The Journey to Writing a Successful Story: a tip book

Prose and More

This was requested, so I'm terribly sorry for the delay...

Anyway...

Before I get to their actual question, I wanted to talk a bit about how certain words can make or break your writing. Often times, words can be seen as weak if they're not used correctly or in certain circumstances.

So here are two tips and tricks I got from a website ( - https://www.novel-writing-help.com/prose-writing.html - also, I have added the external link to it, so you can check out the rest of the tips):

1) Don't overuse adjectives or adverbs.

This doesn't mean to avoid them, but you want to be cautious when writing. For example, say: "Jane ran across the road," instead of, "Jane crossed the road quickly."

2) Avoid passive voice.

The active voice does wonders when you play around with the words. For example, instead of: "The shed was burned by the fire," it would be better as, "The fire burned the shed." Or perhaps, instead of, "The essay about cars was written by Jonathan," it would be best to write it like, "Jonathan wrote the essay about cars."

Now, for the other part of this (the request):

Words like was, as, could, and would can be a bit tricky because sometimes, it seems like every sentence needs them. But actually, you can do just fine without overdoing it. It's all about playing with the word and rewriting the sentence in different ways. You could cut it out or figure out another word (sometimes, an "ed" word) to help make it stronger.

Here's some examples:

"Our mother was the driver of the bus." It would be better as: "Our mother drove the bus."

"The stock market was fluctuating wildly before the crash." Eh, it could be better as: "The stock market fluctuated wildly before the crash."

See what I mean? If you play around, cut off some words, mix words up... it'll help tremendously.

"Jeremy wanted to scream as loud as he could." "As loud as he could" is actually a pretty weak phrase and not to mention, a pretty common one too. Trust me, I've used this many times as well in the past. Instead of using "as loud as he could" try describing their emotions. For example: "Jeremy wanted to scream like a banshee." That could work. Possibly. But it still sounds weak. So you could try: "Jeremy wanted to scream until his lungs cracked open." Much better.

Here's also a list of great strong words that can help you: