23 Steps to Writing Good
July 31st, 2005 by Yvonne
Everyone can write. Everyone is creative. But only a handful gets published. So what exactly constitutes to good writing?
1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They’re old hat.)
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren’t necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10. One should never generalize.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
14. Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
15. Be more or less specific.
16. Understatement is always best.
17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be avoided.
21. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
23. Who needs rhetorical questions?
Credits go to him and him. Main source unknown.
I think the same should be applied to good professional blogging. More respect are given to those firm in thoughts. News on TV are general enough so we need valid logical opinions. I have a lot to learn in that aspect myself, so let us all keep this in mind to make our blogs more professional.
Posted in miscellaneous |
July 31st, 2005 at 3:16 pm
I didn’t understand more than half of what’s on that list. I’m in deep trouble.
July 31st, 2005 at 3:40 pm
Actually, I don’t really agree with the fact that writing has to be constrained by such tight set of rules, some of the finest writings I’ve ever read tend to take the ‘no’s and ‘don’ts’ you mentioned above, twist and play around with them, turning them into something totally unconventional, yet intriguing. It really depends on the material written, if one has to adhere to those rules, well, James Joyce’s Ulysses and Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow would never exist. Ditto with Kafka’s The Trial. Even the likes of Bukowski, Brautigan, Burroughs and many of these highly respected literary figures will be in trouble.
I tend to believe that the list of rules you put on the blog is for more conventional types of literature, or genre fiction. Something more mainstream… like Dan Brown’s stuff. However, these rules have to be challenged if you want to push your boundaries and such.
July 31st, 2005 at 3:59 pm
But it does serve well as a guideline for beginners.
July 31st, 2005 at 4:30 pm
Thank you for sharing. I found them very useful, although admittedly I had to “Oxford” a good many of the words there. ‘Oxford’ the verb, like ‘Google’ the verb.
i found number 1 the most useful to me.
Tq
July 31st, 2005 at 5:24 pm
To me at least, good writing is about whether or not the point you’re trying to make reaches the people or not. Sometimes the style doesn’t matter…more so when you’re blogging for yourself.
It’s about how you play with the words that identifies yourself as who you are.
In blogs…that is the point.
July 31st, 2005 at 6:49 pm
Alliteration is something you can use if you’re a smug writer doing it for humour’s sake.
I use it all the time.
July 31st, 2005 at 7:09 pm
Interesting list, and it does sound like a pretty good guideline for professional writing that can be carried over to professional blogging.
But I guess it also depends on what kind of professional blog it is, and whether it will have to become as faceless as typical media texts, because part of what makes blogging works is the fact that it’s personal.
Either ways, I believe in and try to adhere to most of what the list is saying, but it’s also okay to bend the rules when necessary.
July 31st, 2005 at 7:11 pm
Oh, and
I hope you don’t mind if “steal” this list off your blog. I believe it’s what my lecturers are trying to hammer into me this semester.
July 31st, 2005 at 7:32 pm
Edrei, it depends on what kind of writing you’re talking about. If your point is too vague, then the impact won’t be strong because the direction isn’t clear.
But for daily blogging, its fine to generalise. But if you want your readers to grab the point, you’ve got to be firm.
And yes, I do agree that there are many types of writing that contradicts the above guidelines. But unneccessary elaboration can bore people.
July 31st, 2005 at 11:46 pm
It depends. Unlike most here, I seriously didn’t like this list, too many restrictions, too misleading. People will start assuming that by merely follow everything here, they’ll automatically become good writers. That’s really not a good way of expressing yourself if you are constrained by all these.
Also, I don’t think this is limited to novelists, but bloggers as well. By purely following these so-called ‘23 steps to writing good’, they’ll end up becoming bland and boring, losing their unique author’s voice. But that’s just my opinion.
August 1st, 2005 at 1:47 pm
alistapart.com has two good articles that talks about How To Write A Better Weblog (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/writebetter/) and also gives 10 Tips On Writing The Living Web (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/writeliving/).
they serve as good guidelines.
August 3rd, 2005 at 2:08 pm
walao~ so deep one!
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