Deadly Don't #1

Passive Voice

Use Active Voice.Teach yourself to write in active voice rather than passive voice. Why? Because it makes the difference between strong writing and weak writing. If you need a more practical reason, here are two. Agents reject manuscripts loaded with passive voice. And readers find active voice engaging. Stories told in active voice carry the reader along with the action and involve the reader in the action.

The next time you pick up a good book or read an article in a leading magazine, stop and really look at the way the sentences are constructed. Anybody can string words together, but learning to write in active voice is an acquired skill — you get good at it by doing it over and over again.

Let's get down to business. Below are three examples of the same information rendered two different ways — in passive voice and active voice. If left untrained, most people write passively, but watch what happens when we turn that weak, limping sentence around:

PASSIVE: Two alleged drug dealers were chased by police deputies after a routine traffic stop today. One was apprehended and the other got away.

ACTIVE: Police deputies chased two alleged drug dealers today after a routine traffic stop. They apprehended one but the other got away.

In the first example, something was done to the drug dealers; in the second, the police do something to the drug dealers — chase them. The same goes for the secondary sentence describing the result of the chase.

PASSIVE: The reason she was late for work was a migraine headache that kept her up half the night, tossing and turning.

ACTIVE: A migraine headache that kept her up half the night tossing and turning made her late for work.

Again, look for a way to turn the action around so that one thing (in this case, a migraine headache) triggers something else (being late for work) — not the other way around.

PASSIVE: John and Penelope were handed an eviction notice by their landlord.

ACTIVE: The landlord handed John and Penelope an eviction notice.

Do you see the distinction? By simply turning the action around — and getting rid of weak verbs such as was — you create more muscular sentences. Practice writing sentences like this and before long you'll start to think in active voice.

I turned to YourDictionary.com for more examples of passive- and active-voice sentences. The following is only a partial listing. You can find the rest on the website.

Harry ate six shrimp at dinner. (active)

At dinner, six shrimp were eaten by Harry. (passive)

Sue changed the flat tire. (active)

The flat tire was changed by Sue. (passive)

The crew paved the entire stretch of highway. (active)

The entire stretch of highway was paved by the crew. (passive)

Mom read the novel in one day. (active)

The novel was read by Mom in one day. (passive)

The critic wrote a scathing review. (active)

A scathing review was written by the critic. (passive)

I will clean the house every Saturday. (active)

The house will be cleaned by me every Saturday. (passive)

The staff is required to watch a safety video every year. (active)

A safety video will be watched by the staff every year. (passive)

She faxed her application for a new job. (active)

The application for a new job was faxed by her. (passive)

Tom painted the entire house. (active)

The entire house was painted by Tom. (passive)

The teacher always answers the students' questions. (active)

The students' questions are always answered by the teacher. (passive)

The choir really enjoys that piece. (active)

That piece is really enjoyed by the choir. (passive)

Who taught you to ski? (active)

By whom were you taught to ski? (passive)

The forest fire destroyed the whole suburb. (active)

The whole suburb was destroyed by the forest fire. (passive)

The two kings are signing the treaty. (active)

The treaty is being signed by the two kings. (passive)

The cleaning crew vacuums and dusts the office every night. (active)

Every night the office is vacuumed and dusted by the cleaning crew. (passive)

Larry generously donated money to the homeless shelter. (active)

Money was generously donated to the homeless shelter by Larry. (passive)

No one responded to my sales ad. (active)

My sales ad was not responded to by anyone. (passive)

The wedding planner is making all the reservations. (active)

All the reservations will be made by the wedding planner. (passive)

Susan will bake two dozen cupcakes for the bake sale. (active)

For the bake sale, two dozen cookies will be baked by Susan. (passive)

The science class viewed the comet. (active)

The comet was viewed by the science class. (passive)

Reading through that list might feel like doing memorization drills, or practicing your scales at the piano (anyone take piano lessons as a kid?) — but drills and scales have their purpose, and they do accomplish something. By the time you stagger away from the flash cards or the piano, you'll be that much more proficient.

Divine Do: Write in active voice for strong writing.

Deadly Don't #2

Weak Verbs

Here's another one Strunk & White (The Elements of Style) as well as your English teacher probably told you. Like the wisdom inherent in Mom's advice to eat your veggies, this method for producing great copy is so grounded in real-world results it's hard to deny.

Author Roy Peter Clark, a senior scholar with the Poynter Institute, said it better than I could, so I won't try to improve on his advice:

... Strong verbs create action, save words, and reveal the players.

President John F. Kennedy testified that his favorite book was From Russia With Love, the 1957 James Bond adventure by Ian Fleming. The power in Fleming's prose flows from the use of active verbs. In sentence after sentence, page after page, England's favorite secret agent, or his beautiful companion, or his villainous adversary performs the action of the verb.

Bond climbed the few stairs and unlocked his door and locked and bolted it behind him. Moonlight filtered through the curtains. He walked across and turned on the pink-shaded lights on the dressing-table. He stripped off his clothes and went into the bathroom and stood for a few minutes under the shower. ... He cleaned his teeth and gargled with a sharp mouthwash to get rid of the taste of the day and turned off the bathroom light and went back into the bedroom.

Bond drew aside one curtain and opened wide the tall windows and stood, holding the curtains open and looking out across the great boomerang curve of water under the riding moon. The night breeze felt wonderfully cool on his body. He looked at his watch. It said two o'clock.

Bond gave a shuddering yawn. He let the curtains drop back into place. He bent to switch off the lights on the dressing-table. Suddenly he stiffened and his heart missed a beat ...

You already know, from that long list in Deadly Don't #1, that weak verbs such as was, is, and will be make for limp writing. Yes, at times you'll need to use them; just be sure it's not most of the time.

As you write, train your brain to think of strong verbs to carry your story or message across. Your readers will thank you for it — even if they can't quite pinpoint why your writing is so enjoyable.

Divine Do: Use muscular verbs in your writing.

Deadly Don't #3

Adjective/Adverb Overload

Ah, adjectives — those beautiful, billowy, evocative words that describe other words (nouns) and make them so much more special. Right? Yes and no. Adjectives are useful when describing a person, place, or thing, but if you string too many together, or use them too often, your writing will come across as "flabby."

Merriam-Webster reminds us, "The word red in 'the red car' is an adjective." This is straightforward stuff. Readers in fact prize imaginative adjectives, and today writers work very hard to mix adjectives and nouns that haven't historically been best friends.

So what's the deal with adjectives, you say? Keep reading and we'll discover the answer together.

Below are the most common adjectives used in the English language:

List of Adjectives

A-D

afraid
agreeable
amused
ancient
angry
annoyed
anxious
arrogant
ashamed
average
awful
bad
beautiful
better
big
bitter
black
blue
boiling
brave
breezy
brief
bright
broad
broken

D-G

defeated
defiant
delicious
delightful
depressed
determined
dirty
disgusted
disturbed
dizzy
dry
dull
dusty
eager
early
elated
embarrassed
empty
encouraging
energetic
enthusiastic
envious
evil
excited
exuberant

G-M

gorgeous
greasy
great
green
grieving
grubby
grumpy
handsome
happy
hard
harsh
healthy
heavy
helpfu
l helpless
high
hilarious
hissing
hollow
homeless
horrible
hot
huge
hungry
hurt

List of Adjectives

A-D

bumpy
calm
charming
cheerful
chilly
clumsy
cold
colossal
combative
comfortable
confused
cooing
cool
cooperative
courageous
crazy
creepy
cruel
cuddly
curly
curved
damp
dangerous
deafening
deep

D-G

faint
fair
faithful
fantastic
fast
fat
few
fierce
filthy
fine
flaky
flat
fluffy
foolish
frail
frantic
fresh
friendly
frightened
funny
fuzzy
gentle
giant
gigantic
good

G-M

hushed
husky
icy
ill
immense
itchy
jealous
jittery
jolly
juicy
kind
large
late
lazy

light little
lively
lonely
long
loose
loud
lovely
low
lucky
magnificent

List of Adjectives

M-R

mammoth
many
massive
melodic
melted
mighty
miniature
moaning
modern
mute
mysterious
narrow
nasty
naughty
nervous
new
nice
nosy
numerous
nutty
obedient
obnoxious
odd
old
orange

R-S

repulsive
resonant
ripe
roasted
robust
rotten
rough
round
sad
salty
scary
scattered
scrawny
screeching
selfish
shaggy
shaky
shallow
sharp
shivering
short
shrill
silent
silky
silly

S-Z

successful
sweet
swift
tall
tame
tan
tart
tasteless
tasty
tender
tense
terrible
testy
thirsty
thoughtful
thoughtless thundering
tight
tiny
tired
tough
tricky
trouble
ugliest
ugly

List of Adjectives

M-R

ordinary
outrageous
panicky
perfect
petite
plastic
pleasant
precious
pretty
prickly
proud
puny
purple
purring
quaint
quick
quickest
quiet
rainy
rapid
rare
raspy
ratty
red
relieved

R-S

skinny
slimy
slippery
slow
small
smiling
smooth
soft
solid
sore
sour
spicy
splendid
spotty
square
squealing
stale
steady
steep
sticky
stingy
straight
strange
striped
strong

S-Z

uneven
upset
uptight
vast
victorious
vivacious
voiceless
wasteful
watery
weak
weary
wet
whispering
wicked
wide
wide-eyed
witty
wonderful
wooden
worried
yellow
young
yummy
zany

Adverbs too are a legitimate part of speech. The ones that become problematic are what I call "-ly words." Some of the most common ones are:

very
really
extremely
simply
nearly
exactly
particularly
clearly
certainly
generally
quickly
recently
usually
suddenly
eventually
directly

William Zinsser, author of On Writing Well, said, "Most adverbs are unnecessary." Take a gander at the list of adverbs below and it's hard to disagree with him. The list is mind-boggling. Almost every sentence that includes one of the following words could be rewritten without it.

In this Deadly Don't we'll consider adjectives the leaven I mentioned earlier. A little goes a long way (after all, there's no other way to say "red car"); too many and you'll have a big mess on your hands. Some writing coaches take a more hardline approach. Zinsser considered most adjectives and adverbs "clutter." Mark Twain encouraged readers to "kill" any adjectives that survived their first drafts.

What you want to avoid is a construction that looks like this:

David was usually late for chemistry lab, but today he was very determined to be on time. The new science teacher that all the kids were talking about was said to be really kind and overwhelmingly lovely, with stunning green eyes and long, flowing, bright red hair.

As he stood outside in the sunny school courtyard, waiting impatiently to go inside, David listened to the idle chatter of his classmates, many of whom never dreamed that their words were being mentally recorded by their zealous classmate.

This may seem like an exaggerated example on my part, but a lazy writer can fall into this trap. If you write prose that's riddled with these "helping words," your manuscript will nosedive.

In an article for Writer's Digest, William Noble writes:

Many inexperienced writers throw in "pretty" words to make their prose more dramatic and meaningful. But such cosmetic touch- up often turns out to be redundant or simply uninspiring. Take adverbs such as "lovingly" or "speedily" or "haltingly." They each point to some circumstance or emotion or movement, yet do they offer solid impact?

... Mark Twain had it right: "As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out." The tendency is to try and beef up the noun being modified. It's human, I suppose; most of us can never be that sure we're getting our point across. Decorate that noun some more, your fragile self-confidence hears. Don't run the risk the prose will fall flat because it isn't distinctive enough.

Bottom line: watch those "pretty words." Pare down your paragraphs by taking a hard look at them.

Divine Do: Use adjectives with care; ditch most adverbs.

Deadly Don't #4

"I Began to Start ..."

Here we come to a phrasing habit that will mark your writing as amateurish, or at least undisciplined, quicker than you may think. So many manuscripts that cross my desk for editing fall into the same traps, and this is one pitfall I see again and again: the overuse of verb qualifiers such as "began to" or "started to" in sentences.

Other common verb qualifiers include:

sort of

tend to

in order to

kind of

must have

seem to

could have

used to

Does this mean you can never write "I began to ..." or "He started to ..."? Some wordsmiths take a radical approach, claiming these constructions should be outlawed except in the hands of a master. Or in realistic dialogue. I allow an exception, as you'll see below. This is an example of phrasing that gets overused to your detriment as a writer. Consider the following examples.

I began to feel goosebumps breaking out on my arms.

Edited for tightness:

Goosebumps broke out on my arms.

We started to run across the field, catching fireflies and laughing like small children.

Edited for tightness:

We ran across the field, catching fireflies and laughing like small children.

Caveat: sometimes you need to write "began to" or "started to" to show a progression in time (another action interrupts what was begun almost immediately) or some other development. These phrases are good and right and necessary in those instances. Just watch out for the unnecessary ones.

While editing a novel for an author client, I did a universal search for the phrases "began to" and "started to" to see how many instances might need paring. I found about one hundred of these pesky phrases. One culpable sentence read something like this: "She began to worry and started to fret about the upcoming weekend."

Taking a cue from the above scenario, let's look at a sample passage that abuses Deadly Don't #4 and then rewrite it for clarity, simplicity, and tightness. Please note that I invented this paragraph to illustrate my point for this book; it was not plucked from an anonymous writer's work.

Claire wasn't sure she could cope anymore. The pressure to keep Tom's advances at bay was starting to build, and as she thought about the upcoming weekend she began to imagine all the ways she could avoid him at the barbeque. Would he be there? Of course, she reminded herself. Wherever she went lately, he managed to be there.

If only James paid me the attention Tom does, Claire mused.

It started to drizzle outside, and as the rain picked up it began to lull her to sleep. That night she dreamed of a summer barbeque at a house she didn't recognize — and two very different men in the crowd.

Okay, now let's see how we can render this passage with a little self- editing.

Claire wasn't sure she could cope anymore. The pressure to keep Tom's advances at bay was starting to building fast, and as she thought about the upcoming weekend she began to imagined all the ways she could avoid him at the barbeque. Would he be there? Of course, she reminded herself. Wherever she went lately, he managed to be there.

If only James paid me the attention Tom does, Claire mused.

It started to drizzle outside, and as the rain picked up it began to lulled her to sleep. That night she dreamed of a summer barbeque at a house she didn't recognize — and two very different men in the crowd.

Notice that we didn't need to excise the phrase "started to drizzle" because it would sound awkward to write "It drizzled outside." This is an example of a time when "started to" or "began to" show a progression or development of something. You could also rewrite this clause to avoid the dreaded "started to."

A pattering sound drummed at the window, and she realized it was drizzling outside. As the rain picked up it lulled her to sleep.

Are you curious to find out what happens to Claire at the barbeque? I am too! :)

Divine Do: Eliminate "began to," "started to," and other verb qualifiers from your writing (see exception above — or get creative and rewrite).