Lucid Writing Advice VI

This is how a more experienced writer would do that same scene. Observe closely:

Valmir stood in the clearing, watching the advancing army galloping across the plain. In a swift motion he raised his hands as a ball of howling flame came to his palms. Spinning his arms around he allowed the flame to engulf his hands.

See what I mean? This writer simply did away with all the first, second, and thrid. I would suggest you do the same.

It is hard to not to fall into the trap-hole of deception, yet every writer, including me if you have notice, have typed a word that isn’t exactly the one they wanted. The writer is bound to skip over such errors, yet the reader will be very picky.

Most of you probably didn’t catch the misspelling of the word third in the second to last sentence in the last topic. When any writer gets into that zone when their typing up a tempest they usually forget their spelling. It’s only the story they see and nothing else. They will ultimately, if on a computer, will go back and hit the spell check button to supposedly correct such mistakes. But look at the type of problem arises in the short passage below:

Spell check saw nothing wrong with the spelling, yet their is a minor problem. The clerk said ‘too’ instead of ‘two’, and such an error is bound to come up in a lot of writing. Two, not too, is used to show an amount.

Below is a list of commonly confused words.

accept-to receive
except-to exclude

angel-spiritual being
angle-corner

And the list goes on forever into the mists of bad writing. A good way to check for these mistakes will be to simply read your writing closely and pay attention to the words you type. If you don’t, your readers certainly will.

Or the way you use your words. New writers fall head first into this quicksand, and yet they believe their not falling anywhere. A person who is a farmer in a story wouldn’t ever talk like a scientist working undercover for the government. People have their own way to saying their words, and how they make a point.

Most writers think jargon helps give their story some sort of sharp edge, thinking the reader will marvel at their span of vocabulary. Yes, they will marvel, but at how you could have ever written such a story without at least letting them know what it was all about.

Perceive the following:

It took Luther a plethora of time just to reach the multitudinous garden of herbs. The sirocco around him did nothing to the make his mind become dissuaded.

Okay, now, can anyone tell me what all that was about? If you can’t, well neither can I. This writer used too many fancy words to polish the passage. And note how Luther spoke, his words seem almost robot-like in that they don’t sound...human.

This is that passage without the jargon:

It took Luther a long of time just to reach the large garden of herbs. The storm around him did nothing to the make his mind become discouraged.

" Now," he said uneasily, " I will start the ceremony.."