True to my old title on the One Year Adventure Novel forum, the Prince of Comedy, I have put together a selection of general writing tips in a humorous way. Hope you enjoy it.


To Paraphrase…
Tips for writers juvenile and mature

To begin, eradicate, every, extraneous, piece, of, perfidious, punctuation. Punctuation is always perfidious at heart. It will stop at nothing to damage your writing and reputation.

Commas are the worst of the gang. They have been convicted of pernicious perfidy in just about every single published and non-published book I’ve ever read.

Semicolons are nearly as bad. I have yet to arrive at a situation where the use of a semicolon in my writing is necessary; they are simply unneeded and very nasty pieces of punctuation.

The third worst piece of punctuation—one that I try to avoid whenever possible—is the hyphen. They are used comma-like and for sundry other purposes. The hyphen, in my opinion, is a twisted straight line with the ultimate ambition of putting a strikeout through all of your writing. Be wary.

Too much personification may become irksome. Be sure you don’t fall too deep into the habit of personification, or you may find that your books are out to obliterate your career, and if you strove to make them clever, you’ll have a tough time outwitting them.

Avoid dialogue tags whenever possible. “If it’s just as clear without the tag, leave it off,” Matthew explained.

I have a passion for correct paragraph usage.

This is inspired by my own naiveté concerning paragraphs at the age of fifteen. (I shamefully admit that I didn’t even know what they were…)

Parentheses are best circumvented (whenever possible) because they needlessly distract from the story (not to mention they’re the lethargic person’s way out of adroitly integrating information into the narrative), make it very hard to follow the author’s train of thought (now, pay attention here), and are generally looked down upon by professional writers, editors, and publishers.

Avoid lengthy sentences and paragraphs. While protracted sentences have their place, and I am certainly not one to talk, as I am known for writing excessively long sentences at times, some of which have surpassed a hundred and thirty words (on purpose, of course, and that was in dialogue), too many long sentences will be exhaustive to the reader and make your story harder to follow. Make ‘em succinct; make ‘em precise, while still varying the length enough to keep things interesting.

As William Strunk says, “Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, for the same reason a machine should contain no unnecessary parts.” As my friend put it, “To paraphrase William Strunk: Omit needless words! Omit needless words! Omit needless words!”

There exists a slim book called The Elements of Style, and it is probably the single best book you could ever read on the subject of writing. If you have it, marvelous. If not, get it, read it, retain it, and use it.

Don’t use commas where they ain’t, necessary, and above all, don’t never use slang or double negatives outside of dialogue. Also, NEVER generalize unless you’re trying to make a point. Don’t use all caps to emphasize something either.

You may have heard that prepositions are not words you should end sentences with. However, many rules like that are generalizations, and there are circumstances where breaking the rule is necessary. The most common of those circumstances is the wacky area of humor.

Try to be more or less specific. Search for the best new way to say something, and avoid clichés like the plague. Authors that do are few and far between. Clichés are obviously not the wave of the future, and your reader will never feel like he’s hit pay dirt. Go the whole nine yards to find fascinating and innovative comparisons. On the other hand, comparisons are often as bad as clichés, so just look both ways before crossing the road. Watch out for the chicken.

On the subject of humor, humor is a very hard subject. And it always reminds me of the redundancy rule. Never use repetitive redundant wording that repeats itself. However, when writing humor, redundancy can be very useful when writing humor. It all depends on how you use it and where.
Contradict yourself often, and people will never take you seriously. Skillfully use oxymorons, paradoxes, and irony, however, and your writing will be improved.

If you feel the urge to comment on my ludicrous vocabulary, please be informed that I have studied the thesaurus and dictionary extensively over several years, and I do know the connotations of all the words I employ in my ardent zeal for the art of writing. I hope to pass along my knowledge to other promising young authors, and maybe someday one of us will get published.

To paraphrase the whole thing, do nothing I exemplified here and do everything I didn’t.

Wow, ha ha... That was very amusing and also true. One thing I would add: passive sentences should be avoided. They cause your writing to be slow, boring and labored. Who wants to read that "the bags were packed" or "the food was eaten"? Not me.

I definitely agree with Armorbearer....passive voice should be avoided. But the rest was great, I really enjoyed it! Nice twist of humor.

eruheran

Passive voice has been joked about by me a lot. There are plenty other writing tips I could've written on. Maybe I should do a sequel.

Your list was very funny and ironic. But it's able to be taken seriously. I agree on long sentences, my writing seems to consist of all long sentences and no short ones. Strange, because I am usually not a long winded person, or at least, I try not to be. Two things I would like to point out, though:

1) Mincing words is not always good. (I should know this, because I have had to repeat myself in more depth when I am too terse with instructions or an explanation of something)Though, say, five adjectives in a row should be cut down to only two or three, you shouldn't mince adjectives or adverbs, it's not wise. Especially when describing scenery.

2) Sometimes passive is good for things like, again, a description of scenery. I agree though, active voice should be used more, especially when you need to move a scene along.

I definitely think a sequel is in order.

Good points....I agree. I am one of the biggest fans you'll find of breaking writing rules...mainly because I do it so often in my humor writing.

Rules in writing are made to be broken! There are no rules you should not ever break, save to honor God and please the audience.

It's my opinion that grammar books should be written like this. Then instead of being tedious, it would be everyone's favorite subject!

Great idea! I'd buy one! You could cash in on a very lucrative niche market: teenager grammar textbooks.

eruheran

Haha, maybe! I know I want to write something instructive on writing humor...someday. I know much about humor already, but not quite enough, and I've never written anything instructional.

Seriously!

If you write one, Forlendo, I want a copy, and I think I know other people who would like it too!

First I get a PhD and then people will be more likely to take such a thing seriously. Otherwise, it'll probably be seen as another goofy try at making grammar fun by some uneducated novice.

That, was, great~I;like,it; because~ I, never (and I mean never ever)... use punctuation. Incorectly!

No but really, that helped; very good. Thank you very much for all that!

I am guilty of writing long sentences... My editors made me vary their length.

I do, however, LuketheMindwielder, have to say that commas, semicolons, hyphens, and parentheses are exceptionally useful bits of punctuation. When used right.

Exactly. When used right. Well, parentheses are pretty much never used these days, but the others, yes. I sort of exaggerated there by using them correctly while saying to stay away from them. Irony, anyone?

Never use a comma when a period will do, such an act will extend sentences to ridiculous lengths, excessive commas makes your writing soft and squishy.

And I agree that the passive voice should be avoided.

Also you should never just tell your reader what he needs to know.

That was a very amusing list, Luke. I was laughing out loud, literally. LOL.

With chocolate syrup and almonds, please.