07/21/26 Grif.Net - Writing Class
b...@grif.net
[I am writing MY story in tiny bytes and episodes, so here are important lecture notes from a class at Pillsbury College where I taught on “Writing for publication”:]
Do not put statements in the negative form.
And don't start sentences with a conjunction.
If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
The U.S. Army has a Department of Redundancy Department.
Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.
De-accession euphemisms.
If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. A preposition is something you never end a sentence with. Unless you have to.
Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
Last, but not least, avoid run of the mill cliches like the plague.
(Many of these are adapted from William Safire's Great Rules of Writing)
