More Writing Tips (Part 3 of 5)

Avoid faulty parallelism.

This means that when you put words in a series, they need to match (or parallel) the grammatical structure.

Marlene ate chili, chicken, peas, and sliced her bananas. The last item, sliced her bananas, isn't parallel.

You can correct it this way: Marlene ate chili, chicken, peas, and bananas. Or you could write, Marlene ate chili, chicken, and peas. After that, she sliced her bananas.

When I write a series of words, 

each word will match the grammatical structure.

More Writing Tips (Part 2 of 5)

Avoid the run-on, run-together, or fused sentence.

Although similar to the comma splice, these independent statements have no commas and thus they run together without any punctuation to indicate where the first ends and the second begins. Here's an example: The great white shark eats humans research shows that most sharks spit them back out. What is humans research? I'd insert a period or a semicolon after humans. Or add a conjunction: . . . eats humans, although research.

* Edgar Allan Poe is one of America's foremost poets he died in poverty. If you insert a comma and a conjunction, you've made the statement easily understood.

Careful writers avoid run-on or fused sentences 

by adding commas or conjunctions.

More Writing Tips (Part 1 of 5)

Get rid of the comma splice.

The term, comma splice, means that writers join (splice together) two complete thoughts that have no connection. Here is an example: Most of my classmates drink coffee, and caffeine keeps me awake. We know coffee contains caffeine, but there is no connection between the two statements.

* Windows are open to the warm morning air, the air conditioning units are off. To make good sense, you connect them to each other with more than a comma: Windows are open to the warm morning air, because the air conditioning units are off. Because joins the two thoughts.

* Most unindustrialized nations have high birth rates, most of their citizens are young. This would work if we wrote, Most unindustrialized nations have high birth rates and therefore, most of their citizens are young.

Careful writers avoid joining two unconnected thoughts 

with only a comma.

Common Problems (Part 50 of 50)

Watch those fragments. A sentence must have a subject or a verb and it must be able to stand alone as a complete thought. After I waited for Tom contains a subject and a verb, but it's not a complete thought.

Careful use of fragments can add meaning and power to your writing. For example: I was absolutely happy. For now. Those last two words are a fragment but they raise a question or produce doubt. The fragment is also closely connected to the full sentence it follows.

In the following paragraph, notice the fragments, and yet they make sense:

They missed the people from whom they had fled. They missed the sight, the sound, even the smell of Africans. The sing-song chanting of workers in the fields. The tangy smell of wood smoke in the early evening.

The fragment also works well (when used cautiously) in action scenes.

In what follows Jason is running his first marathon: He pushed past the first group of runners and was only a dozen yards behind the two leaders. He pushed forward. Too fast. He had to control his pace to win the race. Easy. Easy now. Sneak up behind them.

I used fragments. The first is Too fast. I could have written: It was too fast or he moved too quickly. But the purpose is to make readers feel as if they're running with Jason and are inside him. The same for Easy. Easy now. Sneak up behind them.

It's all right to use sentence fragments occasionally 

—as long as the meaning is clear.

Common Problems (Part 49 of 50)

Watch those adverb endings. The –ly form of adverbs has changed. In English grammar, we classify words by their function and not by their spelling. Smile can be a noun or a verb as it is in this odd sentence: She smiled at his smile.

Until recent years we wrote firstly but modern, informal usage settles for first. First, he finished his task and then he ate. (Tells us when he ate.) Scholarly writing still holds to the adding of the –ly. For the rest of us, Importantly has become important. Most important, he did his job well. If we don't delete the ending, the writing sounds stilted or pompous.

* First, I want your attention, and second, I want you to smile when I pause. In the past we would have written firstly and secondly.

* Most important, listen to your mother.

Modern usage tends to strip away the –ly on adverbs.

Common Problems (Part 48 of 50)

Use the past tense and past perfect properly. There are two uses for the past perfect tense. They require has or have before the verb, which is the easy way to recognize their use. We often use clue words such as after.

Past perfect shows action completed in the past. What we call the simple past tense means anything that took place before the present. Writers don't seem to have trouble with that. Past perfect means action finished in the past.

For example: I had wanted to study at Yale. That sentence means that in the past I wanted to study at Yale but it's no longer my desire.

Past perfect also shows which previous action took place first.

* After I had eaten breakfast, I went for a walk.

* I visited Africa because I had once lived there.

* I had wanted peace, but I settled for soft noises.

The past perfect tense means action 

completed before the immediate past.

Common Problems (Part 47 of 50)

Don't "give us a shrug" or "shoot a glance." Those are not only odd statements but also weak writing. I've seen these words with increasing frequency in novels. One writer uses a quirky phrase, another author copies it, and still others pick up the expression. Good writing carries a natural tone and if you make readers blink with an odd phrase, instead of admiring your creativity, they're apt to stop reading.

* She gave a gasp of pain is weaker than She gasped in pain.

* Totsie gave a sharp bark before she whined.

* Jean gave a small, impatient jerk of her head. (Just let her jerk her head.) 

Don't use weak verbs to replace stronger ones. 

Don't use odd statements that cause readers to blink.

Common Problems (Part 46 of 50)

Myself is a reflexive pronoun. It reflects or repeats a previous pronoun in a different form. That is, you must identify I before you use myself.

* It was a time of surrender, seeking help from a source far greater than myself. (…far greater than I. It's not me or myself because the phrase means "far greater than I am great.")

* She gave the money to Maggie and myself. (Incorrect. You have not identified myself.)

* I like you better than I like myself. (This is correct because myself “reflects” or refers to the already-mentioned "I.")

Don't use a reflexive such as myself, 

unless you have identified the person to whom myself refers.

Common Problems (Part 45 of 50)

Avoid saying I believe, I think, I know, and similar expressions. To use them weakens the statement. People read your words in print and that makes you an authority. If you say it without equivocating, your words carry authority.

* I believe that telling the truth is the honorable way to live. (Telling the truth. is the honorable way to live. Can you hear the difference?)

* I think my methods bring results.

* I know that there will be a day of reckoning for all people.

* It seems to me that our neighborhood is deteriorating. 

When I avoid expressions such as I think, 

my writing is stronger and carries more impact.

Common Problems (Part 44 of 50)

Watch the use of would. The helping verb refers to usual action. Once you make it clear that you refer to something that's frequent, you don't need to use it again. Or if you've already established it as habitual, you don't need it. Simply put the rest of the material into the simple past tense.

* Josiah regularly did the butt-scoot boogie as we liked to call it. He would push himself into a sitting position. (Regularly shows it's his usual form.) Better: He pushed himself. . .

* Even the mocking bird in our neighborhood knew the sounds of our house. We would hear beeps and alarms. (The writer had already established that as a regular occurrence.) We heard. . .

* I’d get up in the morning like every other mother and take my son to school and to the tennis courts at the nearby park. After three sets of doubles, I’d hop in the car and I'd head to Macys. (I'd means I would and the writer established customary behavior with the first word. In the final clause, it should read, I hopped. . .I headed.) 

Would as a helping verb establishes usual behavior. 

You need to use it only once.

Common Problems (Part 43 of 50)

Use the semicolon properly. This punctuation mark is all-but-gone from modern writing. I like it because the semicolon and I have written together since eighth grade. Today we tend to write shorter sentences and don't need the semicolon.

But if you insert the semicolon use it properly. Some call it the supercomma. It has two uses.

1. After a colon and a list. Example: He owns stock in several places: Paris, Texas; London, Ontario; and Berlin, Wisconsin. Without semicolons readers won't know if you mean three locations or six.

2. The semicolon functions like a soft period to join two closely connected sentences. Thus both parts must have a subject and a predicate. Example: I like your floppy, silly hat; I don't like your high-heeled shoes.

I often write pithy sayings (aphorisms) and use the semicolon because the two statements are closely bound to each other: I am passionately involved in the process; I am emotionally detached from the result. A period or a comma would work and most readers aren't aware of the difference. But I am aware; therefore, I use the semicolon. (Did you notice the punctuation in the previous sentence?)

* Many times he’d imagined this day; thought about how it would go. (There is no subject in the second clause. Use a conjunction and a comma.)

* Guiding at the helm as we crossed a stretch of the Atlantic Ocean, watching flying fish buzz above the waves, snorkeling with giant sea turtles; and an endless variety of fish and coral. (Why a semicolon? The sentence contains 34 words; for modern readers, that's too many. I'd suggest making two sentences and no semicolon.)

* Give us the freedom to choose; life with God or life without God. (Again, it's incorrect. I'd use a colon after choose.) 

Unless you're positive you know how to use the semicolon, 

don't.

Common Problems (Part 42 of 50)

When you write numbers, and means a decimal point. I earned three hundred and seventy-five dollars. Properly that means $300.75. Or I could write, I earned three hundred seventy-five dollars. I'd leave out the decimal or make it a general number such as "I earned about 400 dollars."

Not quite the same, but when some people refer to time past, they'll say, "In the year 19 and 47" or "the year 18 and 65." That may be only a Southern expression, but I hear and read it occasionally.

When I use numbers, 

and means a decimal point.

Common Problems (Part 41 of 50)

Use more than when you cite acttal numbers. This may be one principle we'll have to surrender. I choose to make my writing as clear and as grammatically accurate as possible, so I'll hold to the old rule. I frequently see such constructions in print:

* for over a year

* had been over six months of questions

* a colleague of mine for over thirteen years

* my friend of over 30 years.

I would write more than in each of the illustrations above. Use over when you don't write a specific number:

Over a century ago. . .

Over a period of years. . .

Use more than with an exact number; 

use over when the number is inexact.

Common Problems (Part 40 of 50)

Avoid starting sentences with it was or there was. Because they're weak words you can usually delete them for better flow and fewer words.

* It was Saturday at the animal shelter, and it was alive with the. . . (Saturday at the shelter. . . or People scurried/bustled/hurried Saturday morning at the. . .)

* It was a spring weekend and we drove to Maine. (On a spring weekend. . . or We drove to Maine on a spring weekend.)

* It was a time when I had no other place to turn. (Better: I had no place to turn.)

* There’s a van coming right at us. (A van is coming right at us.) 

When I teach about not starting with those words, a few students remind me that Dickens began A Tale of Two Cities with that construction. He did it for effect—and it sounds lyrical. His novel starts with these words:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. . .

If I avoid starting sentences with constructions 

such as it was or there was, 

my writing is usually stronger.

Common Problems (Part 39 of 50)

When you use only, make sure it modifies the correct word/phrase.

* I only want to eat breakfast. (That person is easy to satisfy and has no other desires in life except breakfast.)

* He only wanted to see Mable. (The writer probably meant he wanted to see only Mable—and not all the others.)

* I only wanted to mail a letter. (I want to mail only a letter.)

Readers will understand what you mean, but why should they have to figure it out? If you want to write with excellence, you'll use only correctly.

Only is a restrictive word; 

Make sure you use it properly.

Common Problems (Part 38 of 50)

Avoid the disembodied eye. Use words such as gaze or stare.

* His clear amber eyes soberly sought out and met her blue ones. [Their eyes didn't move out of their bodies.]

* His eyes traveled down to his shoes.

* His eyes returned to the altar while his ears listened to the words.

Readers will understand your meaning, but if you take the words literally, the sentences are ludicrous. 

Rather than taking the eyes from the body, 

use words that describe the eyes' action 

such as stare, gaze, watch, look, or gawk.

Common Problems (Part 37 of 50)

In books, we put a comma before the final conjunction in a series such as Mary, Thomas, and Philip; in magazine articles, we usually don't.

Most magazines and newspapers use the Associated Press Style Guide (AP), which is usually updated annually.

Book publishers use the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS or CMOS), which has been around since 1906 and is updated irregularly. The 15th edition came out in 2003 and the 16th in 2010. Notice the difference in the two styles:

* He bought spaghetti sauce, noodles and a package of brownie mix. (The CMOS would insert a comma after noodles.)

* He peeled back the lid, snared a wing and offered it to Cynthia.

* Both of them are angry, hurt and eager to fight.

Think clarity first. Sometimes even the AP inserts a comma before the final conjunction. The classic example goes like this: He willed his estate to Tom, Mary and Jim. Without the comma following the name Mary, it means Tom receives half and Mary and Jim share the other 50 percent. If the author intends it to be divided into thirds, it would read: . . . Tom, Mary, and Jim.

Two things determine whether to use the serial comma. 

First, write for clarity. 

Second, consistently follow the AP or CMOS style guides.

Common Problems (Part 36 of 50)

Stay in one POV for an entire scene. Although I discussed POV previously, I continue to see what we call head hopping within a scene.

* . . . There were times when Gregory doubted what the agency told him. [Gregory's POV]. Same scene, two paragraphs later: The ship bellowed out a demand to board. To Lana and Gregory, its urgent appeal went unheard. [The writer slipped into third person universal POV].

* This is in Stan's POV: Stan watched Nick approach, trying to whisper. (How does Stan know Nick tries?)

* Ellen watched Drew move aimlessly through the crowd, searching for a kind face. (How does she know Drew is aimless? How does she know what he searches for? Even if he had told her, that may not have been true.) 

Decide on one point of view 

and stay with it for the entire scene.

Common Problems (Part 35 of 50)

Don't insult readers. Don't state the obvious. I see this occur in two different ways. First, some writers are so eager to be understood, they'll give the same information in different words as in this example: I ran with haste; I ignored everyone on the street as I hurried. I refused to stop when anyone waved.

Stop! I understood the first time. This person is running fast. Do I need to read it three times to figure it out?

Second, they write a good, show-not-tell sentence and follow it up with the same information in a tell-but-not-show sentence.

* The urgency and agony in his voice was unmistakable; it was the saddest sound I'd heard from him. Something was terribly wrong. (The second sentence implies I'm too stupid to know the meaning of words like urgency, agony, and sad.)

* I couldn’t speak; I could not tell her what was happening. (If I couldn't speak, I assume that means I couldn't use words to explain.)

* This was a stunning, tremendous, blazing bright meteor! It dwarfed all other stars in the sky, making the pinpricks of their light barely visible. It immediately commanded our attention, holding Renee and me spellbound. (The author gave the meteor more attention than I would have in this badly written paragraph.)

* Shouldn’t we prepare ourselves in advance to face them? (Or do we prepare ourselves afterward?)

* The impact totaled the car and left Amy’s body broken, bruised, and with a collapsed lung. She was in grave physical danger. (The second sentence insults me by saying I don't understand the meaning of the injuries.) 

Readers are as smart as I am; 

therefore, I refuse to write insulting, redundant statements.

Common Problems (Part 34 of 50)

Put the most important part of the sentence at the end. Think of the end of a sentence (and just as true as the last sentence in a paragraph) as your final, most emphatic statement. This is one of the principles I didn't grasp until about 15 years after I began to publish.

As the author, you decide which words you want to emphasize.

I wrote these words in a first draft of my book, Unleash the Writer Within: I am a passionate person; I can be a passionate writer if I choose. When I read the sentence again, I decided that the strongest part of the sentence should be I can be a passionate writer. It's the being and not the choosing that I wanted to emphasize, so I revised it to read: I am a passionate person; if I choose, I can be a passionate writer.[1]

Here are two examples from my students.

* Richard rattled the bushes with a stick he broke loose from a tree on the way in. (Better: With a stick he had broken loose from a tree. . . he rattled the bushes. Bushes is stronger than the preposition in.)

* He heaved a sigh of relief, although drenched in fearful sweat. (Reverse the clauses.)

Put the emphatic part of the sentence at the end. 

Those words make the most impact on readers. 

________________________________

[1] Unleash the Writer Within by Cecil Murphey (Wheaton, IL: 2012).

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A note from Twila:

Cec is thinking about doing a one-day seminar on the inner writer, based on his book Unleash the Writer Within. If you had the opportunity to attend a seminar on the inner writer, what would you want Cec to address? Email me with your suggestions.