How many times have writers heard, “Using strong verbs and nouns makes good writing”? Yet, how many times have we heard, “Overuse of prepositions makes bad writing”? It does. Prepositions are essential to proper English usage. They show a relationship between words within a sentence. However, flinging them onto the page uncensored leads to sloppy, […]

Whether in fiction or nonfiction, conversational style contributes to good writing. However, it tends to be wordy. Once we’ve written a piece, our next job is to cut it. Separate the wheat from the chaff and let the wind carry the chaff away. The first step is to recognize the chaff. Certain words fly the […]

Many Americans (including me!) have bad eating habits. Too much junk food. Too much food, period! We’re overstuffed. We suffer health problems and image problems. We must cut the fat. When our writing becomes overstuffed, our readers suffer through pages of boring narrative. And we suffer, too–our writing success is endangered. We must cut the […]

We’re to write fast, edit slowly, but if we’re aware of habits as we write, the editing process will be much less painful. Since my own drafts are full of great “bad habit” examples, I’ll use excerpts from them throughout this series. The next bad writing habit we’ll discuss is RUE–Resist the Urge to Explain. […]

Some fiction writers imagine great stories just waiting to transform into a novel. Some nonfiction writers have researched amazing facts they wish to compile into a book or magazine article. The problem is, both types of writers get bogged down with the basics of writing, or what my editor friend Kathy Ide calls the PUGS–punctuation, […]