Writing Good Content

In the 1950’s, college English professor Paul McHenry Roberts, wrote an article entitled “HOW TO SAY NOTHING IN FIVE HUNDRED WORDS.” After reading hundreds of college essays, he just can’t take it anymore. I don’t recall being in his class in college, but it sure sounds like I might have been.

He blasts the typical college essay writing style and gives 9 ways to bring great content to your writing. Here they are in brief form.

1) Avoid the obvious content–Begin by putting down the arguments that come to your mind. Now when you write your paper, make sure that you don’ t use any of the material on this list.

2) Take the less usual side–Always take the side that looks to you hardest, least defensible. It will almost always turn out to be easier to write interestingly on that side.

3) Slip out of abstraction–For most the soundest advice is to be seeking always for the picture, to be always turning general remarks into seeable examples.

4) Get rid of obvious padding–Instead of taking a couple of obvious points off the surface of the topic and then circling warily around them for six paragraphs, you work in and explore, figure out the details. You illustrate.

5) Call a fool a fool–Decide what you want to say and say it as vigorously as possible, without apology and in plain words.

6) Beware of Pat Expressions–Other things being equal, avoid phrases like “other things being equal.”

7) Colorful Words–By this we mean that they are calculated to produce a picture or induce an emotion. They are dressy instead of plain, specific instead of general, loud instead of soft.

8) Colored Words–When we hear a word, we hear with it an echo of all the situations in which we have heard it before.

9) Colorless Words–Colorless words are those of such general meaning that in a particular sentence they mean nothing.

HT: Doshdosh

Apostrophes and how they Annoy Smart People

The Oxford Etymologist chimes in on the annoying ways people use apostrophes and what, pray tell, can be done about it.

How Not to get Published

Inept as I am at getting published, I feel bad giving people writing advice. Something not right about that. You should only give tips on how to do things you personally have experience doing.

That being said, here are my tips for making sure you never get published.

1) Write about stuff no one cares about in a way no one cares to read.
2) Include the phrase “I’ll make you famous” in your queries.
3) Rely on God to persuade editors to publish your work rather than your writing skills.
4) Spend your writing time going to writing conferences and reading writing books.
5) Write blogs about writing rather than writing.
6) Never finish editing.
7) Don’t write.

I guarantee, if you follow these tips closely, you will never ever be published.

Clear Writing Done Easy

Good writing is good because of what words are not there rather than what words are. Here are ten ways to create useful words resulting in good writing.

1. Keep sentences short
2. Prefer the simple to the complex
3. Prefer the familiar word
4. Avoid unnecessary words
5. Use active verbs
6. Write the way you speak
7. Use terms your reader can picture
8. Tie in with your reader’s experience
9. Make full use of variety
10. Write to express, not to impress

Along with these ten principles are a couple of other concise ways to think while writing:

Long as necessary
short as possible

1. Emphasize what is of key importance.
2. De-emphasize what is of secondary importance.
3. Eliminate what is of no importance.

1. Precise information
2. Logically linked

Making Money On-Line

I’ve thought of making money on-line with my writing for a long time and to this point I have had varying degrees of minimal success! I came across the Thirty Day Challenge, a program that helps people make money by showing them various ways to do so, walking you through step by step to make some money. It comes highly recommended. I’m anxious to see how it goes.

Mulching Books

I was at Barnes and Noble looking for a book to buy. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any. I saw some I wouldn’t mind reading, but none worth putting money down for.

The publishing business is struggling and has been with all the on-line free content and easier publishing options. Now with the economy tanking something has to be done with all those books.

Odds are, publishers may start with not publishing so much trash. This article suggests that book publishers may do best if they only publish books that took years to research rather than going for cheap, current event, soon irrelevant drivel.

Throw it Out!

The hardest part of writing is starting. Not just the act of finally pushing some keys but starting to say what it is you have in mind to say. I erased the initial first sentence of this post, in fact.

The editorial rule is to throw out the first three paragraphs of your article. It seems that the first few paragraphs are generally your mind warming up. It’s no good and is actually unnecessary.

And that, perhaps, is the mark of a truly professional writer. We don’t mind throwing our words out when that’s what’s called for. We know our prose is far from deathless. We want our writing to be good, even excellent, and if that means tossing out bunches of words, that’s what we do.

Being Ironic

Words lose their definitions over time. Bob Harris wants us to think about irony. Are we really being ironic as often as we think we are? Alanis Morissette has a song called “Ironic,” which Harris points out has no irony in it at all.

“But if a song called “Ironic” contains no irony, is that in itself ironic? Nope. It may just be … dumb. It depends on the creator’s intent.”

I’d like to say something pithy right now, but I probably don’t know what pithy means either.

Ed Park on Writing

Ed Park has written several novels. Here is his advice on how to get writing done:

Discipline will take you a long way—if you set aside time every day to write, you will find something to write, even if you don’t know what you’re doing as you approach the desk. It’s too easy not to write. One other bit of advice, which I need to take myself, is to get offline as much as possible. 

Why Writer’s Fail

Many people want to be writers but few ever make it. Why is that? A few reasons.

1) You’re just not a very good writer
2) You can’t be timid if you want to make it as a writer. You’ve got to toot your own horn.
3) To succeed as a writer, you’ve got to keep good books.
4) Sometimes, you fail because life isn’t fair.