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    The Better Writing Guide
    The Better Writing Guide
    The Better Writing Guide
    Ebook113 pages1 hour

    The Better Writing Guide

    By Vanessa Finaughty

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    About this ebook

    If you have purchased the EDITORS’ BIBLE, please do not purchase The Better Writing Guide. The Better Writing Guide is intended to offer a better-value option to those who would like the writing advice without the in-depth information on editing, formatting, spelling and grammar contained in the Editors’ Bible, and this book is, therefore, a compilation of select Editors’ Bible chapters that are orientated more towards those who are solely focussed on improving their writing style/voice.

    The Better Writing Guide offers myriad tips to improve your writing, and delves deeply into things that will enhance your skills, such as character point of view, tenses and writing style. The guide will clarify misconceptions and confusions regarding the dos and don’ts of writing, is a practical reference for would-be writers and others who wish to write easily understood, effective prose, and will open your eyes to things you may not yet have considered.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherVanessa Finaughty
    Release dateSep 20, 2012
    ISBN9781301215348
    The Better Writing Guide
    Author

    Vanessa Finaughty

    Vanessa grew up in Cape Town, and still lives there with her husband of fifteen years, her baby daughter and plenty of furry, four-legged ‘children’. Her passion for the written word started her career as an editor and copywriter, and she part-ran a writers’ critique group for close on seven years. She's been writing ever since she learnt how, has always been an avid reader, and currently lives on coffee and cigarettes. Her interests include reading, photography, the supernatural, life's mysteries and martial arts, of which she has five years’ experience. Review copies of all Vanessa's books are available upon request, and fans are welcome to email her at shadowfire13@gmail.com - she loves to hear any type of feedback and answers all emails personally. *** Please note that Vanessa uses UK spelling and grammar, which is not always the same as US spelling and grammar.

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      Book preview

      The Better Writing Guide - Vanessa Finaughty

      THE BETTER WRITING GUIDE

      Vanessa Finaughty

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2012 Vanessa Finaughty

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal use only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting this author’s hard work.

      Please note that, due to the nature of this book, no portion of this work may be pasted/shared on the internet or anywhere else, not even for promotional purposes, unless it’s the free sample from Smashwords.

      If you have purchased the EDITORS’ BIBLE, please do not purchase The Better Writing Guide. The Better Writing Guide is intended to offer a better-value option to those who would like the writing tips without the in-depth information on editing, formatting, spelling and grammar contained in the Editors’ Bible, and this book is, therefore, a compilation of select Editors’ Bible chapters that are orientated more towards those who are solely focussed on improving their writing style/voice.

      This book is dedicated to:

      All the writers out there who are continuously striving to improve their skills… those who realise that the true beauty of writing is that it never stops teaching us new things.

      Many thanks to:

      My editor, friend and fellow author, the best-selling T.C. Southwell, for all her hard editing work and abundant input on this manuscript.

      My friend and fellow author, Alphya Cing from Darla Mittler Document Magic, for formatting this manuscript and writing the introduction.

      Cover design: Vanessa Finaughty

      Cover stock image: stockfreeimages.com

      THE BETTER WRITING GUIDE

      Vanessa Finaughty

      Table of Contents:

      Introduction

      Chapter 1: Active and Passive Voice

      Chapter 2: Point of View (POV)

      First Person

      Second Person

      Third Person

      God Mode

      Objective

      What’s the Best POV to Use?

      Rules for all POVs

      POV Tips

      Chapter 3: Tenses

      Present Tense

      Past Tense

      Future Tense

      Chapter 4: Tautology (Repetition) and Superfluous Words

      Tautology (Repetition)

      Superfluous Words

      Stating the Obvious (STO)

      Chapter 5: Cutting Word Count for Competition and Anthology Entries

      Chapter 6: Some Common Errors

      Emphasis

      Could of/Should of/Would of/Off of

      Referring to a Person of Undefined Sex

      Conjunctions

      Neither and Either

      Paragraph and Sentence Length

      Swear Words

      Chapter 7: 50 Writing Tips

      Appendix 1: Easily Confused Words – Quick Reference

      Appendix 2: Note to Authors

      Appendix 3: Editors’ Bible Discount

      Introduction

      Navigating the sometimes convoluted and confusing avenues of the English language can be a challenge for even those raised with it as their native tongue.

      This book is constructed to make it easy for you to pinpoint at a glance the answers you seek. Contained herein, you will find information every writer must know. From finding your voice (passive or active) to establishing a point of view (POV), to figuring out which tense to use: it is all here in easy to understand language with concrete examples.

      Educators are urged to add this tome to their curriculum. Students are encouraged to utilise this work to achieve higher grades.

      Just as the dirt paths of ancient times have given way to more solid roads, so too has the English language continued to evolve. Those still relying solely upon Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style (copyright 1935) should realise their old mode of propulsion through the written word is in need of this new 21st century companion. Sometimes it is hard to keep up. This book provides the boost you need to carry on a smooth writing journey.

      This book covers the basics of writing. For a more comprehensive guide, you should also add a copy of The Editors' Bible to your library.

      Think of this volume as a GPS showing you which direction to take to make your voyage of authorship a smooth and efficient one.

      Turn left at the next page.

      Alphya Cing

      August 2013

      Chapter 1

      Active and Passive Voice

      In active voice, the subject of the sentence is performing the action. For example:

      Tyrone hit Joe.

      In the above example, Tyrone is the subject, and he’s performing the action, while Joe is the object (receiver of the action).

      In passive voice, the object (receiver of the action) is the subject of the sentence. For example:

      Joe was hit by Tyrone.

      In the above example, Joe is the subject of the sentence even though he isn’t performing any action.

      Active voice focuses on the subject, and passive voice focuses on the object.

      Active voice has the subject performing an action, and passive voice has the subject doing nothing.

      While some editors will religiously remove all passive voice from your manuscript, it isn’t actually wrong. However, it usually sounds ridiculous and makes your sentences wordy and, therefore, clumsy. It can also obscure the intended meaning if used incorrectly, and can be rather vague when compared to active voice. For example, in the passive sentence ‘Joe was hit’, the reader has no idea who hit him. In active voice, one has to include the person performing the action.

      Keep in mind that active voice lends a sense of immediacy and helps to draw the reader into the story, whereas passive voice generally distances readers from the characters and makes it harder for them to care about those characters or what’s happening in the story.

      Most new writers tend to use passive voice, I suspect, when they don’t know how to use apostrophes correctly. This is a terrible reason to be wordy – learn the apostrophe rules; your readers will thank you for it. For example:

      John’s book was stolen.

      The book of John was stolen.

      In the above example, besides being wordy and clumsy to read, the passive voice makes it sound as if the Book of John (note the capital use) in the Bible was stolen, which was clearly not the intended meaning, as you can see from the first example.

      Active voice can be used to avoid ambiguity and to tighten writing in order to better engage the reader.

      Passive voice can be used to show that the POV doesn’t know certain things, to depict characters trying to hide certain facts, to avoid inadvertently accepting blame, to focus readers’ attention on the right plot detail, to add mystery or to remove the POV’s opinion where objectivity is required.

      Examples of passive voice used properly:

      "Mistakes were made," the king said.

      In the above example, the king is obviously trying to avoid giving too much information about said mistakes and who made them. Now

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