How to Make Your Writing Pop

First, learn and then forget the zombie rules.  We know that avoiding the passive voice and excess verbiage is fine up to a point, but you can't make your writing pop just by following zombie rules. Those are more like Shibboleths.

Writing that pops has a few qualities:

It is precise and specific.  It says exactly what it wants to say and speaks with a granular level of specificity. It goes for the significant points and doesn't have as much of the parts people tend to skip over. It uses the right words.  

It is rhythmically alive; it flows. The writer has thought about the shape of paragraphs and sentences. Writing has to have energy.

The point is not to get the answers right, or to cover the bases.