Ideas for strong writing. Use active voice rather than passive voice. ~From www.dailywritingtips.com – sign up to receive free daily emails with writing tips: English verbs are said to have two voices: active and passive. Active Voice: the subject of the sentence performs the action: His son catches fly balls. Creative children often dream in class. Passive Voice: the subject receives the action: The ball was caught by the first baseman.The duty is performed by the new recruits.The dough was beaten by the mixer.The mailman was bitten by the dog. ~From Manuscript Makeover by Elizabeth Lyon Adjectives: Use sparingly and consciously. Overuse indicates a need to find more precise nouns and to show rather than tell. Adverbs: Too often, writers use these to beef up weak verbs. Your goal should be to make verbs strong enough to do the work themselves and kill off your adverbs. You won’t be able…
Tag: Daily Writing Tips
Just Looking
Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page. Just Looking By Ken Delpit What’s in a look? Quite a lot, actually. Consider looks in their simple verb forms, for instance. The meanings range from imperatives to advisories to admonitions to out-and-out warnings. Look away. Look up. Look over there. Look down. Look around. Now, look here! Look sharp! Look out! Look at you! Or, consider the noun forms. As with its cousin verb forms, noun looks span a range of meanings, from complimentary to critical to probing to mysterious. Let’s take a quick look. That is a bad look for him. They kind of gave me a funny look. We need to take a deep look. Now, that is a good look for you. I was left speechless when she gave me that look. Or, consider “ing” forms to describe appearances and states, from…