Daily traversal: Ten Mistakes Writers Don't See (But Can Easily Fix When They Do)

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Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Ten Mistakes Writers Don't See (But Can Easily Fix When They Do)
Words to live by here, words to live by. In short, here are the ten:

1. Repeated words
2. Flat writing
3. Empty adverbs
4. Phony dialogue
5. No-good suffixes
6. The 'to be' words
7. Lists
8. Show, don't tell
9. Awkward phrasing
10. Commas

These seem like obvious enough problems, but the strength of the article is that it talks about how to identify the problem and how to correct it. Not a replacement for a college-level writing course, but a good article regardless (doh!).
- posted by frank crist @ 3:37 PM

Comments:

Of course, none of the contributors to Daily Traversal are guilty of any of these, either on the site or as writers. Clearly Frank is just sharing this for all those OTHER people, you know, those other people who try to write.

But can't.

Because he's not talking about me, certainly.

# posted by

Anonymous : 6:12 PM

Definitely, I, am, not, talking, about us. To be.

# posted by

frank crist : 6:29 PM

Of course not.

You are all actually, really, literally, totally, absolutely good writers, completely.

# posted by

Lake Allison : 9:47 PM

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