.

2. There are great controls and beautiful graphics throughout.

3. The game controls well and looks beautiful.

Answer: None of the above.

Too many times, writers describe things in vague generalities that don't tell the reader anything. What do "beautiful graphics" mean to someone who hasn't seen the game before?

Buildings loom up from the abyssal gloom, connected by Habitrails of pressure-proof glass that span neon-lit boulevards patrolled by sonorous blue whales and other life aquatic. This is the city of Rapture.

This is from an old EGM Bioshock cover story, written by part-time Bitmob contributor Crispin Boyer. See how he vividly describes the scene to you, so you can picture it without the help of any screenshots or video? That's great writing. Just don't go overboard with the fancy descriptions.

Keep it concise

Last time, I told you about using paragraph breaks and images to help break up long blocks of text. But you'll want to keep your copy as concise as possible, period.

More is not better when it comes to writing. And you know as well as I do how short attention spans are nowadays. Who wants to read 5,000 words when 500 can deliver the same message?

Before you publish, look over your text for redundant or unnecessary spots. Don't be afraid to delete entire passages to tighten up your article.

Make your writing accessible (but know your audience, too)

A lot of authors get too comfortable with their writing, forgetting that other people besides their close gamer friends may be reading.

Imagine if someone who's newer to gaming came to Bitmob and read this:

Miyamoto recently announced that he won't work with Kojima, because he can't handle crazy. Plus, he wants to start work on a new FPS.

Who's Miyamoto and Kojima? What's an FPS? Sure, most gamers know this stuff, but abbreviations and hardcore lingo instantly limit your story's reach.

You don't need to dumb things down to be mainstream-safe -- you are writing for other gamers, after all. But by opening it up, you can make sure you don't alienate new, maybe more casual readers while making your prose more professional at the same time.

Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto recently announced that he won't work with Konami's Hideo Kojima, because he can't handle crazy. Plus, he wants to start working on a new first-person shooter.

That is still too hardcore for CNN -- I still made some assumptions about my audience and didn't spell everything out. But it's infinitely more professional and accessible than the previous example.

Don't write like you're posting on a message board, and save the abbreviations until after you write it out the first time.

Study other writers

Nothing will improve your writing faster than studying others who are better than you. Reading guys like Crispin, our own Demian Linn, and magazines like Entertainment Weekly and Sports Illustrated definitely influenced and improved my own work.

Please note: Many of you took my previous tips to heart and wanted to apply them elsewhere, outside of Bitmob. I'm flattered, but please understand these are my suggestions for writing about games for sites like ours; they're not necessarily universal rules.

For example, my high school taught me to use the hourglass/keyhole template for constructing papers: broad on top, narrowed down to a thesis and body, then broadened out at the bottom again. In college, my professors reamed me out for writing in such a formulaic way. Then at EGM, I learned to break out of those old habits even further.

Your local newspaper may prefer flavorless passive voice. Your high school teacher may want you to write in a very structured manner. GameSpot has totally different style requirements than IGN. I can only show you what we like and have learned, but it'll be up to you to apply these where appropriate.