- to help the self-editing process, become "friends" with the thesaurus function of your software. use it to locate new and more descriptive words.
- look for and make changes when you use too many "memorable" words.
- avoid telling something twice even if you do it in two different ways. readers are smart. they remember when you are redundant. (as an example, my last sentence was redundant, because you've already gotten the point.)
- make sure that the details you included in fiction or nonfiction have a reason to be in your manuscript. there's an old story that writing teachers pass around that tells it all. if you're going to write in detail about a revolutionary war firearm that's hanging over the fireplace, then that gun had better be fired during the telling of the story or article. otherwise, don't include it.
- use effective words rather than pompous ones. if you're writing for today's reader, it's important to remember that you'll be best understood if you write at a sixth-grade level. in this way you'll provide information that's supplied quickly and without pretension.
- use qualifiers carefully. they dilute the meaning of writing. these are words like "very," "quite," "almost," "rather," "somewhat," and "many." what does it really mean when we write: the men I met in istanbul were very handsome. were they dazzling? knockouts? or were the guys just a bit better than nice-looking?
- gender pronouns signal an outdated writing style. at one time it was okay to only use the male gender pronoun when discussing people. today the use of ONLY he, his, and him may be offensive. because writing "his or her" rather than "his" gets wordy (an example is this sentence), smart writers restructure the sentences.
- yes, you can work too hard at editing. you can second-guess every word and phrase, sentence, and paragraph. and most likely, you'll never submit your work. do enough editing to polish your work and then let it go.
feb 20 2018 ∞
feb 20 2018 +