I wouldn’t take it on myself to give you writing advice. Too many of you are far more capable and talented than I. Please allow me to share with you the wisdom of one of my favorite writers, C S Lewis. In response to a letter he had received, he wrote the following:
What really matters is:–
1. Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.
2. Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.
3. Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “More people died” don’t say “Mortality rose.”
4. In writing. Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please will you do my job for me.”
5. Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.
yours
C.S. Lewis
#4 is the current big buzz for writing quality. of course you are quoting one of my favorite authors.
Oh, there’s rules?? Uh oh.
I used to have a reader that would correct me all the time. She’s no longer a “pally”. Goodness knows I’m a mess–heck, I leave all sorts of odd messages on Vanilla’s blog all the time–but I think that is what makes me ME. If I took the time to correct all my writing errors, there’d never be a post! Hahaha!
Excellent advice. Let’s see. I routinely violate, well, rules one through five. Not intentionally, of course.