« More About Writing at Many Levels | Main | Good Stuff in Newsprint This Weekend »

03/24/2012

Comments

EbookEdit

Good advice there. Those are all empty phrases.
My pet peeve is 'said'. It's overused and is sometimes the only word authors employ to denote dialogue. I put together an ebook of alternatives and came up with more than 2000! We need to be more adventurous and stop saying 'said' so much.

Rosanne Dingli

If you have any writing or editing experience at all, you will soon learn that advice of this sort is a touch outdated and not a little misguided. You can tell that what you are working on is the manuscript of a novice if they never use 'said'.

You can find the word 'said' in all the one thousand books that make up the canon of literature in English. So what can we learn from that?

You will also find really, very and just.

The only valid observation one can make is that all these words are used well, in a timely way, with a great deal of confidence, and when no other word will do.

When used advisedly, ALL words are valuable to writers.

Eve Gaal

Thanks Rosanne for clarifying something that I was thinking too!

-The Desert Rocks

David Severy

RE sort of, kind of ~ I agree, not often good to use.

But seems? What do you use instead? Appears? I write a lot of opinion. Thing do seem to me often and a lot!

RE Just, really and very, over use yes, but they can be used.

We ought to avoid sounding like 14 year olds. Better to sound like 5 year olds.

Matthew 18:3
And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

The comments to this entry are closed.