Write Good or Die

usage. The convention of serial commas, as made famous in the book title Eats, Shoots, And Leaves appears to be undergoing a change, as some small publishers are now accepting the Associated Press style common in newspapers and magazines (where the preceding example would be published as “Eats, Shoots and Leaves.”) While I use Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style as my bible, even publishers that stray from long-established rules still want consistency, so pick a horse and ride it.
    Understand the function of clauses, as they are one of the basic building blocks of sentence structure. If you insert a clause in the middle of a sentence and start off with a comma, you might need another comma to close off the phrase. Don’t simply throw in a comma because you feel a sentence is running long or if you want a natural pause in the middle. Rewrite the sentence if necessary. Better yet, learn the simple rules of commas.
    2. He said, she said. Some writers avoid using a character’s name too often because it might seem unnatural, but clarity is the ultimate goal of all good writing. A sentence like “He went for his gun, but he shot him first” could have several different interpretations, even if only two male characters are involved. Crooked Tom could be trying to steal Johnny Cop’s gun or Crooked Tom could be reaching for his own gun, and either could be squeezing off the first shot. If there are three characters in this scene, you’d really have a circus. “Crooked Tom went for his gun, but Johnny Cop shot Innocent Abe first” is clearer, even if the paragraph is already littered with their names. You don’t want your reader to pause and figure out which “he” is which. If your reader pauses too often, she is soon likely to stop altogether.
    3. Wry Saidisms. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with using “said” over and over, and readers are trained to accept the word as easily as they do standard punctuation. You can get away with a character’s occasionally “whining” or “demanding,” but use them as spice and save them for moments when you need a little extra punch. Avoid “stating” altogether, as it is a hallmark of badly written press releases, and the word only applies to a formal statement such as one given in authority or for a police report. “Whispering” and “shouting” are fine, because they are as much action as stage direction. If you insist on someone hissing a line, make sure it contains at least one sibilance, or “S” sound.
    “Ly” adverbs slow down the sentence and often foil the writer’s intent. For example, “Bill quickly crossed the room” is slower than “Bill crossed the room,” and the word “suddenly” is its own oxymoron. Such adverbs are especially cumbersome in dialogue tags. Indeed, they often become comical, as popularized in Tom Swifties such as “‘You’re going against the grain,’ he said wryly” or “‘The sun is out,’ he observed brightly.”
    4. Overexcitement! Hoard your exclamation points and only dole them out when necessary. Some preach avoiding them altogether and instead relying on dynamic writing to convey the excitement. In general, they can be effective when used sparingly in dialogue, but they quickly become boring when overused and should rarely if ever conclude an action sentence. Generally, dependence on exclamation points indicates a lack of power in your action sentences.
    Adding a bit of visual oomph or dialogue tag is a better choice: “‘Look out,’ he shouted, diving for cover as bullets zinged overhead.” The word “shouted” does the work of the exclamation point, though if you are in the book’s climax or a particularly brisk and intense scene, then one or two can do the work of unnecessary words, too. In this case, I’d let “Look out!” slide, assuming exclamation points weren’t already hopping all over the page like drunk celebrities begging for tabloid coverage. Anyone using two or more exclamation points together will not only be rejected but taken out and shot!!!
    5. Heady confusion. Point of view is one of the fundamental keys to good fiction writing. Stories that keep a clear point of view immediately move themselves to the front of the class or the slush pile. Simply put, find out who is telling the story and stick with that character until there’s a clear shift to another point of view. In third-person limited viewpoint, make sure the character doesn’t “know” things