About Me

I have done a lot of things in my life and have also worked in many different jobs to make a living and to experience life. This blog is just some of my musings, sometimes funny, sometimes inspirational, sometimes sad, sometimes angry, sometimes simple but all the time, it's just me.

Monday, August 22, 2011

I do not know how to write

I had a dream. In the dream, I woke up in one morning as usual, but nothing was usual anymore. I could not write anymore, maybe I could never write, but now, I could not even write a simple sentence

Maybe it was not a dream or is it.

I have been attending this creative writing course but my writing has not improved much. I guess practice makes perfect but when there is so many other things in life, so many other issues that takes precedence, writing get's left in the back burner.

To be a good writer, or to be good at anything, one must practice. How to practice if you do not have the time? Well, time is a funny thing. We tend to waste a lot of time in a day doing things that are not important. And we waste a lot of time in general. If we only took half an hour or an hour daily and cut off things that were less important like watching television and do something which was important and taught us something, then we would get better.

There are many things that can be deemed important in writing.

Opening lines in a story are very important. You must hook your reader. The tone of the writing should be fresh and distinctive. Create an immediate narrative pull; make the reader want to know "what happens next?".

Get the reader into the story straight away, and use crisp and unassuming language. Don't make the reader want to reach for the dictionary.
  1. Avoid Alliteration. Always.
  2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
  3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They’re old hat.)
  4. Employ the vernacular.
  5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
  6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
  7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
  8. Contractions aren’t necessary.
  9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
  10. One should never generalize.
  11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
  12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
  13. Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
  14. Profanity sucks.
  15. Be more or less specific.
  16. Understatement is always best.
  17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
  18. One word sentences? Eliminate.
  19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
  20. The passive voice is to be avoided.
  21. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
  22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
  23. Who needs rhetorical questions?
  24. Parenthetical words however must be enclosed in commas.
  25. It behooves you to avoid archaic expressions.
  26. Avoid archaeic spellings too.
  27. Don't repeat yourself, or say again what you have said before.
  28. Don't use commas, that, are not, necessary.
  29. Do not use hyperbole; not one in a million can do it effectively.
  30. Never use a big word when a diminutive alternative would suffice.
  31. Subject and verb always has to agree.
  32. Placing a comma between subject and predicate, is not correct.
  33. Use youre spell chekker to avoid mispeling and to catch typograhpical errers.
  34. Don't repeat yourself, or say again what you have said before.
  35. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not needed.
  36. Don't never use no double negatives.
  37. Poofread carefully to see if you any words out.
  38. Hopefully, you will use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
  39. Eschew obfuscation.
  40. No sentence fragments.
  41. Don't indulge in sesquipedalian lexicological constructions.
  42. A writer must not shift your point of view.
  43. Don't overuse exclamation marks!!
  44. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
  45. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
  46. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
  47. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
  48. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
  49. Always pick on the correct idiom.
  50. The adverb always follows the verb.
  51. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
  52. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be by rereading and editing.
  53. And Always be sure to finish what ...
Take care and be well.

1 comment:

Sneha said...

nice tips Nil..will remember them next time I write :)