Tips For Writers

These are things I see often and usually by bad writers. Not to say good writers won’t occasionally use some of these, but on average, the good writers don’t. You may already know these, I hope that you do. Most of these have to do with being economical and delivering tighter descriptions. I’m only doing this to maybe spare myself from coming across these so frequently. You should know these things. They may seem insignificant, but when a reader only reads, these jump out and could elicit a premature judgment of your writing. In no particular order:

1) On your face. If someone smiles, smirks, or has a look, we know it’s on their face. Where else would a smile be? With a smile on his face. Just “With a smile.”

2) He nods his head. Or He shakes his head ‘no’. Nods means ‘yes’, shakes means ‘no’. If he nods, we know it’s with his head, if he shakes his head, we know it means no.

3) The best he can. Or The best they can. They clean the house the best they can. He talks her down the best he can. This means nothing, tells us nothing. And it’s usually unnecessary.

4) Very pregnant. You’re not clever, EVERYBODY writes very pregnant. Just write pregnant, we all know what pregnant looks like. The only time you would address the size, is if they’re in the early stages of pregnancy, we’ll assume they’re very pregnant otherwise.

5) They fight. They kiss. Too dry. Lame, lame writing. Describe the kiss, the fight, however brief, show what we’ll see onscreen.

6) He is walking, he is talking, they are walking, they are talking. Just write He walks, He talks, They walk, They talk. Everyone should know this, yet I see it ALL the time.

7) Suddenly and all of a sudden. Go ahead and eliminate suddenly from your vocabulary. If you use ‘all of a sudden’ it might already be too late for you.

8) Starts doing his homework. Begins searching for files. Just do the action. He does his homework. He searches for files.

9) Be sparse with your adverbs and adjectives. A large aircraft, or he quickly flees are redundancies. Large and quickly are two words that are overused, unnecessary, and lame.

10) Watch your spacing after periods. Hard to notice, but it’s all I see. It’s lazy, you should be mindful. It doesn’t matter if you use one space or two, but remain consistent.

11) Don't write Well, before dialogue. Well, I don't know. I don't know. Amateurs use this to make their dialogue sound real. It doesn't.

I hope this helps.