I believe writers should write from their own perspectives and experiences, but I also believe learning and writing are synonymous. If I only wrote what I knew, it would be a short book.
Respect your readers
Good writers do not assume they are so good that bad spelling, grammar, punctuation or sentence structure are acceptable. Yet time and again writers argue their own "style" is so personal and distinctive that rules simply don't apply to them. One can have an individual style that bends rules, but few are good at it and fewer successful. If you like your "style" and only want someone who will agree with you and pat you on the back, don't hire an editor; hire a family member. Or better yet, someone who wants to take you out.
Click on the glowing stars for tips I've picked up here and there (and still need to practice myself):
| Pinch it | Talk to yourself | ||
| Killing me softly | Punctuate with love | ||
| Overuse of -ly and -ing | Breaking up is easy to do | ||
| Lean on me | Attribute schmatribute | ||
| Don't do the splits | Analogous analgesics | ||
| Over, under, sideways, down | Writers write | ||
| Die a little or dialogue? | Have fun |
I believe I read this in Stephen King's "On Writing," a resource
I recommend to anyone interested in writing well. Get rid of
those words and phrases you hold so dear to your heart, and be willing to "kill your babies" to tighten up your work.
Make sure those laborious paragraphs that you think add texture aren't unnecessary filler.
Try doing a word search on ones you find yourself repeating. It
may surprise you how many you find. Believe me, editors will notice and be thankful. No matter how "casual" you think your work is
or you want it to be, your story will be smoother and more enjoyable to read.
If you need more than two adjectives to describe something, you need to rewrite the sentence. Unless you want to bore your audience (and editor) to tears, there are more descriptive and interesting ways to convey ideas such as old or small. For example, an old house might be falling down, dilapidated, antiquated, or in disrepair. The same is true for small. After my New York editor pointed this out to me, I did a word search on my memoir manuscript and found more than a hundred uses of the word small. Needless to say, I went back and rewrote many descriptions. Watch for words that don't say anything. (My personal pet peeve is the word "just." Just do a word search just on one of my manuscripts and just check out how many times I just use it, just for emphasis.)
Overuse of these forms not only is difficult to read, it drives editors crazy and causes extreme spikes in the purchases of Tylenol and Visine. There are better ways to word a sentence or describe something. I have
read and been told this over and over again by professionals and editors, many of whom are much less kind in their assessments than I am trying to be. They say it is bad and lazy writing, period.
I don't know if I would be that adamant, because we do use -ly and -ing words in
common conversation. But I agree many times there are better ways to say
something, and the key is overuse.
I cannot explain this better than Erick Emert has in his web site, The Ardeon Writer's Exercise List. I found a plethora of useful information there, including references and links.
If you have a dependent clause, make sure the modifier matches what it is
modifying. If you have no idea what those things are, check out these
examples:
| Incorrect: | Taking the cigarette out of his mouth, it fell to the sidewalk. |
Uh, if the cigarette fell to the sidewalk, who took it out of whose mouth?
Did the mouth fall to the sidewalk, or the cigarette? Do you care?
| Correct: | Taking the cigarette out of his mouth, he dropped it to the sidewalk. |
| Better: | He took the cigarette out of his mouth and dropped it to the sidewalk. |
Split infinitives rarely are acceptable, but everyone uses them on
occasion, including most famous authors I've read. Go figure.
| Incorrect: | "That is simply not working." |
Why is that phrase incorrect? The verb "is working" is "split" by the words "simply" and "not." Hence it is called
a split infinitive. I might use this in speech or written dialogue, but not in prose. This is better:
| Correct: |
"That simply is not working." |
Avoid using split infinitives unless they are necessary for your meaning. They are not correct, plain and simple. However, since they are used in everyday conversation, I think it's wiser to worry more about keeping your dialogue sounding natural than insisting on perfect syntax. Here are a few more examples:
| Incorrect: | She has never gone to the fair. |
| Correct: | She never has gone to the fair. |
| Incorrect: | I don't really want to go. |
| Correct: | I really don't want to go. |
For a better explanation, as well as a plethora of information, references and
links, check out Erick Emert's web site,
The Ardeon Writer's Exercise List.
One trick I learned in my years as a journalist was to read copy backwards, both individual words
and complete sentences. It breaks your concentration and enables you to spot errors you might have missed
while you were caught up in the flow of the story. It may be time-consuming, but this is the best
method for catching spelling and grammatical errors.
Also, never assume you have caught everything. When possible have someone else read your work. I guarantee you will have missed a typo here and there. No matter how many times I read the galleys of newspaper copy before trudging them off to the printer, I always found errors on the printed pages the next day.
It's one thing to make your characters sound like they have accents or use slang; it's quite another to use dialogue that is unbelievable, forced, stoic or phony. Grade B movies are good examples. You can convey character faults or traits and still use good dialogue with correct style. Read your dialogue out loud. Better yet, get someone to read the characters with you. Remember, your readers will be hearing voices in their heads, and what those voices sound like is up to you.
Read everything to yourself out loud, and listen to how it sounds.
Imagine you are reading at an open mic night in a coffee house. There's a little
traffic back and forth to the counter, a comfortable but not intrusive level
of background noise. Everyone is listening to you. They seem interested. Listen
to your voice, your dialogue, the pauses and emphases, the words, the attitudes and emotions behind them.
Put yourself in your readers' and listeners' heads.
I do this all the time, which is why my neighbors are convinced either I have a multiple personality disorder or I am psychotic. Of course, being a writer and artist, both are true.
There is too much to say here regarding punctuation, so I refer you to one of the best web sites
I have found on the
subject: Purdue University. It's hard to argue
with an institution of that stature. The site has tips, a newsletter and more.
New speaker? New paragraph.
| Incorrect: | "I will go with you," Mary said. "Ok," Sue replied. |
| Correct: | "I will go with you," Mary said. "Ok," Sue replied. |
Also, if the same speaker's dialogue continues from one paragraph to the next, the first paragraph needs no quotation marks at the end; the second begins with quotation marks. If a new speaker begins the new paragraph, then
both sets are required.
Once you have established two speakers' identities,
it is not necessary to use repeated variations of "said." I find it
distracting. However, if you have more than two speakers, you might have to keep
the attributions.
Example of unnecessary attributions:
| "I like it," Mary said. "I don't like it," John replied. "But I do like it," Mary repeated. "But I don't like it," John argued. "I still like it anyway," Mary insisted. "I don't care if you do," John remarked. |
This reads more like a real conversation:
| "I like it," Mary said. "I don't like it," John replied. "But I do like it." "But I don't like it." "I still like it anyway." "Well, to hell with you, because I don't!" |
Not long ago I received one of those anonymous emails with FWD: in the subject
line. I usually toss those virus magnets into the trash without even opening
them, but for some reason this one caught my eye, and I'm glad it did:
The Worst Analogies Ever Written
They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.
He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of
those boxes with a pinhole in it.
She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.
The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag filled with vegetable soup.
From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and "Jeopardy" comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30.
Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.
Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.
Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.comaaakk/ch@ung but gets
T:flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake.
He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.
The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like "Second Tall Man."
Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.
John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.
His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
Bar none, this is the best piece of advice I can offer, and the one I am
worst at taking myself. I don't care how many books you have or have not published. I say this from personal experience: if you are not writing, you are not a writer. Write, write and then write some more.
Write a journal, blog, shopping list, whatever. Like anything else, you will get better in time. Don't be afraid to try new
things.
Writing for newspapers is non-fiction (or is supposed to be, anyway), and my memoir obviously is non-fiction. I stuck with non-fiction for decades before I ventured into the frightening (and far more creative) field of fiction. Practice, practice, practice! Then go find yourself an open mic night at your local neighborhood coffee shop or bookstore (or start one) and read your stuff to people you don't know. Your family will tell you your writing is great even if it stinks. Tell your audience you want honest feedback, and they will oblige. Don't be afraid to listen to their advice without feeling like you have to agree with it. No need to be defensive. Just listen. You'll be amazed what you will learn about yourself and your writing by doing this. It may not be easy putting yourself out there and being vulnerable, but do you want to be a writer? Or do you want only to tell people you are a writer? Trust me, I learned this one the hard way.
Have fun, write, and remember: most published authors are proud of their stacks of rejection letters. May each one encourage you to prove them all wrong!
The great American novel has not only already been written; it has already been rejected.
Frank Dane
For more writing tips, I recommend the web site of author, journalist, columnist, and graduate of the esteemed School of Hard Knocks, Mr. Dick Stodghill.