Quote of the day: (Threefer on what makes good writing.) (Sent from my writing room looking out at... SUNSHINE??!! What th? It appears the sun is lost and finds itself in Indiana... it aint gonna like the food... or weather...) Forward motion in any piece of writing is carried by verbs. Verbs are the action words of the language and the most important. Turn to any passage on any page of a successful novel and notice the high percentage of verbs. Beginning writers always use too many adjectives and adverbs and generally use too many dependent clauses. Count your words of verbal force (like that word force I just used). William Sloane Our language contains perhaps a score of words hat may be described as absolute words. These are words that properly admit of no comparison or intensification. My own modest list of words that cannot be qualified by very or rather or a little bit includes unique, imperative, universal, final, fatal, complete, virgin, pregnant, dead, equal, eternal, total, unanimous, essential, and indispensable. James J. Kilpatrick Expressions such as the former, the latter, the first, the second should be used as seldom as possible: they are invitations for the readers eye to travel back--and it should be encouraged always to read straight on at an even pace. Robert Graves and Alan Hodge Thats all, folks! (Courtesy, Jon Winokur collections.)
Posted on: Sat, 05 Apr 2014 14:18:29 +0000
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