Mark Twain said, “Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”
Now Ali Hale of Copyblogger has brought us Are Vampire Words Sucking the Life Out of Your Writing?. If you’re a writer in any capacity — copywriter, blogger, journalist — read this article and take it to heart. Print out a list of these wishy-washy modifiers and post it next to your monitor.
Now please excuse me; I need to go back through four years of blogs and clean up my act.
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Thanks for the link to my piece! I’m also very flattered to be “Ali Hale of Copyblogger” – can I put that on my resume? ;-)
Good luck cleaning up those blog posts…
Ali Hale´s last blog ..Meeting Your Goals #1: Getting Focused
You are Ali Hale, and the article appeared on Copyblogger. That makes you “Ali Hale of Copyblogger” to me.
You could refer to me as “Tim of Trump Enterprises” but I don’t think that would fly with Donald. Instead, just call me “Tim of ‘The Blue Frog Says…’.”
I’m guilty of all of those. Somewhere as a child I got the misconception that writing is better when more words are used. It probably didn’t help that papers were graded on length. This is a great list and I too must go back over years of posts to clean up my act. I won’t but it’s a good idea and something to try to remember for upcoming posts.
Jen´s last blog ..House Cleaning Blog Style