Our Rich Language

The English language is rich in words and phrases that convey meaning. Use words that will conjure up the sight you want your readers to see. Ensure that the imagery you are using will appeal to your readers' senses and that it will help them to visualise, to put them into the world you are creating on the page. For truly descriptive work, use metaphors and similes; but don't just put them in for the sake of it, and use them sparingly. Make sure that your metaphors are not obvious – you want to guide your reader, not drag them by the hair! The words you use, the similes and the metaphors, should all enhance meaning.

Aristotle said: "The greatest thing in style is to have a command of metaphor." In Greek, metaphor means 'transport'; the idea is to transport a meaning from one realm to another - something like language in stereo. But make sure that your metaphors are seamless, woven into your story subtly - a string of metaphors strung together just for the sake of it would make very boring reading.

A metaphor can make us see familiar things differently. Our language is rich in meaning; use it well and make your work shine.

Qualifiers

Weed out all those unnecessary qualifiers, described by E.B. White as: "leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words." Some are ludicrous, contradictory and very fatal, while others diminish your ideas. If deleting the qualifier is not enough, find one good, strong word that will do the job, and use it. Adjectives and adverbs are all very well in their place, but if used to bolster a weak sentence or a weak verb, cut them out and find stronger verbs.

Remember that it is far better to show, than it is to tell.

For example:
(poor writing)
The train suddenly picked up speed. Before long it was going very fast, so fast that it swayed dangerously as it sped down the track.

(edited version)
Without warning, the train increased its speed. Passengers, jolted from their morning papers when the carriages rocked wildly from side-to-side, gasped and lunged for hand-holds.

As you can see, the first piece of writing is weak; there is no life in it. The second is better; the reader can see and feel what the characters are experiencing. Words like 'suddenly', 'very', and 'dangerously' are the weak links here so I cut them out. Then, rather than 'tell' the reader what was happening, I used words that would 'show' the action. Stronger verbs, such as jolted, gasped, and lunged, help to create the atmosphere I was aiming for. As you can see, adverbs have their place too; I added 'wildly' to enhance the effect I was trying to achieve but a final edit might see me remove it altogether.

Consider editing as a cleaning chore - you are cleaning out the redundant, and polishing up what remains. If a sentence can stand without a word, cut it out. If the sentence, or the passage does not convey quite what you want to say, add words or sentences, or re-write it all together.

Remove every word that is there just for the effect.

Above all, aim for strong writing by eliminating all those words that weaken it.

Verbs - full of life

Verbs are doing words so you should aim to make the verbs in your writing work hard. Avoid lifeless verbs that will kill your sentence. Again, we come back to the verb 'to be'; sentences built on to be are usually unwieldy. With lifeless verbs you will usually find an excess of nouns, which slows the pace of your work down. Look at the phrases in your work and see if one word will do the same job. For instance:

prefer is better than a preference for;

tends to sounds infinitely better than has a tendency to.

The stronger your verbs, the stronger your work will be.

Voice

The voice, or tone of your work is important. If you want to avoid having your work sound limp and lifeless, aim for the active voice. Using active voice will give your work the ring of authority; it will come over as crisp and professional, direct and to the point.

When you write in the passive voice, the action is done to the subject, as in The ball was thrown by Mary to Rosa. When you use active voice, the subject of your sentence is the doer; Mary threw the ball to Rosa. To weed out all those passive instances, look for combinations of the verb 'to be' and past participles of another verb. For instance: was posted, are seen, is urged, were reported, has been completed. Strengthen your work by changing these to the active voice.

Of course, there are times when the passive voice is necessary. In technical writing for instance: The air is heated by being circulated over the coils. You will also use passive voice if the object of the action is more important than the subject: Our meeting was postponed. Sometimes, too, the subject is unknown, in which case the passive voice is the only one that will work. For example: The will was unsigned. The art works were stolen from the gallery. There may also be times that you want to avoid naming a specific person: The missing art works were returned.

Be careful that you haven't switched from active to passive voice mid-sentence, as in: Such a program costs little, and many are benefited by it. A better way to say this is: Such a program costs little and benefits many.

A work that is all passive writing will be boring, and vice versa, but your writing should be predominately active.

Clichés and Hackneyed Expressions

Your first-level edit will weed out every cliché and hackneyed expression that most writers use in their first drafts. George Orwell said that: "Modern writing at its worst … consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else and making the results presentable by sheer humbug."

There are many clichés and overused expressions – too many to list here - but you'll find lists of these on the internet, or in books from your library or local bookshop shelf. You can even purchase a software program (A Cliché Cleaner) to do the job for you; I have never used one so cannot speak about the effectiveness or otherwise of these programs.

If a word or phrase that you've used seems familiar, it's probably been used many times elsewhere, in which case you need to find some other way of expressing the same thought or idea.

More Editing - singular/plural

During your first-level editing, you will also be looking for singular/plural usage. Firstly, look for those words that need an irregular ending to make them plural. For example, antenna is singular; if you are writing about more than one radio or TV antenna, the plural is antennas; if you are writing about insects, the plural you need is antennae. Here are a few more:

datum (singular), data (plural) (Note: colloquially data is used as singular)
bacterium (singular), bacteria (plural)
criterion is (singular), criteria (plural)
medium is (singular,) media (plural)
stratum is (singular,) strata (plural)

If you're not sure, use your dictionary, which will tell you if a word is singular or plural. It surprises me sometimes that many writers obviously do not check word usage; this is the sign of the amateur and many editors, when they see a work peppered with mistakes like this, will not read further. Of course, if the work is brilliantly original, or if you're a 'known name' a publishing house will work with you to correct errors, but if not, you need to get it right first time.

As you work through, editing your manuscript, you will come to realise that the actual writing takes but a fraction of time compared to the work you will need to do afterwards.

Watch things like:

sister-in-law (singular) and sisters-in-law (plural). I often see 'sister-in-laws' which is incorrect. Colloquially, we do see 'the in-laws' but this is not quite the same.

Collective nouns refer to groups, and these can be singular or plural. If you think of the group as a single unit, use a singular verb. If you think of the group as a number of individuals, use a plural verb. For instance:

Our little group is complete again.
A second group are those parents who feel that they were too harsh.

Our family isn't poor any more.
My family are perfectly normal.

Misused Words

Following on from yesterday, let's take a side-track and look at some of the words that are commonly misused. In English, there are many words that sound similar but which have different meanings, and many words that are different, and mean nearly the same thing, but will confuse your reader if you use them in the wrong place. There are many; I've listed a couple here but I would suggest that you seek out a full list of them, and be careful that the words you use in your story, novel or article, mean exactly what you want them to.

affect/effect

This is one that I come across often in my role as editor. Affect, as a verb, means to influence, to have consequences, as in these examples:

• The decision affected workers in all industries.
• I was very much affected by the glorious singing.

Affected, as an adjective, means artificially showing off, putting on an act:

• He spoke with an affected English accent.

Affect, affected and affective also have psychological meanings; look these up in a good dictionary.

Effect, as a verb, means to cause something to happen, to bring it about:

• He was well out of the crease, but effected a brilliant recovery to avoid being stumped.
• After much litigation, a settlement of the dispute was effected.

Effect, as a noun, means a result or consequence, as in:

• The effect of this decision was lamentable.

accept/except

Accept has a range of meanings that include to take or receive; or to agree (to), admit or believe:

• The television hostess will accept the award on behalf of her show
• Her competitiors accept the judges' decision.

Except means to leave out or exclude:

• Vaccinations are compulsory and the school can except no student.
• Everybody has had coffee except me.