As I started drafting my fiction and blogging, I was bit curious for a while. What is a good English writing? I searched it online because being a novelist, I like to know what is considered a good English language that would meet the publishing standard. The answer, there are no exact rules but here are some guidelines in literary world wants and this may also apply in other languages.
.Prefer for the message and communication not the language.
In order to achieve in literature do we need to write literally? The answer is no. Write like how you talk in your daily life with formality. Specificity is a virtue in writing. It's irritating to read a piece when you can't understand because it's full of impediments. Yes, it's easy to spot a manuscript focusing more with the language than its meat. There's nothing wrong if you will pay attention to your writing structure but if what you want to say is covered up by unnecessary words, then you will sink. Deliver your message straight to the point, that's the key.
Read this:
The intentional, brutal, homicidal, unbelievable, ruthless, injustice killing which was happened yesterday by masked five gunmen that was witness by teenagers, employer and a security personal, founding the man lying on the floor..."
Sounds scattered right? I'm guilty, I used to write like that before.
.Avoid using adjectives and adverbs.
This is the technique to deliver stronger and clearer.
Instead of
"I picked the heavy bag."
Write this,
"I picked the bag."
Too much use of adjectives and adverbs may lead your statement too flowery. It's called purple prose and a bad kind of writing, the result of too much focus of the language (as what I said earlier.) Use strong verbs and nouns instead. Use adverbs and adjective when it's the only way to convey the sentence.
.Avoid repetition.
Having a word written over and over again would distract the quality of your prose. Thus, the rule is avoid using the same words in a paragraph. Not the common, "the, is, a", repeating them is not a disruption. I mean those special words to construct your sentence.
.Use simple words than fancy ones.
As a writer, we have a duty to expand our vocabulary. Since as we mentioned about repetition hazard above, we must look for something in Dictionary and Thesaurus to put in. That's not bad, but if your reader needs to scan his dictionary again in every seconds because he doesn't understand your work anymore, the chance is he may your work to the trash can. Remember, in a hustle reader, there's a compromised writer.
.Be a literary wizard than a grammar nazi.
Being a terrific grammar nazi doesn't mean your writing would be good and having an error doesn't mean it would be bad. As I always said, the content is more valuable. As a writer, it's a requirement to have proper grammar knowledge but hey, we're just humans to commit mistakes. That's why there are erasers, white inks and Backspace keys. That's why there's editing/editor. That's why our manuscript would have a first draft until to millionth draft to spot and fix them.
.Details is a virtue.
One what makes a manuscript standout is the description. Add concrete details than abstract.
For example:
A tall man
,,,better if,,,
A seven feet high man.
or rather change the word "man", it can be his name or occupation perhaps to be more specific.
"A seven feet high basketball player."
Don't write "bag", it could be "Chanel bag".
Those are just guidelines, not laws to be followed. They created to polish your writing skills up. But after all the writer's literary charm would be a factor to excel, his own way of execution. But it's not only matters, the story, the humor, the theme are big contributions too. As you see, there are your favorite writers uses too flowery prose. And you can see there's also a rule above I violated too, making me sound funny hypocrite.
No comments:
Post a Comment