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Punctuation matters. |
DISCLAIMER: All rules can be broken. Try sticking to them first.
- On a separate piece of paper or in a separate doc file, write down (as simply as you can) your main message; what you're wanting to say. Keep that piece of paper (or doc file) visible, off to the side, while you work.
- Avoid long sentences.
- Try varying your sentence lengths more. Paragraph lengths too.
- When in doubt, leave it out. Fewer words equals less revision.
- Don't hoard a good phrase until the ideal situation comes. Write full-out, all the time. Hold nothing back.
- "Don't tell me the moon is shining. Show me the glint of light on broken glass." (Chekhov)
- An ultra-short sentence at the beginning or end of a paragraph adds impact. Try it.
- Go back to the last thing you wrote and strip all the adjectives and adverbs out. How does it read now?
- Stop using "seamlessly." (Unless of course you're a seamstress.)
- Stop using "effectively." It adds nothing.
- Stop using "burgeoning." Trite. Lazy.
- Never use "whilst," "thusly," "ergo," or any other arch words that make you sound like an insufferable pedant.
- "Substitute 'damn' every time you write 'very'. Your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be." (Mark Twain)
- Stop giving a shit what your English teacher thinks.
- Get on with it.
- If any sentence has you working on it longer than 60 seconds, rewrite it immediately as two or more short sentences. Recombine.
- Ask a friend to change three words in something you just wrote.
- Go back and edit something you wrote a year ago. Notice how much of it stinks.
- In thirty seconds or less, take three words out of whatever you just wrote. If you can't do it, the penalty is to take out six words.
- Learn to recognize, and stop using, overused expressions. A good rule is: If you've heard it before, don't use it. Things like "hell bent," "all hell broke loose," "[adjective] as the dickens," "so quiet you could hear a pin drop," etc. will creep into your writing while you're not looking. Go back and find such atrocities. Rip them out. Set ablaze. Bury.
- Specificity counts. Your friend doesn't drive a car; she drives a tired-looking red Camry. It's not a "sweltering hot day." It's the kind of summer day that makes even pigeons sweat. The gunman didn't have a gun; he had a .45-caliber semi-automatic Glock. See the difference?
- Don't use the same adjective, adverb, or pronoun more than once in the same paragraph (unless of course somebody is holding a .45-caliber Glock to your face). See how long you can hold out before using any word a second time. Think of synonyms, alternative phrasings, pseuodnyms, creative euphemisms, indirect references, colloquialisms, never-before-heard coinages -- anything except the same old word, repeated.
- Elmore Leonard once said: "If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it."
- Leonard also said to "leave out the parts people skip."
- Read good writing.
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