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Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?

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Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?

#51

Post by Wowfunhappy »

tannerc wrote: post #38
apo wrote: post #2

My own pet peeve in non-fiction, particularly the kind that appears on blogs: the excruciating warmup before the author finally gets to the point of the post. I know why this happens. When you sit down to write, you don't know what exactly you're going to say. You may even be anxious about it. Then, an idea sparks your imagination and you start writing stuff. The warmup that comes out initially gets you on track. Not…

This can be a highly effective form of writing when done well. A strong setup can certainly pull readers in. The problem is often most inexperienced writers use such a setup to clear away their "mind fog" and get to the point. And once the words are on the page it's hard to remove them (nobody wants wasted effort). My guidance to new writers is always this: start with two bulleted items. First is a question or primin…

Just to add onto this, I often write the sort of lead in paragraphs the GP describes last or nearly last. So it’s absolutely not the case that I used them as a way to clear my mind—the primary point was already there, I just wanted to introduce it a different way.

Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?

#52

Post by neonate »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #48
chadcmulligan wrote: post #42

As a techie I write good, but I always feel woefully inadequate when reading the nuances that real writers consider.

I don't know the best way to tell you that your fly is down, but... 'well'. You write well.

I think he wrote that ironically.

Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?

#53

Post by ACow_Adonis »

coat wrote: post #29
Someone1234 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain why? The phase allows you, after having made a point, to invert that point then suggest an alternative explanation or perspective. I read a few of the posts in the search results, and "That being said" felt natural in many cases to join sometimes contradictory positions or different degrees of the same position together into one fluid thought. Someone can cringe at anyone. Without offering critique, i…

I don't really have a good explanation other than we already have words like 'However' and 'But'. It also seems redundant, maybe just start typing your contradictory position without the need for a connecting phrase? That being said, it may just be me who is annoyed by the phrase. I think it just gets used a lot and I can't help but notice for some reason. I think I've associated the phrase with strawman arguments an…

I don't mind phrases like 'that being said', aside from the general critique of cliche-repetition.

To me it carries connotations of the first clause having validity while the second apparently contrasting point also has validity. Its specific purpose is to allow a connection between points, without explicitly eliminating or contradicting any of the clauses.

Using 'however' or 'but' lacks this contextualisation, and that's without getting into the criticisms of their use is popular speech and writing (i.e. when someone says two clauses of the form 'A, but B.' what they usually mean is 'B').

Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?

#54

Post by AlexCoventry »

winter_blue wrote: post #22
Animats wrote: post #12

From the article: Many writers rely more heavily on pronouns than I’d suggest is useful. For me this sort of thing comes under the heading Remember that Writing Is Not Speaking. When we talk, we can usually make ourselves understood even amid a flood of vague “he”s and “she”s. On the page, too many pronouns are apt to be confounding. I’d strongly suggest to the point of insistence that you avoid referring to two peop…

I bought Benjamin Dreyer (the author)'s book on writing style, and the arrogant title of his book alone should have been a red flag. I'd strognly recommend On Writing Well instead.

On Writing Well has some ok advice, but not much of it. Style: Lessons in Clarity And Grace is much more comprehensive.

Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?

#55

Post by AgentME »

ddxxdd wrote: post #10

>"This may be a particular peeve of mine and no one else’s, but I note it, because it’s my book: Name-dropping, for no better reason than to show off, under-appreciated novels, obscure foreign films, or cherished indie bands by having one’s characters irrelevantly reading or watching or listening to them is massively sore-thumbish. A novel is not a blog post about Your Favorite Things.[5] If you must do this sort of…

The book is basically an elaborate setup for "nostalgia and trivia save the world", so I'm pretty sure this is an example of an author deliberately flaunting a rule and trying to make it work rather than stumbling into it accidentally. As someone that loves nerding out about various media, I liked reading a book for once about characters that did too. (I'd like to see that more, but hopefully as less of a center-stage beating-the-reader-over-the-head-with-it sort of way in the future.)

Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?

#56

Post by rimliu »

tannerc wrote: post #38
apo wrote: post #2

My own pet peeve in non-fiction, particularly the kind that appears on blogs: the excruciating warmup before the author finally gets to the point of the post. I know why this happens. When you sit down to write, you don't know what exactly you're going to say. You may even be anxious about it. Then, an idea sparks your imagination and you start writing stuff. The warmup that comes out initially gets you on track. Not…

This can be a highly effective form of writing when done well. A strong setup can certainly pull readers in. The problem is often most inexperienced writers use such a setup to clear away their "mind fog" and get to the point. And once the words are on the page it's hard to remove them (nobody wants wasted effort). My guidance to new writers is always this: start with two bulleted items. First is a question or primin…

It may be a highly effective form of writing for story telling. It is extremely annoying for technical blog posts. It's kind of a youtubezation of the writing.

Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?

#57

Post by dspillett »

kaycebasques wrote: post #5
nn3 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is even worse in internet recipes. The authors tend to go on and on about their feelings, family and personal stories before finally getting to the point how to actually cook the dish. I usually have to skip several paragraphs.

I always assumed that this is an SEO practice?

I'm not sure how a section of information that is often largely irrelevant to the recipe (despite mentioning a few key terms) is going to be a valuable SEO practise.

I assume people are trying to be the next online cooking personality who gets to publish a book. I've seen a couple in shops with pictures of YouTube recipe demonstration people on the cover.

Also, more text is more "content" to mix adverts into.

Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?

#60

Post by Steve44 »

kaycebasques wrote: post #5
nn3 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is even worse in internet recipes. The authors tend to go on and on about their feelings, family and personal stories before finally getting to the point how to actually cook the dish. I usually have to skip several paragraphs.

I always assumed that this is an SEO practice?

Something I read a couple of weeks ago discussed this. From what I remember it’s to increase the time a user spends on a page, this increases the page ranking in Google; ISTR it was called dwell time.
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