As
we indicated earlier, there
are
hundreds of
good
rules
for
writing:
most
are
right most of
the
time. As you edit, if you find, for example, that you’ve said something in passive voice, ask yourself
if you
have a good reason.
If you do,
keep
it. Here are
just
a few:
Give the reader the Who-What-Where-When-Why-How.
Except for the occasional effect, such as opening a scene saying He sat down in a huff, and
not saying who he is, you shouldn’t leave your reader in the dark about the five W’s of a scene.
This is not
to say you have
to address them
all in the first sentence, paragraph, or
page.
Check your facts, and don’t introduce errors trying to make something clearer.
You should check your facts: the internet makes life easier that
way. Sometimes, however, when editing for clarity, it is easy to introduce errors.
As you work through your manuscript ask if you’ve been clear and concise.
This is hard, because you know what you are saying. Watch for
miscues,
misplaced
modifiers, and
redundancies.
Don’t make changes just to make changes.
Sometimes what you’ve
written
is good: don’t
touch it.
Be wary of jargon.
There are two types of jargon, the popular word of the day, and the technical terms common to
most professions.
Be wary
of both, but
know your
audience
and
the
context. Always
consider and reconsider popular words. They are the ones that you cannot image talking without. Talking is one thing, writing another. Try to find the correct word. If you are writing a story
in
which one of the characters happens to be a stamp collector, you might include some technical terminology.
Suppose,
however,
that you are writing a murder mystery, involving
the
theft of a rare block plate and the murder of the philatelist and collector who owned it: you
should consider more jargon, although not quite as much as if you were writing an article for Philately International.
Prefer the active voice, but do not be afraid to use the passive voice, sometimes it is just what you need.
The active voice emphasizes the actor: The car hit Bob. The passive voice emphasizes
the object: Bob was hit by the car. There are extra words in the passive voice: the verb is compound
and by is used to introduce the actor. But if you care more about Bob than the car,
or
the actor, that
is the driver,
is unimportant or
unknown,
or you want to
hide his identity, the passive
voice
could
be just right.
Watch for unnecessary shifts
of tense, voice, or point of view.
Tense: When
she heard her grades, she
screams with joy.
Voice: If
you want to write effectively, the passive voice
must be avoided.
Point of View: Some authorities insist on maintaining a consistent, single point of view throughout a book; e.g. from the protagonists viewpoint. Assuming you are not writing in the first person, there is nothing wrong with multiple points of view provided you don’t jump
around too much and you are fully aware of making each shift. This one is too good not to quote,
“When you look through the microscope, the cell divides to form two organisms” WWP
In general the guideline should be whether the shift works and if it is necessary for the reader’s understanding. In other words, if correcting the shift creates a bigger problem, don’t correct.
Avoid double comparatives;
Although there might be an exception: do not use double comparatives: more better, more slower, more quicker. . . .
Use strong words.
Prefer the concrete over the general:
Concrete –Where would Bond be without his Walther PPK or Beretta 418? versus the:
General –Where would Bond be without his gun?
Avoid buried verbs: Sometimes converting a verb to a noun is effective (presenting the play is better than
the
presentation of the play); but
sometimes it
buries
a good, active
verb: John arbitrated
the case; versus, the
arbitration of the case was handled by John.
Prefer the familiar: sometimes the foreign, fancy, or formal word is the best word, but more often it is the familiar that works best. Remember your audience: some people don’t like dictionaries.
Consider rewriting every long sentence; consider rewriting every short sentence: vary sentence length and construction.
Avoid both repeating the same word over and over and the elegant variation. Eliminate “invisible” redundancies and unnecessary words:
Most of
us use them without
thinking.
Perhaps totally
unique, more
unique, or
most
unique reinforce and emphasize our ideas; perhaps they are popular formations; but they do not
belong in the author’s words (character’s may use them). There are probably many hundreds of
these.
Here
are
a few:
|
in
the
event that
|
=
|
if
|
assembled together
|
=
|
assembled
|
|
along the lines
of
|
=
|
like
|
repeat again
|
=
|
repeat
|
|
in order to
|
=
|
to
|
totally unique
|
=
|
unique
|
|
absolutely
complete
|
=
|
complete
|
prior
to
|
=
|
before
|
|
advanced
planning
|
=
|
planning
|
in a satisfactory
manner
|
=
|
satisfactory
|
|
future forecast
|
=
|
forecast
|
regress back
|
=
|
regress
|
|
merge together
|
=
|
merge
|
free gift
|
=
|
gift
|
Locate and correct miscues:
Miscues are unintentional
mistakes that
mislead the reader.
Usually
the
reader
can
figure out the meaning without
much
problem, if any.
If not a stumble, the reader at
least
stubs his
toe
on them:
Contractions: Contractions for would and had—I’d, we’d, she’d—are identical. Whether the
meaning is would or had is often not clear until further on in the sentence. If the meaning isn’t
clear right
away, consider removing
the
contraction.
Misleading
meanings:
For
example,
biweekly correctly
means either
twice a week or
once
every other
week; bimonthly means twice a month or
once
every other
month.
Usually
the
meaning can be figured
out
by the context. But once you know this, the words should be
off
limits.
Pronoun:
1) Confusion: She told her student she had been wrong. Who was wrong? The only solution is to rewrite the sentence.
2) Distance: sometimes the antecedent is so distant that the reader had
little idea
who
is doing what.
Modifiers:
Keep your modifiers close to what they modify. Quoted from MAU, “‘Both died in an apartment Dr. Kevorkian was leasing after
inhaling carbon monoxide.”’
You should understand this easily, but it says that after Dr. Kevorkian inhaled carbon monoxide he leased the apartment.
Yes or no after negatives:
“Don’t you want seconds?”
the
hostess asked
my Japanese friend.
“Yes,” he replied, thinking he meant yes, I don’t want seconds. She served him seconds and
thirds. This is so common a formation it doesn’t give us much problem; but “You haven’t
more
copies of this book, have
you?” can still catch
us.
Answer completely.
Look for examples, analogies, and illustrations.
Instead
of just summarizing, look for examples,
analogies,
or illustrations. Show your reader the nuances of
your
subject.
Keep related words together.
Consider keeping near each other: modifiers
and what they modify; the relative pronoun and its antecedent; the subject of a sentence and the principal verb.
Bates shows
the problem of only:
“Only John mourned the death of his brother. . . .
John only mourned the death
of
his brother. . . .
John mourned only the death of his brother. . . .
John mourned the death
of his only
brother.
. . .
John mourned
the
death of
his brother only”
WWP.
Remove the little qualifiers:
We often add little qualifiers—kind of, quite, sort of, a bit, very—to our speech.
In writing, this has the effect of diluting or weakening our intent.
“Don’t say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed, and somewhat annoyed. Be tired. Be confused. Be
depressed. Be annoyed.
. . . Good writing
is lean and
confident” OWW.
Prefer the familiar word to the unfamiliar. Prefer the simpler word to the difficult or ornate. Prefer the right word to the almost right.
Prefer the positive form of a statement over the negative.
For example:
I like pie is better
than I don’t like any desert except pie.
Do not exaggerate.
It is easy to find yourself writing that your antagonist is a villain of the first order, that the
protagonists
is the nicest
guy in the company,
that the expert hired by
your
attorney is
the
foremost expert in his field, that the murderer was the worst man in the world . . . . It is lazy
writing. Of course your expert could be the world’s authority, but everyone can’t be the best,
the
most,
or the worst.
Do not mix metaphors.
Two examples: “The following classic example comes from a speech by Boyle Roche in the
Irish Parliament . . . ‘Mr. Speaker, I smell a rat. I see him floating in the air. But mark me, sir, I
will
nip him in the bud.” MAU.
“‘The Avon and Dorset river board should not act like King
Canute, bury its
head
in the
sands, and ride
rough-shot
over
the
interests
of those
who
live by the land
and
enjoy their fishing’” MEU.
Find your story’s logical progression.
The logic of your story flows from the beginning to the middle and the end: a, to b to c.
This does not mean that you cannot have flashbacks, move a scene from the chronological
middle to the beginning, or
even
open
with the ending.
It means
that you should
only use such deviations when they serve the story you are telling: Does it make the story more exciting? Does it
draw the reader
in?
Sources
EOS: Elements of Style. William Strunk,
Jr,
and
E.B. White. New York:
Macmillan, 1959.
MAU: A Dictionary of Modern American Usage. Bryan A. Garner. New York:
Oxford University
Press, 1998.
MEU: A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. H.W. Fowler.
2nd ed., rev. New York:
Oxford University
Press, 1965.
WWP: Writing with Precision. Jefferson D.
Bates. Washington,
D.C., Acropolis Books,
1979.
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