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Health & Fitness

"As" Rejection Syndrome

You’ve been up since three in the morning. You have written 1,500 words, about six pages of what you hope will be a blockbuster. God Bless NaNoWriMo. Now what?

Delete all the adjectives and adverbs, intensifiers too.

Just Say "No"

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When you finish NaNoWriMo November 30th, and submit your work for publication, be aware – 98 percent of all submissions are rejected. Here's what happens:  After the editor reads your first paragraph, you’ve been identified as an amateur writer, not worthy of publication. How did the editor know?

Every other word you wrote was an adjective. Did you not hear the laughter that accompanied “It was a dark and stormy night?”

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I can guarantee that your writing will improve if you delete adjectives. Then, remove adverbs, the -ly spoilers that insult your readers. Keep going until intensifiers such as 'very' 'slowly' 'virtually' and the lot have been snuffed. If you can’t remove them yourself, I’ll do it for you. Send me a page of what your think is perfect and I”ll show you how you can live without what’s keeping you from getting published.

How to re-write “. . . . dark and stormy night?”

Try “The eye of the hurricane reached my bedroom just after midnight.”

Or, "The night all the storms in the world sucked the air out of St. Louis."

Got the picture? Key word: modifier. I'm forming evaluation groups now. Call The Writing Loft for more information. 

949.272.0556

Email jeanbraun@thewritingloft.com

We Teach Writers To Be Authors at The Writing Loft

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