. . . and I have some points I think everyone could benefit from hearing. (These are in the order they appear on my scratch pad, i.e. no particular or logical one.)
- Try to avoid beginning sentences with "there is," "there are" or "this is." Doing so not only locks you into predictable sentence structures, but it forces the subject of the sentence into the tail of it. Of course, you can do this for effect on occasion, but it needs to clearly be for effect.
- As the reader's surrogate, you need not call to their attention that something comes to yours. For instance, "As I entered the place, I noticed X, Y and Z" can easily be rewritten "X, Y and Z dominate the place." In the second sentence, the focus is on the object of observation instead of the person doing the observing. Of course, sometimes the person doing the observing is important, as in "As Sally entered the place, she saw the chair her father had his stroke in, the table corner her little brother cracked his head open on, and the floor where her mother had bled to death." You see what I mean: unless the observer is important, you can focus on the objects being observed.
- Write in scenes. Long exposition works only if it is a digression from a scene to which you will return. You can't more from expository digression to expository digression and expect your reader to remain involved.
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