Tell Me How You Really Feel:18
This edition of TMHYRF is inspired by reading. No kidding. I do a lot of that, right? But I read mostly books. Good books, bad books, classic books, YA books, even some middle-grade books. And I know how hard it is to write a book, so I try to keep my complaints to a minimum. Unless the book is poorly written. And that quality--really bad writing--seems to stop me on the internet, too.
I mean, if you're writing for your own personal blog, I'm not going to talk about whether or not your prose is tight, if you have used proper punctuation, or if you've employed active verbs instead of passive verbs. (If I did cite you for those infractions, I'd be such a hypocrite: over half of the drivel you read here is chock full of errors in so many ways.)
But if you're writing an article for a national outlet? I don't know say, a rather large online entity such as Slate for example? Well, I think you should be a good writer, meaning you should carefully choose your nouns, verbs, and adjectives; limit your adverbs, be sure that your participles aren't dangling, and that it is clear what your pronouns are referring to. In short, your article should be worthy of being published at that large online entity.
I'm not here to point fingers. I'm just saying.
I mean, if you're writing for your own personal blog, I'm not going to talk about whether or not your prose is tight, if you have used proper punctuation, or if you've employed active verbs instead of passive verbs. (If I did cite you for those infractions, I'd be such a hypocrite: over half of the drivel you read here is chock full of errors in so many ways.)
But if you're writing an article for a national outlet? I don't know say, a rather large online entity such as Slate for example? Well, I think you should be a good writer, meaning you should carefully choose your nouns, verbs, and adjectives; limit your adverbs, be sure that your participles aren't dangling, and that it is clear what your pronouns are referring to. In short, your article should be worthy of being published at that large online entity.
I'm not here to point fingers. I'm just saying.
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