Consider these three sentences:

1. It was a dark and stormy night.
2. Great crashing Zeus’s fire split the ink-black sky into razor blades.
3. Lightning pierced the heavens, banishing night for a heartbeat.

Number 1 was insipid. If it created an image in your mind it was probably Snoopy typing on his doghouse in the comic strip Peanuts. It’s lazy writing.

Number 2 is purple prose, with mixed metaphors and reaching, confusing imagery (Zeus’s fire? You’re counting on your audience instantly knowing the Greek god threw lightning, not flames). The reader must work to form an image.

Number 3 works. You see the lightning brightening the sky for a moment. Maybe “heartbeat” won’t be seen as a unit of time and therefore briefly confuse the reader, or maybe it won’t be an issue at all.

Create Movies in the Reader’s Mind

Readers need to see what your words describe, effortlessly, instantly. The magic of reading is that every reader is their own cinematographer—no two readers imagine the same thing, but we must give just enough for them to build a wondrous scene.

Over-describing bogs down the reader; the writer is trying to take over the cinematography role. Lazy writing doesn’t give enough or doesn’t entice the reader to imagine the scene. Finding balance is an author’s job.

Those Pesky English Rules 

Rules of English allow an image to be built from words.

Active Voice vs. Passive Voice

Passive voice makes the reader wait to build the picture. “The ball was thrown by Scott to the dog.” This passive construction forces the reader to imagine a ball. What kind of ball? Ah, it was thrown, so it’s smallish, oh, Scott threw a ball (revise image), where? To the dog. The image is built in fits and starts.

Now, “Scott threw the ball to his dog.” The image progresses easily. Scott, oh, he’s throwing a ball to his dog.

Proper Modifier Placement

“Scott fed his dog because he was drooling.” Who was drooling? “Scott fed his drooling dog.” Ah, there’s the picture (what kind of dog did you see?).

Adjectives, as my English teacher bleated, means you’re using the wrong word. Adjectives modify a word. “I’m very tired.” Does this describe you as well as, “I’m exhausted” or “I’m out-on-my-feet” or “I’m on my lips” … each example is a tad more out there, but they are better than “I’m very tired.”

Punctuation is Always a Clarifier

“A good breakfast includes two of the following bread fries bacon ham and eggs.” Ugg. Do you see the difference between the following two sentences?

• A good breakfast includes two of the following: bread, fries, bacon, ham and eggs.
• A good breakfast includes two of the following: bread, fries, bacon, ham, and eggs.

The Oxford comma makes it clear that ham and eggs are separate items, not a singular ham and eggs. (And yes, “or” would have made that clear, too).

I admit it. I can be a lazy writer despite my efforts to the contrary. Thank the dear Lord for editors!

Maybe your blog post doesn’t, but if you’re working on a document of any size, like a short story, novel, or non-fiction book, you’re going to need an editor.

The human mind is a miraculous thing. If you’re the author, you can read a sentence and never see the typo because you aren’t reading what’s there, you’re reading what you meant to put there.

If you’re a grammarian, English wizard, or savant in language, you may need just the lightest of editors, but there are three levels of editing, and three strata of editing. We’ll go from the most expensive to the least:

Ghostwriter: Written language isn’t your friend, you’re dyslexic, skipped that day in school, or just not practiced enough, but you have a great idea for a book. You can talk about it, just not write it well. You need a ghostwriter, who isn’t really an editor, but close enough. This is expensive, expect to pay up front, and DO NOT suggest to a ghost you split the royalties.

Book Doctor: The person who could have used a Ghost writes it anyway. Badly. The prose is on life support, so you need a Book Doctor to rewrite your book. Cheaper than a ghost, but still pricey.

Editor: There are three levels of editing:

1. Story editing: This is an editor who looks at the story structure, unifies genre, clarifies character arcs, and helps identify holes and logic fallacies. You’ll want a professional for this, but you may not need this if you know what you’re doing. Story editing can come at the outline stage or later.
2. Copy editor: Confirms the story is tied up with a bow.
3. Proof editor: This is word by word, line by line editing. They catch the typos.

That can all be very expensive, but there are some short cuts:

Beta Readers: These are friends who love books and will read a draft, giving you input on clarity and shortcomings. Each reader will bring something different to the table. Figure out your pool of beta readers, send the first draft to half and then after you implement their changes, send that draft to the other half.

Word Checker: This comes with MS Word and can be set to check grammar and spelling. It’s pretty weak though.

Grammarly Basic and Pro: The free version is enough for me. It’s better than Word Checker. The paid version catches even more “premium” errors.

Never just “accept all changes.” This is machine checking and you should look at each error. Some aren’t errors at all.

Finally, we all have that friend who is a member of the Grammar Military. These folks can’t help but mark up text. I check out books at the library, and a Five-Star Grammar General with similar taste in books has pencil-marked the typos in almost every book I read. Only once have I seen a book with her penciled checkmark that meant there were no typos.

EVERYTHING has typos. Get over it. A handful of typos in a book length project is a success. A boatload, not so much.

Always go with the free stuff first, but PLEASE embolden your beta readers to rip it up if necessary. Feedback is good; critique is good; editing is not shameful or mean anything about your writing. Everyone needs an editor. Sometimes you’ll need to pay, but not always.