Category Archives: grammar

The Verbosity Cure

by
Charlotte Firbank-King


We all know how to tell a story. But just because anthropologists say Homo sapiens (Latin: wise man—but that’s debatable given the state of our planet) are storytelling apes, doesn’t mean we know how to transfer a story to paper. An articulate person with a mellifluous voice can make a good story sound great. But once we put pen to paper, we must follow the rules of the craft.

First, GRAMMAR.

Creative writers are allowed some license to tweak and reshape the content to convey a meaning, but we need to learn the rules and correct use of grammar before we get the badge allowing us to modify those rules. If you don’t have a solid understanding of grammar, take a class or do some studying on your own. Nothing will kill a story faster than poor grammar or punctuation.

Now, WORDS:

Use the KISS principle—Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Examine each sentence with the diligence of a hobo sifting through a garbage can. If a paragraph uses five words, cut it down to two or three. If you’ve taken half a page to convey an image, cut it down to ten or fifteen words. If absolutely necessary, you can add a few more words later.

Read a section aloud. Do you trip over words? Or did you use rhymes or alliteration that draws the reader’s attention away from the story?

Then ask someone to read it aloud to you. If he stumbles or has to read a section again, there’s probably a problem with how a sentence or paragraph was constructed. Then listen carefully to how he reads it and take note. People often, subconsciously, translate written words from how they are written to how they are said comfortably or smoothly.

Examine every sentence in this manner. If even one sentence doesn’t pass muster, the whole scene could fall flat.

Words should be chosen because they express a meaning, not because they impress readers. Readers don’t care that you spent hours going through a thesaurus looking for the most impressive word to show how literate you are. Individual words should never draw attention to themselves or be more important than the story. Your reader JUST WANTS A STORY that doesn’t require a dictionary to decipher the words used to tell it.

Make every word count, and I mean EVERY word. There is no such thing as, “Oh, that will do.” Edit and edit again, making sure you’ve said what needs to be said using the exact right words to say it.

When conveying an emotion, again, brevity is the key.

His eyebrows dipped, and his eyes flashed as his mouth tightened to a hard line.

We get it. He’s angry.

His mouth tightened or His eyes flashed or He glared will convey the same message and we’ve cut our description from fifteen words to two or three. It may not sound as impressive, but that’s where creativity comes in. Find your own way to say it using as few words as possible.

Conjunctions are invisible words, but even those can exhaust a reader.

The old man walked along the road, and every step seemed to jar his body, and he was also weary to the depths of his disturbed soul as his rheumy eyes shifted back and forth across the verge.
Instead, say:

Shoulders slumped, the old man shuffled along the road, his rheumy eyes searching the verge.

Let your writing speak for itself. If the old man’s shoulders are slumped, then he’s despondent. Shuffling indicates possible pain or weariness. It’s not that difficult to cut this sentence from thirty-eight words to fifteen—and we could even dump “his” if we wanted.

Edit. Then edit again and again. Eliminate as many unnecessary words as possible, especially the easy ones like “that” and “had.”

Test yourself—pick any paragraph from your manuscript, count the words, then see how many you can remove and still convey your meaning. Go one step further and take out all the adjectives and adverbs. Then put one or two back. In other words, slim the paragraph to an anorexic state, then fatten it slightly to perfection.

Verbose means using more words than needed to express something. Don’t let your precious story suffer from verbosity.

Remember, we have professional editors on staff who can help you recover from a severe case of verbosity. It’s what we do.

The First Deadly Sin of Writing

by Sandy Tritt

The Devil of Rejection tempts every writer with the Seven Deadly Sins of Writing. They seem innocent enough—a misplaced comma here, an adverb there—but soon the writer finds himself sinking into the dreaded darkness of the Rejection Pile. Often, he doesn’t even realize he’s been deceived. So let’s reveal the Seven Deadly Sins of Writing for what they are—Death to your manuscript.

DEADLY SIN ONE: POOR GRAMMAR AND SPELLING
And punctuation and word choice. Nothing shouts “AMATEUR!” as loudly as poor punctuation, ghastly grammar, and sporadic spelling. No matter how wonderful a story is, if the writer doesn’t make an effort to proof for these problems, no agent or publisher (or reader) will take you seriously. If you do not have these skills yourself, hire an editor. If you plan to make writing your vocation, take classes at a local college, pick up a good reference manual (we recommend the Little, Brown Essential Handbook for Writers by Jane E. Aaron—$26.75 at Amazon.com), and keep up to date by subscribing to email services (we recommend Daily Writing Tips at http://www.dailywritingtips.com/  and Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips at http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/)–and, of course, our own blog, newsletter, and bevy of tips on our website. Proof your manuscript, have five friends proof your manuscript, and then proof, proof, proof again.

BONUS TIP: Be consistent, especially if you wander from conventional usages. For example, if you choose to capitalize a word that is typically not capped, do so throughout your manuscript.

BONUS TIP: Limit use of exclamation marks, ellipses, colons and semi-colons.

BONUS TIP: Periods and commas go INSIDE the quotation marks.

Next week, we’ll post the Second Deadly Sin of Writing. See you then!

(c) 2003 by Sandy Tritt. All rights reserved.

Old School Writing Rules–Keep or Break?


by Heather Smith

Throughout our career as English students we’re taught that grammar and punctuation rules are unbreakable. However, any foray into the world of journalistic writing, from blogging to writing for print or online media, will show that these rules aren’t as unbreakable as we were once taught. In fact, many of them are downright obsolete at this point. Here are five old-school writing rules that are just begging to be broken:

1. Never begin a sentence with a conjunction
For years upon years we’ve been told not to start sentences with words like “and,” “but,” or any other conjunction. And at one point that rule may have held. But not anymore. Starting a sentence with one of these words can give it a bit of edge and shows that we’re moving from one thought to the next. Besides, it’s consistent with the way we talk in everyday life.

This rule-breaker applies to coordinating conjunctions, which are: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so.

2. Double space at the end of a sentence
We no longer put two spaces at the end of a sentence. Originally, the extra space was used because manuscripts were typed on typewriters and then given to a typesetter to re-type, and the double space helped the typesetter recognize the minuscular dot was indeed a period and not a comma. Now that manuscripts are transmitted electronically and typesetters no longer re-type, there’s no reason to add the extra space. In fact, doing so is greatly frowned upon.

3. Concluding sentences with prepositions
Let’s be honest, ending sentences with prepositions is where it’s at. A good rule to follow: if a sentence makes sense without the preposition then you should ditch it, but if the preposition is what makes the sentence comprehendible, then you should keep it. A sentence that flow—whether it ends with a preposition or not—is much more acceptable than an awkward sentence that obeys the rules.

4. Put three to five sentences in each paragraph
Paragraphs are not always three to five sentences in length. In fact, sometimes they’re only one sentence in length. Open any book, newspaper, or magazine, and you’re likely to see this in action because one-liners can be the most effective paragraphs in an article or story, adding a nice little pause before hitting the reader with something thought-provoking or unexpected.

Don’t you agree?

5. Avoid incomplete sentences
Incomplete sentences are all the rage. Right? They’re often witty and can add interest to your prose. However, you need to understand the rules to break the rules. An incomplete sentence should either complete a thought started in a previous sentence or add something left out. Or add a bit of punch.
Writing has to change with the times to remain effective and coherent. As writing becomes more casual and conversational, some of the older, stricter, and more established grammar and punctuation rules are becoming outdated and unnecessary. Know the old rules, know the new rules, and know when to break the rules.

Author Bio

Heather Smith is an ex-nanny. Passionate about thought leadership and writing, Heather regularly contributes to various career, social media, public relations, branding, and parenting blogs/websites. She also provides value to hire a nanny by giving advice on site design as well as the features and functionality to provide more and more value to nannies and families across the U.S. and Canada. She can be available at H.smith7295 [at] gmail.com.