That is the question.

[prillalar]

Writing advice I'm now trying to follow:

Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very;" your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. -- Mark Twain

Writing advice I gleefully ignore:

It's often wise to cut down on verbs of being, replacing them (whenever possible) with action verbs; that'll make your writing punchier.

I loooooooooove the verb "to be". It's my favourite verb. I work those predicate nouns and adjectives as hard as I can. I like the flatness of it, the plainness.

What's your favourite writing advice? Or your favourite advice to ignore?

Comments

[sociofemme.livejournal.com]

In one of my classes, my professor would slap me around (verbally!) for using too many semi-colons, dashes, colons, etc. to extend a sentence. So every time I'm tempted to do it more than once in a paragraph (or so), I check to see if the sentence would be better off chopped up, to make for more reading variety and to add emphasis. It's really helped make my writing clearer, I think.

(she kicked my ass about a lot of stuff, writing-wise, but that was mostly writing for academia)