Two Tips for Writers or Take a Stress Pill and Think Things Over
You're an aspiring writer. You already write, but you want to improve. You just didn't know what I'm about to share LOL ... okay, all qualifiers done now. Here are three tips to improve your writing.
Words, words, everywhere too many so let's spare the air (see I'm feeling humorous today). Wordiness! Wordiness bogs down your work. Wordiness makes your sentences longer. And wordiness makes your editor have to bring out a major chainsaw to hack your work down to the message. Here is an absolutely fantastic exercise. Take a paragraph from one of your works. Look at how many words could be easily deleted. Delete them. Now repeat. Keep going until you have only the "bones" of the sentence left. Now read it. How much easier is that to understand? The biggest offenders tend to be too many adjectives and adverbs.
Dialog or Shakespeare. I see so many writers who write their characters' dialog like it's a Shakespearian play. The formalism makes it sound like an orator's great speech to the masses. I ask you, do your friends talk in formal speech? Probably not! Most likely your friends say things like, "Hey girly, how ya doin'?" or "Dude, what's up?" They don't say, "Hello Martha, how are you doing on this fine Tuesday morning?" Almost sounds a little like Hal from a Space Odyssey. "Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over." I love that ... take a stress pill, Dave (LOL).
Maybe I need a stress pill -- I have a boat load of work to do ... so off I go. You only get two tips when I'm this busy. Ciao to all my blogger fans.
Words, words, everywhere too many so let's spare the air (see I'm feeling humorous today). Wordiness! Wordiness bogs down your work. Wordiness makes your sentences longer. And wordiness makes your editor have to bring out a major chainsaw to hack your work down to the message. Here is an absolutely fantastic exercise. Take a paragraph from one of your works. Look at how many words could be easily deleted. Delete them. Now repeat. Keep going until you have only the "bones" of the sentence left. Now read it. How much easier is that to understand? The biggest offenders tend to be too many adjectives and adverbs.
Dialog or Shakespeare. I see so many writers who write their characters' dialog like it's a Shakespearian play. The formalism makes it sound like an orator's great speech to the masses. I ask you, do your friends talk in formal speech? Probably not! Most likely your friends say things like, "Hey girly, how ya doin'?" or "Dude, what's up?" They don't say, "Hello Martha, how are you doing on this fine Tuesday morning?" Almost sounds a little like Hal from a Space Odyssey. "Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over." I love that ... take a stress pill, Dave (LOL).
Maybe I need a stress pill -- I have a boat load of work to do ... so off I go. You only get two tips when I'm this busy. Ciao to all my blogger fans.
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