Write
Better!
A writing tip for every week of the year
by
Ray Wiseman
Published by
WordWise Associates
Write Better!
a writing tip for every week of the year
Published by:
Ray Wiseman's WordWise Associates
Fergus, Ontario N1M 1Z4
SmashWords Edition
Copyright © 2007/2012 by Ray Wiseman
Revised February 2012
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Introduction
These 52 tips grew out of at least 52 different sources and took many years to compile. They began in kernel form in various courses, books, workshops, and discussions. They grew as I used them in practical writing assignments and taught them in workshops. They reached adulthood when I posted them on my website and emailed them to fellow writers. I trust they give you as much help as they have given me.
A word of caution: not every writer or editor will agree on all the points discussed. Before submitting work to publishers, check their requirements as to style and spelling. Often you will find the information you need on their websites. This book, produced for the Canadian market, uses Canadian spelling.
Acknowledgments
No one writes a book alone, but not every writer comes with a built-in proofreader. Anna, my wife of over 50 years, reads everything I write and catches my frequent dyslexic wanderings.
I appreciate the feedback of well over 100 members of The Word Guild. They read the tips posted weekly on a 'list serve' and responded when they saw me going astray. A special thanks to Mary Lou Cornish who added her proofreading and editing skills to the final product.
A writing tip for every week of the year
Chapter 1: Develop your own writing standards
Early in your writing career, develop a set of personal writing standards. The standards will set goals for your editing - if you have no goals, your writing quality and style will vary from assignment to assignment.
Always ask intended publishers for their style sheets, but you will still want basic standards of your own. As an example, the following points come from my own writing standards:
- Weed out redundancies, fat language, and echoes;
- Use verbs in the active voice (never passive);
- Keep the verb to be at a minimum (under 20 per cent);
- Stay both politically and grammatically correct;
- Avoid errors of fact and chronology;
- Use Canadian spelling when writing for Canadian publishers and U.S. spelling when writing for American publishers;
- Maintain a fog index appropriate to your target readership (vary sentence length, limit your use of 35-cent words, and avoid jargon).
Later writing tips will deal with the above points.
Chapter 2: Weed out redundancies, fat language, and echoes
Reread everything, looking for words that add clutter without adding new information or meaning. Redundancies simply repeat things already said, often in the same sentence.
Examples: "It happened last fall toward the end of the year in mid October, October the 15th to be exact." The writer gave the same information four times, but could have eliminated that line completely by starting the next sentence with, "On October 15 of last year, . "
Fat language refers to excess verbiage - of using two to 10 words when one will do.
Examples: "At this present time," rather than "now" or "currently," and "ceased functioning" instead of "quit." I often see this one: "When I was in London I met John," instead of, "I met John in London." Many new writers could shorten their composition by one-third and add more energy and meaning by eliminating redundancies and fat language.
What are echoes? Repeating the same word in the same sentence or paragraph.
See Appendix 1, for a short list of commonly-used fat language.
Chapter 3. Use verbs in the active voice
Don't use passive verbs! Verbs in the passive voice tend to suck energy from your writing. They also hide meaning and require more words than verbs in the active voice.
Active e.g.: John hit the ball.
Passive e.g.: The ball was hit by John.
The active voice has more power; it gets right to the point in fewer words. Today's readers, influenced by 30-second sound bites on radio and TV, want writers to say it simply and quickly.
Clever writers sometimes use verbs in the passive voice to hide information. For example, if newswriters say, "The bank robber was apprehended outside the bank," they have avoided telling you who apprehended the robber - possibly because they don't know. Changing to an active verb forces the writer to reveal the rest of the story, as in, "A passing citizen apprehended the robber outside the bank."
Notice that passive verbs require the use of the verb to be. More about that next time.
Chapter 4: Reduce use of verb to be
You'll recognize the verb to be as: is, was, are, were, be, and been. You can also call it a copula verb or an equating verb. I prefer to think of it as a wimp verb. The term equating verb suits it, because it acts very much like an equal sign. Nothing will do more to bleed energy from your writing than the overuse of this wimp member of the parts-of-speech family.
When you remove or reduce verbs in the passive voice, you eliminate some wimp verbs. Now, to further enhance the energy and action in your writing, reduce their numbers to less than 20 per cent of all verbs. I aim much lower than that. A few writers eliminate them entirely, writing in E-prime, a subset of the English language that eliminates the verb to be entirely.
No other change will do more to add life to your prose than by following the above suggestion. As an exercise, try to write your next assignment in E-prime. If you manage that, then try to converse in E-prime. I'll bet you can't do it!
In Appendix 2 you will find a short humorous article on 'wimp' verbs.
You become a good writer just as you become a good joiner: by planing down your
sentences. - anonymous
Chapter 5: Stay politically and grammatically correct
Today, speakers and writers commonly use sentences like the following: "A merchant should give good service to their customers." Note the singular object (merchant) followed by the plural pronoun (their). People do this in order to remain politically correct by avoiding the use of his (singular, but male). You can avoid this corruption of English by saying: "A merchant should give good service to his or her customers." You can often make it better by changing to a plural object: "Merchants should give good service to their customers."
Historically, English readers understood nouns and pronouns with male gender as inclusive of both sexes. Only when people wished to specifically refer to females would they use the female gender. Cultural change and a slippage in the teaching of language arts have resulted in today's emphasis on political correctness and a loss of preciseness in English.
Winston Churchill wrote on the margin of a document: This the sort of English up with which I will not put.
Chapter 6: Use numbers correctly
When using numbers, publishers and editors generally follow a fixed convention. The following should help you deal with that area.
* Spell out numbers from one to nine; use Arabic figures for numbers 10 and over.
* Use all Arabic figures, including the numbers one through ten, when they have technical significance (e.g., 8 km).
* In some cases spell out numbers for emphasis: "I have over a hundred things to do."
* Spell out numbers at the beginning of sentences and other numbers in that sentence: "Fifteen or sixteen miles is too far to walk."
Some publishers may vary somewhat regarding use of numbers, so always refer to their style sheet before submitting.
Milton Lomask said:
There's no right way of writing.
There's
only your way.
Chapter 7: Avoid overuse of attributes
By attributes or enhancements, I mean bolding, underlining, italics, and CAPITALIZATION. Never use any of these features for emphasis. The strength of your written language should do that. Inappropriate enhancements have the effect of drawing the eye and causing the mind to skip over preceding material.
You can use bolding for headings, but never within text.
Never use underlining in headings or within text. In the time of handwritten or typewriter-created documents, underlining signified the same things now indicated with italics when using proportionally-spaced, computer-generated fonts. So today, use italics for purposes as set forth in the following rules.
* names of artistic works and publications (Dickens wrote Tale of Two Cities);
* foreign words such as praevaricari;
* words that are formally defined (the word prevaricate comes from the Latin word
praevaricari); and
* words referred to as a word (e.g., the word very gets overused by many writers).
In the next tip we will discuss use of uppercase.
Chapter 8: Proper use of uppercase
Modern English writing practices discourage the use of capitals or uppercase letters. In the previous tip, I said writers should never use uppercase to emphasize words or sentences. Also, when writing for newspapers or magazines, don't capitalize every word in the title of the article. However, you may do so with book titles.