In this week’s post, we look at how to improve your prose – and get you writing like a professional!
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Now, I am no professional writer, even if I wish to be. I have written extensively across the Sci-Fi and Fantasy genres, but no bites from agents or publishers just yet. However, one thing I am qualified to talk about is the nitty-gritty of how to write. Sometimes, my work gets praise for its characters, storylines, or world – but regardless, the one thing I always receive praise for is my prose.
And so I would like to share some of my advice with you guys. It might come in handy. This might become a multi-part post, if I feel there is anything more to add. So far, though, I think the five points I’ve listed below should come handy.
GRAMMAR
Frustratingly, the thing I find most neglected by amateur writers is their grammar. No one understands the importance of correct grammar: it makes your work legible, understandable, and neat. Bad grammar can also be highly distracting for readers – especially readers who are well-aware of grammar conventions. Formatting issues and mistypes are one thing – that extra space you put before a full stop, or that “thrown” that should have been “flown” – but structural grammar mistakes really harm your work quite badly. If you can get your grammar nailed down, it will elevate you above a see of mediocre writers with poor grammar.
Some of the common issues I see are:
- Comma splicing (using a comma where there should be a full stop)
- Tense mistakes
- Dialogue mistakes
These mistakes are very frustrating – especially as they’re so easily resolvable. I have seen writers with great prose, held back by poor grammar; likewise, even writers with poor prose see an immediate boost in the quality of their work just by ensuring they are using grammar correctly.
SENTENCE VARIETY
Ah, my greatest weakness. I never claimed to have perfect prose, and this is the thing that’s really holding me back in my prose; I’m sure it’s holding many of you back as well. Sentence variety is hugely important to writing prose: it dictates your rhythm, pacing, and can be used to great effect for emphasis. For example, in a tight, tense action scene, you may be more inclined to use short, sharp sentences, while a lazy beach scene might warrant some longer, lazier sentences. Sentence is variety is so important, and there are so many elements that go into it. The most important – to me – would be sentence structure, sentence length, and sentence openings.
Sentence structure looks primarily at your clauses – be they independent or subordinate – and how they are arranged in the sentence. One simple example is the choice of whether to have a subordinate clause at the beginning, middle, or end of your sentence. It can also include the use of certain punctuation such as em-dashes ( – ), colons ( : ), or semicolons ( ; ). Making sure your sentences have different structures is important to not make your paragraphs sound stagnant and boring. Taking this to a more advanced level, you can also emphasise coherency in your sentence structures, allowing one sentence to flow into the next with ease.
Sentence length, as already mentioned earlier, is also a very important part of sentence variety. Mixing up different lengths of different sentences can really give your writing a voice. As with sentence structure, having sentences of the same length can make your writing dull – especially for longer sentences. Shorter sentences (generally) can get away with a bit of repetition. However, you have to earnthose longer sentences. Amateur writers often think, after picking up a bit of Tolkien, that every sentence must be this uber-long majesty of wordplay and description. That’s not the case. Modern readers will grow very tired of endless pages of long, overstuffed sentences, so try to variate your sentence lengths.
Finally, sentence openings are a good way to variate your sentences. This ranges simply from not starting every sentence with the same word (don’t have three sentences in a row all starting with “the”) to variating the structure of the opening. You can open with a subordinate clause, an adverb, a present participle, and many other varieties. Again, this helps with rhythm and flow, whilst also stopping your writing being dull to read. 😊
OVERSTUFFED SENTENCES
I hinted at this slightly in the previous section, but overstuffed sentences are a big issue for newbie writers (and even some “experienced” writers). Cramming as much as you can in each sentence leads to several issues: firstly, it can make your sentences confusing and difficult to read; secondly, it can also make your sentences needlessly long – and as I explored in the previous section, a series of long, drawn-out sentences can really slow the pace of your story and bore the reader; and thirdly, it can often read as clunky and amateurish.
Here are a few potential solutions for this:
- Cut filler words and phrases from the sentence and reword so you are saying the same thing but in fewer words.
- Break the sentence down into smaller sentences.
- Remove unnecessary or irrelevant information from the sentence; keep only what is necessary to drive the story along.
The hardest part in dealing with overstuffed sentences is for writers to recognise them. They can often be difficult for writers to detect, but a general rule of thumb I use is, if your sentence is relatively long and/or has more than a couple additional clauses (aside from the independent clause), then it is likely overstuffed. However, please do take this as a very vague rule of thumb: sentences with more than a couple additional clauses may not be overstuffed, and likewise, even if your sentence only has one or two additional clauses, it may still be overstuffed.
DIALOGUE TAGS
An underappreciated part of writing prose are your dialogue tags, the words attached to your dialogue that is outside of the actual speech itself. Generally, I find using action tags to be far more effective than simply using a normal speech tag. I will show you by highlighting the contrast between Speech (A) – which uses a normal speech tag – and Speech (B) – which uses an action tag. The dialogue between the two is unchanged. It’s quite a basic example, but I hope it illustrates clearly what I’m trying to say.
Speech (A)
“Yes,” he said.
Speech (B)
He nodded. “Yes.”
Notice how (B) feels far more dynamic and rooted in the scene. There is nothing especially wrong with using “said” – but your dialogue will be far more impactful if there is an action tag to go along with it, to immerse your reader in the scene. It also generally stops issues such as:
“Yes,” he said. “How many?”
“Four,” she replied.
“That many?” he asked.
Using action tags, we can make this more dynamic:
He nodded. “Yes. How many?”
“Four.” She bit her lip, nervous.
He sighed, shaking his head. “That many?”
As you can see, we have taken this further by variating the style and structure of the dialogue tags. This can be done by arranging the order of the dialogue and tag, or by using some of the method we outlined in our section on sentence variety. We can also add variety by not using a dialogue tag at all and simply implying (from the previous order of dialogue) who the speaker is. I would warn against this, generally, though, as it can rob a scene of some of its immersion. If used correctly, however, it can add a bit of pace to your dialogue.
WORD AND PUNCTUATION CHOICE
Finally, I want to end this post by looking at word and punctuation choice. This is a very important part of improving your prose, though maybe not as foundational as some of the other points I’ve made (I am especially looking at those first three sections). However, it is still important, and I would like to touch on it.
Firstly, a brief bit on punctuation choice. Generally, you want to have a bit of variety with your punctuation. Including colons ( : ), for example, can add some needed sentence variety and add some professionalism to your work. Question marks ( ? ) can also be used to great effect in immersing readers in the plot and in the mysteries of the story. However, you don’t want to be overusing certain “exotic” types of punctuation. I most commonly see writers overusing exclamation marks ( ! ), semicolons ( ; ), em dashes ( – ), and ellipses ( … ). While using these punctuation marks is not bad, using them all of the time robs them of their impact – especially ellipses and exclamation marks. Full stops may feel a bit simple, but sometimes, that sentence is more impactful with a full stop than an ellipses – and it adds impact to your next ellipses. There are also issues regarding how certain punctuation is used: using ellipses and exclamation marks (especially exclamation marks) outside of dialogue can come across as amateurish and clunky, and I would not advise it to be done much, if at all.
Onto word choice, which is just as – if not more – important.
When writing your prose, one of the foremost things to consider is readability and comprehensibility. In essence, you are trying to convey a story clearly to your readers; you are not trying to impress them with your intelligence. Using overly complicated words that few people will know – be they pieces of “higher” vocabulary or jargon – can often confuse readers, which is the opposite reaction to what you want. Don’t use complicated words where simple ones will do the trick and achieve the same effect. This isn’t a “Do not use clever words,” but more a “Be careful with your use of clever words, so you don’t confuse readers.” Also, just because you use a thesaurus doesn’t mean your writing is any good.
Adverbs are overused pretty universally among newbie writers. Everyone loves a good “slowly” or “carefully” – even if they are completely redundant. It’s a general rule that you should cut adverbs, and while I don’t entirely subscribe to that rule, it can be good to use as a general thumb.
Consider:
He walked sneakily down the corridor.
Sounds clunky, right? Well, how do we improve it?
There’s a very simple fix that can often help in these situations: replacing adverbs with stronger verbs. This fix preserves the meaning of what you’re trying to say, but smoothens the sentence out.
Consider, instead:
He crept down the corridor.
See? Far more impactful. Having any other adverbs in there alongside “crept” will only be redundant, so we can cut our adverbs.
Hopefully, you guys found the techniques and advice in this post useful. Let me know if you have any other advice for newbie writers 😊
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