These tips for writing for a general audience are derived from various books by writers and personal experience. Write in “plain” English: reduce jargon, clichés, and regional elements to those essential to the text or story. Write dialogue like a person might sound: few people speak “proper” English and even…
Tag: writing
A lexicon is a dictionary of specialized terms. The terms defined in the following lexicon should be known by writers and editors. [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M][N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] [X] [Y] [Z] – A –…
A bit of French fancies up the writing When you want a character to sound pretentious, nothing beats a nice turn of French. Somehow, American writers (and readers) associate all things French with money, pretense, and culture. It’s quite the mix of responses, a “love-hate” relationship with France. If you…
Dead language or not, we love Latin It’s a matter of taste and style, but not long ago American writers attempted to demonstrate their credentials to the world by including Latin and French phrases within works. A dash of Latin was expected of the moderately educated throughout the Western world.…
Descriptive Writing Use the sensory memories of your readers Writing is describing, either in precise detail or in emotional terms. If you want to keep an audience, “paint a picture” with words… then move beyond images. Effective description addresses the full sensory experience. Three Forms Description uses all parts of…
Dialogue Let characters reveal themselves “The dialogue was so believable, I forgot it was spoken by fictional characters.” Most writers dream of such compliments. After all, dialogue is one of the basic ingredients for a good story. Yet realistic dialogue is an illusion; no good writer recreates human vocal interactions.…
Most stories are remembered for their characters, not specific plot points. If you want to write a memorable story, create memorable characters. They do not need to be believable — they need to be dramatic. It Takes Two Often, the best stories are deceptively simple: there are two main characters…
Conflict and Suspense Something is always in the way of success Stories are built upon conflicts and suspense. Seldom is a single conflict enough. No, we writers (and readers) expect one conflict after another. The suspense of “what next?” keeps a reader glued to the page, or eyes locked on…
Carefully chosen words signal that a writer values language. For many readers, the words listed here were last seen on a standardized test, such as the SAT or GRE. However, they also are used in elite publications, such as the New York Times and the Atlantic Monthly. Some modern novelists…
Sentences Make your sentences complete Sentences express complete thoughts. Each sentence contains a subject and a predicate, expressed or implied. As we learn any language our sentences increase in complexity. Some people believe the more complex a sentence, the more impressive. Never confuse wordiness for eloquence. Sentence Types In grammar,…