That’s bovine feces. Each sentence demands its own way of being written.
Start and end every paragraph with the most important sentences. They’re the only parts skimmers will read.
a) Each subject will demand its own structure, and the most important idea can very well be located anywhere in the paragraph. b) Good writing aims to engage, to absorb, to become unskimmable. If you are being skimmed, you’re not doing it right.
Write quickly.
Not necessarily. Each writer must find the rhythm that works for h**self.
I trained myself to believe the first draft doesn’t matter.
Some writers write a draft of the entire story. Moi, I draft sentence by sentence. Again, each writer must find the style that fits h** goals and sensibilities.
Changing the formatting can help you freshly focus. Try printing your pieces or dramatically changing the font size.
This is actually good advice.
Quick readers can get bored. [...] Make them work, but not too hard.
As long as what you write makes sense, I don’t care if you force me to unravel a perfectly grammatical yet labyrinthic sentence that spans sixteen pages. In fact, I may enjoy it more because of that.
When in doubt, ask: What would Ernest Hemingway do?
Insert your preferred writer in that sentence. Not everyone must like the books you like.
Your post is more correct than the OP. But it’s also less helpful. You point out that there are exceptions to pretty much all of the OP’s suggestions, which is totally true. But it would be useful if you pointed out examples of what some of those exceptions actually are.
What does that mean?
That’s bovine feces. Each sentence demands its own way of being written.
a) Each subject will demand its own structure, and the most important idea can very well be located anywhere in the paragraph. b) Good writing aims to engage, to absorb, to become unskimmable. If you are being skimmed, you’re not doing it right.
Not necessarily. Each writer must find the rhythm that works for h**self.
Some writers write a draft of the entire story. Moi, I draft sentence by sentence. Again, each writer must find the style that fits h** goals and sensibilities.
This is actually good advice.
As long as what you write makes sense, I don’t care if you force me to unravel a perfectly grammatical yet labyrinthic sentence that spans sixteen pages. In fact, I may enjoy it more because of that.
Insert your preferred writer in that sentence. Not everyone must like the books you like.
Your post is more correct than the OP. But it’s also less helpful. You point out that there are exceptions to pretty much all of the OP’s suggestions, which is totally true. But it would be useful if you pointed out examples of what some of those exceptions actually are.
Not according to Stephen King
Can you elaborate?
Stephen King in his book “On Writing—A memoir of the craft” states that he prefers it when people avoid the passive form of writing.
He also further goes on to “speculate” that people like the passive voice for the same reason that people like to be passive lovers.