General Mechanics of Fiction Writing

      First of all, if you are having trouble with the mechanics of writing you absolutely need to get yourself a good English text and study it. Pay attention to what mechanical problems others find in your work and learn the rules that fix them. Memorize them. Practice them until they become second nature.

      Probably the most annoying mistake commonly found in anyone's stories (and I've even seen this in published work) is mixing up its with it's. It's is a contraction for it is. If you could substitute "it is" in the sentence then use it's. Otherwise use its. Period.

      Don't count on a spell checker to catch your spelling errors. Those compicated grammar checking programs, like Grammatik, are better at it but still no guarantee. When you write a sentence like "He couldn't bare to lose her" your spell checker will just figure that our hero just didn't want to ditch his girlfriend badly enough to strip for it.

      Vary your sentence structure. Follow a simple sentence with a complex. Follow a noun-verb sentence with one which begins with a clause.

      Don't start two consecutive sentences with the same word. Don't use the same word twice in the same sentence. If you have to use the same word three times in two sentences, try to find a way to reword the middle reference. And so on.

      Don't use incomplete sentences. One possible exception, which should be used sparingly, is if the sentence is intended to be sort of an addendum to the immediately prior sentence, like an afterthought or an ironic comment in the POV's mind.

      Some words to avoid because they weaken your writing: seemed, might, should, would, any conjugations of the verb "to be" (was, were, is, be, been)

       

       

      Return to my Home Page, my Writers' Resources Page, the previous page, or email me.

      Background and graphics courtesy of a very generous and talented lady at   

      This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page