Category Archives: needless words

Write first, revise second, third, fourth, and edit last

Posted on March 27, 2023 | Leave a comment

Revising and editing are distinct actions.

Revising means changing text in significant ways, such as adding or deleting words, sentences, paragraphs or even whole scenes.  Revising means changing weak verbs to stronger, specific verbs.  Revising means changing sentence order or sentence beginnings or combining sentences or separating too many ideas in one sentence.  Revising means making big changes and should be done before editing.

Editing means polishing text in subtle ways, such as changing punctuation, spelling, and choice of synonyms and antonyms.  Editing means deleting most -ly adverbs, many adjectives, and obvious information.  Editing means making small changes, sometimes stylistic changes, and should be done after revising.

Which are revising and which are editing?

revising editing
Deleting backstory from the beginning of text ✔
Using simple Anglo-Saxon vocabulary instead of longer, more complicated words ✔
Replacing abstract nouns with concrete verbs ✔
Deleting vague, qualifying words (e.g. some, never) ✔
Deleting “that” except when needed for clarity ✔
Combining sentences to delete unnecessary words ✔
Adding information for clarity ✔
Using “said” instead of “told,” “related,” “cried,” and other words saying how a person spoke ✔
Replacing forms of the verb “to be” with specific verbs, action verbs if possible ✔ ✔
Rewriting sentence beginnings for variety ✔
Replacing most compound sentences or compound predicates with complicated simple sentences ✔
Deleting overused words like “so,” “then,” “just” and “like” ✔
Rewriting conclusions to add meatier ideas ✔
In dialog between two people, not identifying who is speaking for each line of dialog ✔
Writing direct dialog rather than indirect dialog. ✔
Calculating words per sentence to keep within 15 to 20 words on average. ✔
Looking for the kind of grammar mistakes you often make, such as run-ons, and fixing them. ✔
Showing, not telling. ✔

A mistake student writers make is to edit as they write, losing the flow of their thoughts.  It’s better to keep going, even though you know you spelled a word wrong and are tempted to look it up.  Writing is harder than editing which is why writers are tempted to edit as they go.  This is particularly true of perfectionists.

Editing before revising is a waste of time.  Good revising will delete many early edits.  Write first, revise second and third and forth, and edit last.

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Posted in "to be", action verbs, adverbs, backstory, citing evidence, conclusions, dialog in writing, editing, English Writing Instruction, flow, naming characters, needless words, number of words per sentence, omitting unnecessary information, perfectionism, revising first drafts, show don't tell, spelling, word choice, writing tips

Six ways to improve writing anything

Posted on October 13, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here are six writing practices to make your writing better:

  • Make your sentences clear during a first read, so the reader doesn’t say, “Huh?”  A reader shouldn’t need to backtrack to figure out what you’re trying to say.
  • Use varied sentence structure.  Subject—verb—direct object.  Prepositional phrase—adjective—subject—verb—adverb.  Gerund—prepositional phrase—verb—adjective.  Subject—verb—direct object—appositive.  So many combinations exist.  Why bore readers with the same old same old?
  • Keep subjects and verbs near each other.  A thought which is interrupted by prepositional phrases, clauses and other grammatical constructions leads to unclear reading.  (The previous sentence’s subject is “thought.” Its verb comes twelve words later.  This is an example of what not to do.)
  • Eliminate most adverbs, especially those ending with -ly.  Instead, choose strong verbs, so an adverb is not needed.
  • Eliminate repeated words unless you are using them for emphasis.  Some repeated words I see my students use are “start,” “then,” “so,” “like,” and “really.”  Identify your repeated words, and see if you need them.
  • Use good grammar, but don’t strive for perfect grammar.  Writing today is more conversational than in the past.  And more informal.  (Did you notice that that last “sentence” is not a sentence at all but a fragment?)  You can begin sentences with “and” and “but.”  You can use “you” instead of “he” or “she” or “one.”

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Posted in active verbs, adverbs, clarity, English Writing Instruction, fragments, grammar, lack of appeal to readers, lockstep sentence patterns, needless words, sentence structure

How to begin a novel

Posted on July 13, 2021 | Leave a comment

Q:  How should a good novel begin, according to writing experts today?

  1. With backstory
  2. With an inciting event

A:  b.  With an inciting event, with action of some kind to grab the reader into the story.  Two hundred, one hundred, even fifty years ago this wasn’t the way writers started novels.  But times have changed, and so have readers who expect writers to grab them into their stories in the opening paragraphs.

Q:  If that’s true, then how should a novel introduce backstory?

  1.  By getting the story underway, pausing to fill in background details, and then resuming the forward action of the story.
  2. By weaving background details into a story as needed without ever pausing.

A:  b.  By weaving background details into a story as they are needed, without stopping or even slowing down the forward action, is the recommended way to include backstory today.

And yet,

This past week I read a novel which received high praise from a news source I respect.  As I turned from page 3 to page 4 to page 13 to page 24, I thought, C’mon, c’mon. When is this story going to take off?  It did around page 35, or so I thought for a couple of pages.  But I was wrong.  The scene described there turned out to be more backstory.  It wasn’t until about page 70 that the action really started.

70 unnecessary pages.  Or at least 70 pages which could have been reduced to two or three pages and tucked into the forward action part of the novel.  If not for the four-star review, I would have stopped reading by page 10. 

Q:  So how did this novel get published with such a laborious beginning?

A:  The author is an established writer with several best sellers, some of which have been turned into TV miniseries.  Editors are reluctant to ask such a writer to cut 35 pages, no matter how slowly they move the novel along.

Q:  What can we learn from this?

  1.  If you are a best-selling author, anything goes.
  2. Even if you are a best-selling author, some reviewers will pan your book if it has a slow, wordy start.
  3. Listen to writing experts and start with an inciting event until you become a best-selling author.

A:  a.  Yes.  b.  Yes.  I went online and found reviewers who liked the book and others who said it could have been improved by eliminating several dozen pages at the beginning.  c.  Yes.  Jump right in if you want to hook your readers.

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Posted in backstory, editing, fiction writing, good writing v. bad writing, lack of appeal to readers, needless words, writing tips