Five Ways to Clean Up Your
Sentences
By Matthew Caracciolo
Your first draft is done and you’re on to your second, third, or even fourth draft. You’ve spent countless hours tweaking the story, fixing spots that don’t make sense, improving the pacing, and further developing characters. The global issues are, for the most part, taken care of. Now it’s time to take a closer look at sentence-level issues. Is the writing clear? Is it lively? Is it efficient? As much as a good story, people want readability. Clunky writing, no matter how excellent the story, not only detracts from the reading experience, it reduces the chance that your work is going to see publication in the first place. Before sending off to an editor or agent, review your sentences for these common mistakes.
Avoid Passive Voice
Passive voice, or essentially using “was” before a past tense verb, is not usually the most efficient way to write but it tends to show up when hammering out a rough draft. It’s also easy to forget to include the subject when writing in passive voice. “The party was enjoyed” doesn’t say who enjoyed the party. “The class enjoyed the party” tells the reader who you’re talking about. If you did write “The party was enjoyed by the class,” you’re using two extra words to say the exact same thing. There are times when passive voice is useful, but generally it’s best practice to avoid it. This leads to my next point.
Reconsider Wordy Sentences
To quote Danny Ocean from Ocean’s 11, “Don’t use five words when three will do.” Using too many descriptive words, or too many similarly-defined words, or using clunky sentence structure will slow your reader down and detract from your story’s readability. Keep it simple. Use the best word, not the longest. Take out words that don’t add to your sentence’s meaning.
Minimize Adverbs
One strategy for avoiding wordiness is minimizing your adverbs. We’re not taught that adverbs are lazy, but that’s precisely what they are: a word to describe how something is done rather than showing how it was done. “Slowly, I stumblingly wandered to the kitchen where I just made myself a bowl of cereal” has way too many adverbs in it, and it’s relying on the adverbs to tell the reader how things were done. “Eyes half open and dragging my sleepy feet, I wandered to the refrigerator where I made myself a bowl of cereal” eliminates the adverbs and replaces them with descriptive, sensory details that show, rather than tell the reader how I entered the kitchen. Removing adverbs forces you to visualize a scene and insert details that allow the reader to step into the scene. And yes, “just” is an adverb. Technically, in this example, I added words to my sentence, but which sentence sounds wordier? I get more bang out of my buck with the words in my second sentence.
Simplify Dialogue Tags
If your story includes a lot of dialogue, it’s tempting to venture away from using the ‘said’ tag to more flowery language…he “remarked,” she “stammered,” they “exclaimed.” While these and others certainly have a place and time, it’s best to save them for when they’re most needed. Stick to the basics—said, asked, etc.—and save the more specific tags for the moments where they will have the most bite.
Use an Editing App or Website
Before sending off to an editor, let an editing program run through your work. Personally, I like to use Hemingwayapp.com. Copy your work into the window and the free service locates adverbs, passive voice, and overly convoluted sentences to assign your writing a readability grade. You don’t have to make every change the app suggests (I like my sentences long sometimes), but it’s good to review sentences and perhaps make incremental changes to improve the overall readability.
What mistakes do you find yourself making? What editing strategies have you found successful?
Matthew Caracciolo is a freelance writer and author of The Waygook Book: A Foreigner’s Guide to South Korea from Monday Creek Publishing. He also maintains his own travel blog, Travel is Fatal, on his website. To find out more about The Waygook Book or Travel is Fatal, please visit matthewcaracciolo.com.
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
By Matthew Caracciolo
Your first draft is done and you’re on to your second, third, or even fourth draft. You’ve spent countless hours tweaking the story, fixing spots that don’t make sense, improving the pacing, and further developing characters. The global issues are, for the most part, taken care of. Now it’s time to take a closer look at sentence-level issues. Is the writing clear? Is it lively? Is it efficient? As much as a good story, people want readability. Clunky writing, no matter how excellent the story, not only detracts from the reading experience, it reduces the chance that your work is going to see publication in the first place. Before sending off to an editor or agent, review your sentences for these common mistakes.
Avoid Passive Voice
Passive voice, or essentially using “was” before a past tense verb, is not usually the most efficient way to write but it tends to show up when hammering out a rough draft. It’s also easy to forget to include the subject when writing in passive voice. “The party was enjoyed” doesn’t say who enjoyed the party. “The class enjoyed the party” tells the reader who you’re talking about. If you did write “The party was enjoyed by the class,” you’re using two extra words to say the exact same thing. There are times when passive voice is useful, but generally it’s best practice to avoid it. This leads to my next point.
Reconsider Wordy Sentences
To quote Danny Ocean from Ocean’s 11, “Don’t use five words when three will do.” Using too many descriptive words, or too many similarly-defined words, or using clunky sentence structure will slow your reader down and detract from your story’s readability. Keep it simple. Use the best word, not the longest. Take out words that don’t add to your sentence’s meaning.
Minimize Adverbs
One strategy for avoiding wordiness is minimizing your adverbs. We’re not taught that adverbs are lazy, but that’s precisely what they are: a word to describe how something is done rather than showing how it was done. “Slowly, I stumblingly wandered to the kitchen where I just made myself a bowl of cereal” has way too many adverbs in it, and it’s relying on the adverbs to tell the reader how things were done. “Eyes half open and dragging my sleepy feet, I wandered to the refrigerator where I made myself a bowl of cereal” eliminates the adverbs and replaces them with descriptive, sensory details that show, rather than tell the reader how I entered the kitchen. Removing adverbs forces you to visualize a scene and insert details that allow the reader to step into the scene. And yes, “just” is an adverb. Technically, in this example, I added words to my sentence, but which sentence sounds wordier? I get more bang out of my buck with the words in my second sentence.
Simplify Dialogue Tags
If your story includes a lot of dialogue, it’s tempting to venture away from using the ‘said’ tag to more flowery language…he “remarked,” she “stammered,” they “exclaimed.” While these and others certainly have a place and time, it’s best to save them for when they’re most needed. Stick to the basics—said, asked, etc.—and save the more specific tags for the moments where they will have the most bite.
Use an Editing App or Website
Before sending off to an editor, let an editing program run through your work. Personally, I like to use Hemingwayapp.com. Copy your work into the window and the free service locates adverbs, passive voice, and overly convoluted sentences to assign your writing a readability grade. You don’t have to make every change the app suggests (I like my sentences long sometimes), but it’s good to review sentences and perhaps make incremental changes to improve the overall readability.
What mistakes do you find yourself making? What editing strategies have you found successful?
Matthew Caracciolo is a freelance writer and author of The Waygook Book: A Foreigner’s Guide to South Korea from Monday Creek Publishing. He also maintains his own travel blog, Travel is Fatal, on his website. To find out more about The Waygook Book or Travel is Fatal, please visit matthewcaracciolo.com.
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
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