There are several things to keep in mind when writing.

 

One: watch the descriptions. Let's say you are describing a person. Her name is Sally. Watch carefully as I make two very unsatisfactory descriptions of Sally.

 

1. Sally was tall and had brown hair and green eyes and was wearing jeans. She didn't like the way her hair fell in her eyes cas her bangs were too long but she didn't want to get them cut cas she was trying to grow them out so she could tie them up with the rest of her hair when she did her hair for the prom that year. She was more intelligent than most of the people in her class but they made fun of her cas she always wanted to study instead of go to the mall and go to football games so she wasn't popular but she didn't care cas she knew she would be better off cas she was smarter than the other kids.

 

2. Sally sighed as her bangs slipped infront of her crystal blue eyes as rays of the sun would slip before the blue sky of a summer afternoon. The girl was beautiful, though her peers thought otherwise. The locks of wavy golden hair should have been trimmed long ago; but Sally was attempting to get her bangs to a length long enough in which she could delicately braid them, adorning them with silky ribbon and small flowers, and still have them be long enough to pull back into a bun with the rest of her hair. It was a futile attempt, as her hair never grew as fast as she wished it to, though she supposed she could attend this year's prom with her hair as it was. For a girl her age, Sally was brilliant. An outcast to most of the social groups in her high school, she retained her high grades and incredible intellect.... and so on and so on.

 

Can you see what is wrong with both here? The first is too rushed and choppy. It really does not give the reader a good view into the girl. The second is so overly descriptive that it sounds rediculous. Try to hit somewhere in the middle. Description is good, but not too much. Watch out for overuse of adverbs:

 

The stream gracefully curved around a rocky bend, its contents loudly babbling over smooth stones as it rushed quickly towards the edge of the cliff.

 

Too many adverbs. The stream curved around a rocky bend, its contents babbling over the smooth stones as it rushed towards the edge of the cliff.

 

That may not be the best sentence, but you get the point...

 

Here is an exception:

 

He touched Megan lightly on her shoulder. That is a case where an adverb is good. He did not grab her roughly, or smack her shoulder with a harsh blow. It shows more of a comforting gesture here.

 

 

Two: People do not always know what you are talking about. What may seem obvious to you may not be common knowledge to them. I was reading something my cousin wrote. He had people his age attending a private school like his. He wrote something about one of the kids acting up and getting a 'comment.' Now, I was wondering what in the hell a comment was. I never went to a private school. If you have someone working on a computer, do not use all technological terms withouth giving some explanation as to what it is.

 

 

Three: Some people, get very into writing, and trying to convey speech, and expression, and end up using too many commas. This can, in many ways, be annoying, and can really slow down, the story. Having to pause, all of the time, can make a reader restless, or just bored, or even confused.

 

The amount of times I have had to correct overuse of the comma is incredible. Doesn't that paragraph up there sound funny? If it sounds funny there, it will definitly sound odd in your own writing.

 

Sally told me that she had to go to the store. She was upset that she had to park across the street. The person at the register told her that her credit card was no good. She came home and told me that we needed to put more money in the bank. I told her that I would.

 

Another word frequently overused is 'that.' In casual writing this is fine. When you are writing a story, however, take out the 'that' and see if the sentence is alright without it. You can leave one or two in, and rearrange some sentences to make them sound better.

 

Sally told me she had to go to the store. She was upset that she had to park across that street. The person at the register said her credit card was no good. She came home and told me we needed to put more money in the bank. I told her I would.

 

Again, that may be bad writing, but it gets the point across without all of the 'that's.

 

Four: However, there is one more thing you should know. There is, however, one more thing you should know. Which one do you think is correct? If you said the second example, you are right. Never never NEVER start a sentence out with things like 'however' and 'though'. Unless: Though he was already thirty-five... You can, however, make this sound better by rearranging it. He was, though, already thirty-five, and... ect. (This does give a different effect, though, so make sure you want to use it that way.)

 

One last pet peeve: I told her I had to leave at 5.

 

Just, write the number out, unless it is immensely long. I told her I had to leave at five.

 

Now go and write, and be merry.