Words make all the difference. It's not just what you say, but how you say it. Once a writer finishes his or her 80,000-word masterpiece, they often find the work has only begun. I recently did a rewrite that took my manuscript from 315 pages down to 265 pages long. You spent two years getting 315 pages, how do you magically reduce it by 50 pages? If you diet, you watch what you eat. If you write, you watch what you write. It's called editing. Everybody has their weaknesses, whether it be chocolate chip cookies, or writing words that aren't helping your story. When it comes to editing there are certain words or phrases you need to cut down on, like... chocolate, ice cream, or cookies. Just kidding. But seriously, the word "like" is one of my demons. It's like I just use it here and there, then like I look down and see I've used it like five times in the same paragraph. It's not like I'm saying like is always bad, but it's like I'm just saying you don't always want to sound like a valley girl, do you, dude? Now for the list of words, you need to watch out for to keep your story from feeling bloated. 1. Like - If this is "like" something, then it is NOT that thing. Giving accurate descriptions and using correct verbs makes reading more enjoyable. 2. Really - This is a flabby modifier. Try to do without it, or better yet try to come up with a more robust word than the one you're modifying. Example: rather than, "I'm really hungry." Try "I'm starved." 3. So - The word "So" is an unnecessary intensifier. Like the word "Like", it can become addictive. "So, what you really mean is... " would read better as, "What you mean is... " 4. Up, Down - usually these words are not needed. They tend to be redundant. For example: "I sat down on the bed." could be, "I sat on the bed." Now, if you need to "look up", that's fine. But do not say, "look up at the clouds in the sky." Just say, "Look at the clouds." 5. That - If a sentence makes sense after removing "that," delete it. For example, "This is the most amazing book that I've ever read." can be, "This is the most amazing book I've ever read." 6. Big - This is a weak adjective. Replace it with something more precise. Example, rather than "He was a big man." Try, "He was six feet tall and 250 pounds." 7. Suddenly - "Sudden" means quickly and without warning, but using the word "suddenly" slows down the action and warns your reader. Do you know what would be better? Just spit it out. Rather than saying, "Then suddenly, I heard a blood-curdling scream." Say, "I heard a blood-curdling scream." 8. Did not - This is referred to as a negative construct. Readers don't like it when you tell them what something is not. They like when you tell them what something is. Example, you could say, "The actor did not remember his lines." or, "The actor forgot his lines." 9. Said - Many writers have a divided opinion about this word, but here is my perspective. One hamburger will not kill you, but if you eat at McDonald's three times a day for 20 years... what happens is not their fault. In other words, if you have an entire page of dialog, after the original "he said, she said", let it go. The readers are smart enough to follow along without saying "said" every single time. 10. Very - In this case, nobody can explain why better than Robin Williams. "So, avoid using the word 'very' because it's lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don't use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys -to woo women- and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do. It also won't do in your essays." - Dead Poet Society Are there other filler words or phrases you can do without? No doubt. These are just the most common ones I must remind myself about. While writing this article, I deleted the word "Just" half a dozen times, so I guess you could add that to the list. The thing to remember is if you become aware you use a certain word or phrase too much, so will your reader. To keep your readers turning every page as fast as they can, you need to keep up the pace. Don't use ten words when six will do. Writing a book takes endurance, motivation, and inspiration. Writing a good book takes editing. By Tedric Garrison | Submitted On December 18, 2017 Award-winning writer/photographer Tedric Garrison has 40 years experience in both areas of expertise. As a Graphic Art Major, he has a unique perspective on the Elements of Design and how they relate to photography. His photo eBook; Finding Your Creative Edge in Photography proves creativity CAN be taught. Tedric shares both his writing and photography skills at his new website: http://writephotos.weebly.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Tedric_Garrison/88147
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What comes to mind when you hear the phrase, "a picture is worth a thousand words"? If you have Dyslexia or are close to someone who does; you realize this is more accurate than most people give it credit for. It is said a verbal thinker may have 2 to 5 thoughts per second. A dyslexic person is considered a picture thinker and would have 32 thoughts per second. Picture thinking is estimated to be, overall, 400 to 2,000 times faster than verbal thinking. This information comes from: "The Gift of Dyslexia" by Ronald D. Davis. Some refer to this as right brain verses left brain thinking. I will confess I enjoy photography almost as much as writing. In both cases, how you choose to produce your creative endeavors depends on how you think about it. When a verbal thinker learns the word "CAT" for example; he has basically 4 thoughts, each letter and what they sound like together. The picture thinker on the other hand; will see the letters in the word "CAT" in at least 40 different ways, before even thinking of sounds. From an outside perspective; it seems that the picture thinker is handicapped because he or she is so much slower, but in reality they are putting MUCH more effort into the process. Having worked for a nation-wide portrait studio before, I remember being limited to 7 shots per portrait sitting. Even if I only shot one subject, it felt like my hands were being tied. A picture thinker could easily shoot 30 to 40 photos of the same subject and not blink. Verbal thinkers tend to be very analytical in nature. Obviously all writers use verbal skills, but that doesn't mean they are all verbal thinkers. Look on any Facebook writing group, and you will see someone, asking how many words are in a chapter, or how many pages in a chapter, or how many chapters in a novel, etc. They seem to think if you follow some magic formula the story will automatically write itself. They get so absorbed in the technical aspects, they tend to stop thinking creatively. Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, John F. Kennedy, Steven Spielberg, Whoopi Goldberg, Cher, and Henry Winkler were all successful NOT in spite of having dyslexia; but largely in part because of having it. Because they were picture thinkers they had greater vision (no pun intended). You too can share in that vision by releasing yourself from your own limitations. Some people take portraits by centering the subject and having them look straight ahead and smile. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it's not the only way. I could write several articles about the alternatives, but that will be for another day. Some writers plan out every detail before they write a single word and write consecutively, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, etc. But, it is also not the only way. Some writers write the ending first. Some write a certain amount of words per day. Some listen to music in the background, some do not. Some only write at a certain time each day. Some will write five minutes here or ten minutes there. If you get stuck, don't stop writing, just try something different. It is human nature that we all learn by doing. I invite you to step outside your comfort zone and write more than you ever have in 24 hours before. This process will help transform you from a verbal thinker into a picture thinker. You might be asking how it does that? Let me give you an example. Back when I taught photography one of my favorite assignments was to take pictures of a mailbox. The rules were simple, you had to shoot 36 photos of the same mailbox and each shot had to be uniquely different. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, let's see... you can shoot left, right, front, back, up or down... only 30 more to go. Time after time, when it came to a class review, the best pictures were always the last five or six pictures taken. Why? Because the first 20 or 30 shots everybody kept using their traditional ways of thinking. Once they started thinking outside the box, (no pun intended), the visual thinking kicked in. Once you master how you think, you realize being creative is not just for the lucky few. You can finish that chapter, you can give a more detailed description, you can leave clues without giving away the answer. It's not a matter of doing it as you have always done it before, it's a matter of thinking about things, differently than you have before. When you get to the point where thinking different is the norm, your perspective will change and writer's block will be a thing of the past. Remember, as a man thinketh, so is he (or her) depending on your point of view. There is no right or wrong, but... there is always another way of thinking about things. Keep an open mind and keep on writing. Written by: Tedric Garrison 12-10-17 Award-winning writer/photographer Tedric Garrison has 40 years experience in both areas of expertise. As a Graphic Art Major, he has a unique perspective on the Elements of Design and how they relate to photography. His photo eBook; Finding Your Creative Edge in Photography proves creativity CAN be taught. Tedric shares both his writing and photography skills at his new website: http://writephotos.weebly.com Most sporting events, award first, second and third place. There may be hundreds of competitors, but only the top three get recognition. Likewise, when it comes to writing software; (specifically editing software), I am going to cover the top three. All three of these programs will blow away a regular word processor when it comes to basic grammar and spelling. The three big contenders are Grammarly, ProWritingAid, and the Hemingway Editor. Yes, I have used all three, but I will be dropping one of them shortly. The most prominent budget for advertising goes to Grammarly, hands down. You can see it advertised on YouTube, Facebook, blogs, and websites all across the world wide web. A lot of writers, especially those who use Scrivener, prefer ProWritingAid. The underdog, and least known by most is the Hemingway Editor. A lot of people like to root for the underdog, so that's where I will start. The Hemingway Editor is the least expensive of all three programs with a one-time purchase price of $19.99. Keep in mind all three have free versions available. One of the beautiful things about this program is you do NOT need internet access, to use it. It focusses on five main areas to improve your writing. These areas include readability, adverbs, passive voice, word choice, and sentence structure. You can export to a variety of formats including HTML, PDF, text, and Word. Add this to your existing word processing program, and you will raise the quality of your work. As mentioned Grammarly is VERY popular and with good reason. Besides being able to use it in your novel or short story, it can be used on email and in the Chrome browser. That means no need to be embarrassed when you post to your Writer's Group in Facebook and use the wrong version of effect (for example). It has a Word plug-in that works great in Windows, but not so much on the Mac. It has good vocabulary enhancement suggestions and is compatible with more than 30 file types. It has a plagiarism checker, and according to the website, the paid version has over 400 + checks and features. Please note, I HAVE the paid version, and I have no idea what those features include. Some will argue, you get what you pay for, but be warned. The cost of this program is $139.95 per year. ProWritingAid has the most compatibility with Windows and Mac operating systems. It works great with top word processing programs like Word, Scrivener, Open Office, Google Docs and more. It has a Word Explorer feature that contains a thesaurus, a dictionary, reverse dictionary, collocation dictionary, alliteration dictionary, cliché' dictionary, rhymes and example usages from poetry, prose, and songs. It has over 25 reports that examine different areas of your writing, that includes contextual spelling, grammar and punctuation checking. This means it gives recommendations based on what you actually write, not from some outdated rule book. The price of this software starts at $40.00 per year, but it also has an option of $140.00 for a lifetime license. So, who won the gold? To answer that I decided to give all three a test. I did this on Thanksgiving Day 2017. I selected a 1200 word scene from one of my works in progress. Since Grammarly seemed to be the heavy favorite, I started there. I used the plugin for Word 2016 and received 15 Critical errors. Then just for fun, I ran it online where it said I had 9 Critical errors AND 24 Advanced issues (because I had the paid edition.) Fifteen verses Thirty-three, strange. I thought it was the same program, but apparently not. The Hemingway Editor was much more consistent coming up with 36 errors both online and stand alone. Yes, the cheapest of the three found twice as many as the most expensive program in the group. Makes me wonder. Now, the moment of truth, ProWritingAid found 222 errors in 22 separate detailed reports using the same 1200 word document. They offered easy to understand explanations for everything they marked. I'm not saying I would use all 222 recommendations, but even if I only accepted 50%, that's a whole lot more than the other two. So, in summary, ProWritingAid took the Gold, Hemingway Editor took the Silver, and in a distant third place, Grammarly took the bronze. Remember when I said I would be dropping one of these shortly? Guess which one I'm no longer using. If you don't like these results, run your own tests. (There are free online versions of each.) Play with all three and decide who won the Grammar War for you. By Tedric Garrison | Submitted On November 29, 2017 Award-winning writer/photographer Tedric Garrison has 40 years experience in both areas of expertise. As a Graphic Art Major, he has a unique perspective on the Elements of Design and how they relate to photography. His photo eBook; Finding Your Creative Edge in Photography proves creativity CAN be taught. Tedric shares both his writing and photography skills at his new website: http://writephotos.weebly.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Tedric_Garrison/88147 |