An Editor’s Thanksgiving.

Nine things editors are (and should be) grateful for:

No. 1: Writers who read their work out loud.
An Editor’s Thanksgiving, No 2: Writers who love the sound of words—but still use the dictionary to make sure they’re using the words correctly.
An Editor’s Thanksgiving, No. 3: Writers who don’t file 1,000 more words than promised.
An Editor’s Thanksgiving, No. 4: Writers who use precise and vigorous verbs.
An Editor’s Thanksgiving, No. 5: Writers who vary the rhythms of their sentences.
An Editor’s Thanksgiving, No. 6: Writers who take chances.
An Editor’s Thanksgiving, No. 7: Writers who remember that the most important thing in writing is the idea/meaning/message. If you know what you want to say, you’ll figure out how to say it.
An Editor’s Thanksgiving, No. 8: Writers who dare to use a sentence fragment for emphasis. Really. Truly. Just now and then.
An Editor’s Thanksgiving, No. 9: Writers who read. A lot.

Happy Thanksgiving to wordsmiths everywhere. May the gravy, and words, flow. #writing #editing

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More from @StevePadilla2

4 Apr
"Omit needless words," say Strunk & White. But how do we know what's needless? To give us all another break from virus news, here are four #writingtips on finding needless words, best used while self-editing drafts. 1/6
1. Review prepositions. If you snip one (of, for, from, etc.) you likely take other words with it. Even cutting just one word makes copy tighter. "Tariffs barred dairy products from Canada" can become "Tariffs barred Canadian dairy products." 2/6
2. Review verbs. Changing passive voice to active voice generally shortens a sentence by about a third. So unless it messes up your meaning, turn "The man was devoured by the lion" into "The lion devoured the man." 3/6
Read 6 tweets
31 Mar
Harry Potter movies on TV all weekend brought to mind #writingtips from “Sorcerer’s Stone” about word order. The great writing coach Jim Hayes told me sentences should end with gusto. As Jim put it, “Put the best stuff at the end.” A key sentence in “Stone” does just that. 1/4
Near the end of the novel, Hagrid gives Harry a book of wizard photographs (remember, they move). J.K. Rowling describes what Harry sees: “Smiling and waving at him from every page were his mother and father.” It’s a moving passage—made me misty-eyed. Why? Word order. 2/4
That line packs a wallop because it ends with “mother and father.” What if she had written, “His mother and father smiled and waved at him from every page”? Stronger verb, but it’s not as powerful because it ends with “page.” Good self-editing habit: review sentence endings. 3/4
Read 4 tweets
29 Mar
Let's again set aside grim news for writing. I got a request for #writingtips on avoiding passive voice, so here's a full-proof method I learned in college. First, reminders. Passive voice: "The bill was passed by Congress." Active: "Congress passed the bill." 1/5
Turning passive to active is easy, so when writing your first draft DON'T WORRY about whether it's active or passive. Nail down your ideas and facts. That's the most important thing in writing--the meaning. 2/5
Next: highlight all forms of "to be," such as "is," "was," "were," etc. Circling words on a printout works well, but so does putting them in bold on your screen. Now the key step: rewrite the sentence eliminating the highlighted word. 3/5
Read 5 tweets

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