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Rules For Writers


Turakii #1 Lavasurfer

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You may have heard this before, but I've always wanted to put it...somewhere.

 

And it's all true. That's the funny part.

 

Rules for Writers

 

 

1. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.

 

2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.

 

3. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.

 

4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.

 

5. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)

 

6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.

 

7. Be more or less specific.

 

8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.

 

9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.

 

10. No sentence fragments.

 

11. Contractions aren't necessary and shouldn't be used.

 

12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.

 

13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.

 

14. One should NEVER generalize.

 

15. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.

 

16. Don't use no double negatives.

 

17. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.

 

18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.

 

19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.

 

20. The passive voice is to be ignored.

 

21. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.

 

22. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.

 

23. DO NOT USE EXCLAMATION POINTS AND ALL CAPS TO EMPHASIZE!!!

 

24. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.

 

25. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth shaking ideas.

 

26. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not needed.

 

27. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."

 

28. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.

 

29. Puns are for children, not groan readers.

 

30. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.

 

31. Who needs rhetorical questions?

 

32. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.

 

33. Do not put statements in the negative form.

 

34. A writer must not shift your point of view.

 

35. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.

 

36. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.

 

37. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.

 

38. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.

 

39. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.

 

40. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.

 

41. Always pick on the correct idiom.

 

42. The adverb always follows the verb.

 

43. Be careful to use the rite homonym. And finally...

 

44. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

 

 

Turakii

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...Grammar is my worst subject...sigh.

It's my worst subject, too. Next to math.

 

Thanks for the tips, Turakii! (I printed them out! :P)

 

-::g::m::

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23. DO NOT USE EXCLAMATION POINTS AND ALL CAPS TO EMPHASIZE!!!

 

DARN!!!!

 

But how do I emphasize? I need a lot of emphasizing in my stories...

 

And no, that was not a rhetorical question.

 

Very useful, for writers, like me. Well done! :biggrin:

 

~Light~

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You came up with all of that yourself? You're a genius, girl! :P

 

My favorite was probably the rhetorical questions one. :lol:

 

~DudeNuva~

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Turakii didn't write this. It's one of those public domain things that goes around the Internet/email, and it's been around for years. She just posted it here.

 

Just so there's no cries of plagiarism. ;)

 

~Toa Macku~

 

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My sixth-grade English teacher had this list. I loved reading it. :D *proud to have understood all of that*

 

... Except the one about adverbs, which are sometimes randomly placed in the middle of verbs, or before them. But maybe I've been studying Latin too much, where matter not word order does. :P (Oh, look, hyperbaton! Can I drag rhetoric terminology into this?)

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Who needs rhetorical questions?

What if there were no rhetorical questions?

 

Anyway, this is all, what's the word? Hilarious.

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4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.

 

Objection, your Honour!!

 

That is a superstition: English is the only language in which verbs consist of a "to ---" format, so it came to be considered unlucky to split the infinitive in half. This is untrue. It's perfectly fine. Look, Gene Roddenberry did it: "To boldly go where no man has gone before." So many people have discounted that on the basis of that rule, when in fact it's really not a problem at all.

 

As to foreign words, contractions, fragments, one-word sentences: if you're using them to excuse bad writing, then they're no excuse at all. However, all can be present in excellent writing, and in that case, I personally see no problem with them at all.

 

Have you ever heard the word sprachgefuhl? (Yes, it's English. Carried directly from German, obviously, but it's English.) Webster's defines it as "sensibility to conformance with or divergence from the established usage (as in form or idiom) of a language", or "a feeling for what is linguistically effective or appropriate". I think it applies perfectly in good writing. Most rules listed above, I feel, can be completely ignored, if the writing calls for it.

 

Hooray for English and how much we can mess with it.

 

However, people like e. e. cummings have a lot of explaining to do. I don't care how famous you are, you don't get to ignore capital letters.

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