How to Improve your own writing or fix someone else’s:
This is Part 2 of an ongoing series.
Welcome to Part 2 of the “How to Fix Terrible Writing” series. Where we look at how to improve your own writing or fix someone else’s. Click the following link if you missed the first entry, “How to Fix Terrible Writing Part 1“. Once you get up to speed I hope you find yourself back here.
Refreshing our Memories
Have you ever read an excerpt from a work of fiction and just could not understand it? Or were you able to understand it, but it was riddled with errors, over-explanations, or unrealistic dialogue? In this series we will tackle How to Fix Terrible Writing.
Sometimes you are tasked with editing, proofreading, or writing a project yourself. Other times you may be ghostwriting in service of someone with stellar ideas, but lacking the ability to fine tune stories into a novel format. Now, that said, I’m not going to go out and find other people’s work to insult and correct.
Yes, you heard that right. For this series I will be correcting samples of my own work. Luckily, I was able to dig up a flash-drive from 20 years ago. And on that flash-drive was a folder titled “Novel Notes”. And after converting the files from the defunct .wps format into a document readable by Microsoft Word, I was horrified at what I saw.
Series Intro:
Throughout this series you will see examples taken from excerpts of my old work, and then I will compare it to excerpts of how I ultimately “fixed” it. I will provide notes and examples where necessary and try to convey how these changes were indeed necessary, and made the work remarkably better.
For Part 2 of this series we will move on to the second page. Each additional post will cover the additional pages. Part 3 will examine page 3, Part 4 Page 4, and so forth. For each post in this series I will add numbered headings where I will pick a certain flaw and attempt to clarify why it needs fixing.
Let’s Get Back Into It:
Scanning the first few sentences I can already see some of the examples we covered in Part 1. We have ‘train of thought’ narrative pushing boundaries with commas.
1. Using the same word too frequently.
One thing you might notice right off the bat is two instances of the word ‘opposite’ aligned vertically on the left. Sometimes re-using a descriptive word can work. In this instance though, let’s imagine it was printed this way in a book. It could become confusing to the reader when they loop back to the same word. I also think that it can be written better in a descriptive sense.
2. Jarring Grammar
“A real thunder booms,” This example calls back to the previous page, where we established that the watchman character believed the rolling thunder from the hills to be actual thunder and then saw the troop movement was creating the noise. We ditched that previously and we will ditch it here again. At this point in the narrative it is jarring and too far away to be an effective callback.
3. Punctuation, Punctuation, Punctuation.
There are multiple examples in the first two paragraphs where a comma is necessary but not used. Of course, there are areas where commas are needed and they are present. It just looks like lazy writing to use it correctly in some instances and incorrectly in others.
4. Shoddy Dialogue
In the middle of the page we get to the dialogue portion. I don’t want to overuse the word cringe in this series, so for this particular example let’s just say the dialogue is shoddy. It is a chore to read, follow, and interpret. It needs speaker tags, or just more description of the overall atmosphere surrounding the conversation. The last line is just terrible. Using […] can be effective, but use it wisely. Here it is used too much and adds confusion. Simply putting in [,” he paused, “] would have worked better here.
5. The Semi-Colon
Have you ever wondered how to use a semi-colon correctly? Me too, and just because Microsoft word tells you to put it there doesn’t mean you should use it. The example in the short paragraph following the dialog could have been split into two sentences. If it is part of your writing style and you use it correctly it isn’t a problem. But if your word processing software just tells you it belongs, and you rarely use it elsewhere, it’s probably best to forgo the Semi-Colon.
Stay Focused
You’ll notice I’m not trying to harp on the same exact problems that I found on the previous post for page 1. Astute as you are, you probably notice some of the same stuff going on. I want to try and be more comprehensive and find new examples for things to fix on each page and post. As we go forward though, you will notice I might call back to things previously mentioned, especially if it’s an egregious example.
But, for now, I’ll just remind you that I do also want to steer the content on page 2 away from over explanation and bad narrative flow. I also want to polish the grammar and have the descriptions sound more professional and less like a teenager wrote it hastily. And we definitely need to put it in past tense.
The Edit:
1. Thunder Thunder Thunder
Speaking of overusing words earlier in the post, it’s best to try and mitigate the overuse of the word “thunder.” We don’t want the reader to end up being pounded on the head, as if by thunder, with the word “thunder” by the time they are done with the section.
2. Remember to clean up elementary descriptions.
We know there is a story being told here and we can grasp what the original document intends. However, it is best to re-write with a more descriptive and better flowing vocabulary. Sometimes, all that is needed is cleaning it up and conveying it differently. Here this is achieved with more descriptive words and better structured sentences. So that they flow more easily but also don’t sound contrived or over explained.
3. Fixing that Dialogue section
You’ll notice for the re-write that the dialogue portion is much longer. I also put in a paragraph to break it up and have it make more sense. It needed to fit into the story and it needed narrative tags added to the quotes. I hope you can see that it makes a good bit of difference.
4. Sometimes it’s a simple fix
For the last paragraph, I came to a stopping point for two reasons. One, I think I was only re-wording the course of events to make it sound better. Two, the paragraph is too large and needs to be split up anyway.
Once again, Your Input is Valuable
Below you can analyze a side by side comparison. As you make your way through the rest, I hope you can see how the changes fit with what I’ve been explaining. I hope you came away with an answer to solve “How to Fix Terrible Writing”, whether it be your own, or for a project. And found reasons why the original work was lacking in those regards. Please engage in the comments below. I’d like to hear your thoughts. I hope to see you again in Part 3, when we cover Page 3. For now, I’ll turn the page. See you then.
For Part 1 of this series CLICK HERE.
For subsequent parts, links will be added here as they are posted.
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