Category Archives: said

Tips about Writing from Stephen King

Posted on April 5, 2025 | Leave a comment

Stephen King, the King of Horror, has written dozens of fictional bestsellers, many of which have become blockbuster movies.  He also wrote a book, On Writing, telling how he writes.  Here are some of his ideas.

From his own experience, King believes a writer’s job is to recognize two previously unrelated ideas and to make something new from them.

Writers write their first drafts for themselves, to tell themselves a story.  When they rewrite, they take out everything that is not part of the story.

Writers shouldn’t “dress up” their natural short-word vocabulary with long words.  They should use the first words that come into their heads.

You don’t need to write in complete sentences all the time.

Avoid passive verbs.  Timid writers use passive verbs because they seem safe.

Forget using adverbs.

Fear leads to bad writing.

Use “said.”

To make possessive nouns, add apostrophe S every time.

Easy-to-read books contain lots of white space and dialog.

To be a good writer, do two things:  read a lot and write a lot.

If you don’t have time to read a lot, you don’t have the time or the know-how to write well.

To learn what not to do, read bad writing.

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Posted in adverbs, apostrophes, fear of writing, fiction writing, fragments, good writing v. bad writing, how to write better, passive verbs, possessive nouns, practice reading skills, practice writing skills, revising first drafts, said, short words, writing tips

Quiz yourself on how to write dialog

Posted on November 2, 2024 | Leave a comment

Is there a right way and a wrong way to write dialog?  Turns out, there is.  Take this quiz and see if you know which sentence is best.

1.  “My book contains an error,” said Scarlett O’Hara.

2. “My book contains an error,” Scarlett O’Hara  said.

3. Said Scarlett O’Hara, “My book contains an error.”

4. Scarlett O’Hara said, “My book contains an error.”

5. “My book,” said Scarlett O’Hara, “contains an error.”

Sentence 5 is the worst of the five.  In it, the spoken thought is interrupted with the name of the speaker.  A sentence should not be stopped to tell who is saying it and then resumed to finish it.  A sentence of dialog should be kept together.

Sentences 3 and 4 are next worst.  Almost always, spoken words are more important than the name of the person who speaks them.  Spoken words—the dialog—should go first.  “Said” is an almost invisible word in written dialog.  It should not be highlighted.  Rather, it should be tucked after the name of the person speaking.  So 4 is a better sentence than 3.

That leaves 1 and 2.  Which is more important—the name of the speaker or the word “said”?  The name of the speaker, of course.  So 2 is the better sentence in that pair, and is the best sentence of all the options.

You might say, but I’ve read great writers who interrupt quotations by identifying who is speaking or who put the name of the speaker after the word “said” or its equivalent.  I have too.  For example,

From The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald:  “And Daisy ought to have something in her life,” murmured Jordan to me.

From The Sun also Rises by Ernest Hemingway:  “One more,” Brett said, “and I must run.”

From To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee:  “Well I don’t,” said Uncle Jack, “not unless there’s extreme provocation connected with ‘em.”

I could say that if you become as famous as Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Lee, you can write any way you want.  But if you check carefully through their novels, you’ll find the authors follow the practice explained above far more often than not.

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Posted in dialog in writing, said

Revisiting eight ideas to improve your writing

Posted on April 9, 2024 | Leave a comment

In my past blog, I suggested eight ideas to improve your writing.  In my next paragraph, I will ignore those suggestions and write poorly.  See if you can find eight examples of poor writing in this next paragraph.

A reader contacted this blogger a few days ago.  She informed me that there were good ideas in my most recent blog, and moreover, she suspected this blogger could utilize that blog to compose another blog that contradicts the advice of the first blog, and thereby set up a challenge to locate the poor writing and to attract a multitude of readers like her who are puzzle aficionados.  I listened to my reader’s admonition, and this paragraph is my response.

Spoiler alert:  The following paragraphs expose the poor writing.  Are you ready?

  • “This blogger” draws attention to the writer of the blog in a way that the word “I” does not. As the writer of the blog, I need to refer to myself in the paragraph.  But I should choose an inconspicuous way to do that.

 

  • “She informed me” draws attention to the way she spoke which is unimportant. “She informed” is better written as “she said.”  “Said” is an inconspicuous word.

 

  • “There were” puts the subject later in the sentence. “There were good ideas” could be better written as “my blog contained good ideas.”

 

  • “Moreover” and “thereby” are transition words that interrupt the flow of the sentence. “Moreover” is better said as “and.” “Thereby” is better said not at all in this paragraph. It is not needed.

 

  • “Admonition” is a four-syllable word and “aficionados” is a six-syllable word. Both draw attention to themselves because many readers might not know what the words mean.  It’s better to stick to simpler vocabulary (“advice” and “fans”) in a blog meant for children as well as ESL students and adults.

 

  • The second sentence in the three-sentence paragraph is 59 words long—far too many words for readers trying to understand the writer’s message. The sentence should be broken down into three or four simpler sentences.

 

  • “She informed me that” introduces and indirect quote. Use direct quotes whenever possible so readers can hear for themselves the vocabulary, the tone, the grammar and the inferences of the speaker.

 

  • And lastly, the paragraph is five lines long.  Is that too long?  Maybe, maybe not.  It is the longest paragraph of this blog, so it might look long–and intimidating–to some readers.  This is especially true because it extends the width of the blog.  Yet because the second sentence is so long, the paragraph is hard to subdivide.

 

All these ideas about good writing are based on the fundamental rule of good writing:  Clarity is the most important characteristic of good writing.  If a word or sentence or paragraph is not clear to readers, they will not keep reading.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted in "to be", blog writing, clarity, direct quotes, English Writing Instruction, how to write better, indirect quotes, rules for writing, said, Transitions, word choice

Eight simple ideas to improve your writing

Posted on April 2, 2024 | Leave a comment

Don’t start a sentence with there is, there was, there are, there were.  When you start this way, you start with a filler word (“there”), not with the subject. You also use a form of the linking verb “to be” which is the weakest verb you can use.  Eliminating “there is” forces you to put your subject before your predicate and to use a stronger verb.

Write short sentences.  Usually, the longer a sentence is, the more clauses it contains.  The more clauses in a sentence, the harder it is for the reader to keep the ideas straight.  Limit the number of clauses in a sentence by limiting the number of words.

Use “said,” not “spoke,” “told,” “asserted,” “claimed,” and other words which mean “said.”  “Said” is an inconspicuous word which does not draw attention to itself.  As a writer, you should be highlighting what was said, not how it was said.

Use everyday but specific vocabulary.  Highfalutin words distance writers from many would-be readers.  If you are quoting a person who uses SAT words generously, repeat his language.  But keep your own words inconspicuous, so the focus is on your message, not on your  vocabulary.

Use short transition words.  “And,” “also,” “but,” “later,” and “then” are better choices than “additionally,” “furthermore,” “however,” and “subsequently.”  Longer transition words draw attention to themselves as words, so they take the reader’s attention away from the thoughts of the text.  They interrupt the flow.  Use modest one- and two-syllable transitions.

Keep paragraphs short.  Books written 100 or 200 years ago contain long, deadly paragraphs.  More recently written books contain shorter paragraphs with more white space on the page.  That white space makes the writing look friendly and nonthreatening.  To increase the white space, use smaller paragraphs.

Use dialog—direct quotes, not indirect quotes.  With indirect quotes, the author is distilling the original quotes.  Readers want to hear the original quotes so they can make up their minds as to what is important. Readers want to hear the tone of voice, the interruptions, the pauses, the inferences, and the vocabulary of the speakers.  Readers want to be there.

Keep yourself invisible unless you are writing a first-person account, or you are a character in your narrative.  Readers should not be aware someone wrote the words they are reading.  They should be aware of the information.  But if you do need to insert yourself into the writing, say “I,” not “this reporter” or “this listener.”

You might say, “But I know writers who ignore these ideas all the time.”  I do too.  Once you reach the stature of a Tracy Kidder or Ian McEwan, you can do what you want.  But until you do, you’re more likely to be read and understood if you follow these suggestions.

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Need a writing tutor?  Contact me through this website.  I tutor writers from second grade through high school, in the US and overseas.

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Posted in "to be", dialog in writing, said, Transitions, verb choice, white space, word choice, writing tips

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11 rules to keep you, the author, invisible to your readers

Posted on March 6, 2022 | Leave a comment

Most fiction writers want readers to get so captivated while reading a story that they forget someone wrote it.  If invisibility is the effect you want, you might want to read these eleven rules of Elmore Leonard–author of 45 novels–from 20 years ago.*

Rule 1:  Don’t open a passage with a weather report.  People read novels to learn about people, not the weather.

Rule 2:  No prologues. Prologues usually contain backstory which can be added later as the story unfolds.

Rule 3:  Use “said”—nothing else—when a character speaks.  “Said” is almost invisible, but any other word—asserted, warned—distracts the reader from the action to the author.

Rule 4:  Don’t use adverbs to describe “said.”  Adverbs distract from the story action and remind the reader that an author wrote this story.

Rule 5:  Limit exclamations marks to almost zero.

Rule 6:  Don’t use “suddenly.”  If you say, for example, “Suddenly, he fell,” the reader knows something is about to happen before the story’s character does.

Rule 7:  Rarely use regional dialect.  That requires apostrophes and weird spellings.  Once you start, it’s hard to stop.  And hard to read.

Rule 8:  Keep descriptions of characters brief.  Let their dialog conjure images in the reader’s mind.

Rule 9:  Keep descriptions of places and things brief.  Descriptions of anything slow down or even stop the forward action of a story.

Rule 10:  Skip long paragraphs without dialog.  Readers do.

Rule 11:  Don’t use proper diction if it sounds unnatural, or if it slows down the action.

*These rules are paraphrased from the July 16, 2001, edition of The New York Times, Section E, page 1.  I recommend you read Leonard’s original words.  They’re a hoot.

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Posted in adverbs, backstory, dialog in writing, said, skipping words when reading, using regional dialect, writing rules