6
That one piece of writing advice my high school English teacher gave me
Mrs. Patterson told me to "kill your darlings" - cut any sentence I got too attached to if it didn't serve the story. Took me 15 years of hanging onto clunky paragraphs before I finally listened, and now my drafts are half the length and twice as readable. Any old writing rules like that you brushed off at first but came back to?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
kimw573d ago
My 10th grade self would've loved @stella_scott96's style, but my editing self just sees extra commas.
5
the_wesley13h ago
Oh, I hear you. But I think you meant "curious" or "dangling" commas, not extra ones. Extra indicates there are too many, but that's not really the problem with those commas in young writers. The real issue is they get placed in spots that break up the flow, like before a "because" or after a "but" where they don't belong. So it's not the number, it's the placement that trips up an editor's eye. Still, I agree that some of those awkward constructions can add a certain raw charm you don't want to lose.
1
stella_scott963d ago
Oh man, I have to respectfully disagree on this one. I think sometimes those "darling" sentences are the ones that carry all the heart and weird energy of a piece, and cutting them just to be efficient can drain the soul out of your writing. Space for clunky, imperfect moments has led me to some of my best discoveries on the page.
1