Professor Write

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Newbies post snippets of their writing to LIT boards every day. They invite comments about their writing then sulk and sputter when they fail to get the gold stars they expect. More, many ignore suggestions that they get a competent editor and learn the basics of composition.

So, post your helpful hints for newbies. Me first:

TOSS THE AUXILLARY VERBS. Is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been, have, had, has, do, does, did, shall, will, should, would, may, might, must, can, could. Use them as often as fire extinguishers.

 

[ChrisPharmD]

Using proper grammar would be one. I cannot stand it when I see commas where periods are supposed to be.

 

[Jack_Samuel]

dont over use ad verbs.

Do a lookup for anything ending in ly and consider deleting that word.

Dont write stood slowly, walked quickly.....

 

[HornyHenry]

Use capitals to start a sentence

dont over use ad verbs.

Like this one.
Ad verbs? Are those the verbs Ad companies use to sell something?

Do a lookup for anything ending in ly and consider deleting that word.

Dont write stood slowly, walked quickly.....

Use apostrophes in a contraction, as in don't.

I'm not picking on you, but pointing out how easily it is to write something other than what we mean to. And I know posts to message boards can have errors that stories should NOT!

MY personal pet peave is your/you're.
Like: "When you're sure your story is free of errors, then submit it."
If it's a thing, it's "your" thing.
If you can substitute "You Are", use you're.
It's that easy, folks. Happy writing. Quickly, back to my slowly reading stories.
HH

 

[silverwhisper]

i disagree with the notion that there are hard, inflexible rules for every writer, irrespective of style, that admit of no exceptions, at least WRT word choices. indeed, i think this reduces the act of writing to little more than word processing, to be perfectly honest.

however, to keep in the spirit of the thread: errors i tend to see are overuse of any particular word. varying word choices forces one to exercise the vocabulary. one with which i tend to have problems myself is too consistent sentence structures.

ed

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

SILVER WHISPER

Yep. Some people get anal about the rules, and they dont wanna deal with special cases that violate the rules yet seem better for the breach.


TOSS ADJECTIVES UNLESS THEYRE ESSENTIAL FOR CLARIFICATION.