Kill Those Modifiers!
The overuse of adjectives and adverbs can ruin sentences and flatten descriptive passages.
The Secret Lives Of Little Words
In:
Craft, Dialogue, Discourse Analysis, Grammar, Grammar, Linguistics, List, Phrases, Sociolinguistics, Verbs, Voice, Word Play
What's that word doing there? When it comes to spoken language, nothing is accidental. Linguists are working on finding meaning in every 'oh,' 'um,' 'well,' and 'okay.' The results might surprise you.
As I Lay Mostly Dying
The baddest of the prose villains, that one word that, when mis-used, can single-handedly wreck an entire page of fiction for me, if not the whole piece: As.
“Scuse me while I kiss this guy.”: Malaprops, Puns, Spoonerisms, Eggcorns, and other hilarity-inducing word mix-ups.
Words are flexible and a writer can have a lot of fun using these devices.
Hashtag Haiku: #funwithshortforms
Take a break from all that serious writing to play with a couple short forms--one old, one new.
