Tuesday, June 1

Posted by Laurel Garver on Tuesday, June 01, 2010 9 comments
Despite my best intentions, I don't think I'll be able to put in much blogging time this week. Being home with a sick kid for a few days has forced me to reshuffle how I spend my time.

I know many of you are eager for more installments of my overwriting series. So here's how you can help me get back on track next week: Send me some sample sentences to discuss and repair.

I need examples of sentences and/or paragraphs that demonstrate writing that's
~dense
~difficult to understand
~tangent-ridden
~full of verbal tics ("just," "you know," "like totally")
~full of softening phrases ("kind of," "a little," "along the lines of," etc.)
~wordy
~rambling
~explanation-heavy
~repetitive

Send your overwritten gems to laurels (dot) leaves (at) gmail (dot) com by Thursday. I'll use the most telling examples to shed light on common problems. Be sure to let me know if you wish your examples to remain anonymous. I'll give credit only if you want it.

Have a great week, everyone!

9 comments:

  1. Hope your sick child feels better soon. Taking care of a little one is almost full time. Blogging is far down the list.

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  2. Hope your little one gets better soon. I'll see what I have that's overwritten.

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  3. Aw, hope the little one gets well soon! Take care of yourself too and hopefully we'll see you back here soon!

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  4. Hope the kiddo gets well soon! Having a little "Cling-on" who ISN'T sick is hard enough.

    As for examples, I ALMOST wish I had my first draft of my first novel to provide you samples. I had one sentence with 21 adjectives. Not a paragraph or page. One. Sentence. LOL Alas, those discs self-destructed over a decade ago. Shucks. ;D

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  5. Hope you all feel better soon (kid sickness is just as hard on the mom, no?)

    I'll keep my eye out for those sentences while I'm revising. :)

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  6. Laurel, I hope your young one is feeling better soon!

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  7. I hope your kiddo feels better soon, Laurel. :-)

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  8. I would send you something, but I gladly shelved or deleted many of my earlier, overwritten pieces.

    I hope your kid feels better.

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  9. Thanks everyone for your well-wishes. Hobbit girl recovered pretty quickly from her respiratory infection. Many of you know the schedule juggle all too well, right? Blogging ended up very, very low on the priorities list.

    Glad to have been missed, though. It encourages me to keep up all the wonderful connections I'm making here. :-)

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