Category Archives: writing

What can we say instead of said?

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I don’t often have much advice for writers of fiction, but in the interest of  more interesting writing, I’d like to offer some words to use instead of “said.” And some warnings. Writing students have to learn a lot of rules. Some rules contradict other rules, so if you like breaking rules, you’ll enjoy writing. Follow someone’s rule and you’ll be breaking another one. Take “said.” It’s a rule somewhere that you should never use any other word to carry dialog. It’s also a rule that you shouldn’t use the same word all the time. So carry the dialog with as many words as you want, because said is dead. My eighth grade English teacher believed in the rule not to use the same word too much. She announced one day that we weren’t allowed to use “said” in our stories anymore. Since we had to read them out loud to the class, I can assure you with some confidence that most of us just substituted “stated.” Well, it wasn’t “said,” so she was satisfied. It’s also a rule, at least to some writers, that we shouldn’t use adverbs. “I’ll break both rules at once,” he said to himself stubbornly. … Continue reading →

17 motivational quotes about writing

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You’ve seen all the sitcoms where someone decides to write a book—or a paper for school—and spends the whole show doing anything else besides writing. They’re funny. They’re true, too. A friend of mine told me about a time he isolated himself away from all distractions. Or so he thought. He saw his face in a mirror and got this urge to trim his beard. But the only tool at hand was his nail clipper! Oh well, he finished his work (a musical composition in this case) another time. Some writers of words write novels or plays or poems. Some writers write journalistic pieces. Others write advertising copy. Whatever it is they write for a living, they have to correspond with editors or collaborators. They write letters to friends and lovers––all the same kinds of things all the rest of us write. Somewhere in all that, they write about writing. They describe their joys and fears and self-doubts. And when they publish their thoughts—or someone else does—they leave behind quotes about writing. You’re a writer, even if you never get a byline in a publication. And sometimes you have trouble getting started, or trouble finishing. Here are some motivational quotes … Continue reading →

Too many adverbs make writing dull, he said bluntly

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Nearly every teacher of writing, especially creative writing, will tell students to avoid adverbs. It goes along with the standard advice to show, not tell. Here’s a bit of dialog from Tom Swift and His Airship (1910), which illustrates adverbs in bad writing: “Oh, I’m not a professor,” he said quickly. “I’m a professional balloonist, parachute jumper. Give exhibitions at county fairs. Leap for life, and all that sort of thing. I guess you mean my friend. He’s smart enough for a professor. Invented a lot of things. How much is the damage?” “No professor?” cried Miss Perkman indignantly. “Why I understood from Miss Nestor that she called someone professor.” The supposed author, Victor Appleton, was an assembly of hack writers who went to great lengths to avoid the simple word “said” in the dialog. So they sprinkled the dialog with too many adverbs, often ending in -ly. My 8th-grade English teacher marked down papers for using “said.” So we usually wrote someone “stated” something instead. Just as dull, but it saved us from her red ink. “Appleton’s” English teachers must have also disapproved of “said” but allowed it when modified. At least all those adverbs sort of broke up the sameness. A kind … Continue reading →

How to format blog posts for WordPress

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I receive a lot of guest submissions for another of my blogs. Many of these guest posts require extensive reformatting before I can publish them. Even when I’ve finished––and even for posts I write myself, WordPress does strange things. Here are some thoughts that should help you whether you’re submitting guest posts or writing for your own blog. The developers of WordPress seem to prefer that everyone compose directly in their editor. And now with WordPress 5.0 they’ve introduced a completely new editor called Gutenberg. “New, improved” is one of the most dangerous phrases in the English language. In my experience, it usually means that something I used to like has been changed to something I like less. The new Gutenberg editor puts each heading, each paragraph, each illustration, etc. in its own block. It gives bloggers more control over the formatting of each block, but it takes away some features of the Classic editor. For example, when you assign tags in the Classic editor, it will show you a tag cloud of the tags you have used most frequently before. It seems it should be simple enough to build the same capability into the Gutenberg editor, but they haven’t. … Continue reading →

Don’t write for readers with ulcers: using sensory words

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People who have ulcers need to go on a bland diet and avoid spicy foods. Most of them find it boring. People won’t eat tasteless food if they don’t have to. And no one will choose to read insipid writing. So give them something tasty. Paint a picture. We have five physical senses, and our writing can appeal to all of them using sensory words. Bland writing often overuses forms of to be. Lazy writers neglect to stop and think of verbs where something actually happens. They also overuse passive voice and commonplace adjectives and adverbs. Pick strong nouns or verbs instead. But don’t diss adjectives entirely. They include many of the sensory words that can give your writing zest. Mark Twain gave this well-known advice to another writer: When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them—then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice. Notice that he said the adjectives that remain after … Continue reading →