Less is More - Giving up flabby writing
January is the month of giving up: giving up overspending, overeating and under exercising. All the magazines are full of diets, ways to exercise and how to be wiser with our cash. While, like many of you, I will be planning a new start for my writing, I’m also looking for ways to be wiser with my words, time and energy. When I’ve made time to edit my more recent posts for More Than Writers (MTW), I realise how flabby my prose can be. I use too many conjunctions. Removing excess ands and buts means shorter sentences without losing meaning. For short stories, fewer unnecessary words mean I can add more to descriptions or at least get under the word count. While conjunctions may not be abundant in poetry, culling weak words or filler phrases in favour of stronger images is just as important. Making time to plan and structure my writing can also be more effective. Too many times, I have convinced myself that I could just run off a post in the last week of the month. I then ramble on a...