tries and fails to conceal a lack of intensity, style, substance, or all those qualities, in your prose.
Menna Abu Zahraцитирует2 года назад
Their use will drain the life from your prose. “Some kind of” has recently joined the infamous company of weasel words.
Menna Abu Zahraцитирует2 года назад
It’s Almost Writing, or, Half Baked Weasels
Menna Abu Zahraцитирует2 года назад
are weasel words that allow you to evade the responsibility of being precise.
Menna Abu Zahraцитирует2 года назад
Pitfall #1: The Expository Lump
Menna Abu Zahraцитирует2 года назад
Useful technique: It’s easier to describe something if it’s broken. If something is broken, then you notice it. If it’s working right, it just sits there being invisible doing its job. Not to be overused!
Menna Abu Zahraцитирует3 года назад
We all write sf in standard English, unless we are Anthony Burgess (who did made-up dialect well), or some other people who do it not so well.
Menna Abu Zahraцитирует3 года назад
Just because you call a long-eared short-tailed lagomorphic mammal with long hind legs a “smeerp” doesn’t make it alien.
Menna Abu Zahraцитирует3 года назад
watch out for what Damon Knight called “calling a rabbit a smeerp.”
Menna Abu Zahraцитирует3 года назад
If you aren’t good at them, you can make yourself sound silly.