IMPROVE YOUR WRITING BY POLISHING THREE LITTLE WORDS

Three Little Bears Read Three Polished Little Words—Image by Mabel Amber, still incognito... from Pixabay

Every writer who has been edited knows the feeling: shock and overwhelm.

No matter that English was your favorite subject, and you always got As, and you’ve even taught English; or maybe you were rubbish at English, but you always wanted to write, so now you’ve read and memorized three popular books on grammar, and then you made sure you got some beta readers for your manuscript who are great at English; and your neighbor, who published a book last year, looked over your writing and caught some typos; and everyone agreed the draft was pretty much perfect, and you knew it would need few changes. Or maybe no changes at all.

And now you’ve opened the edited document, and your heart is racing, and you feel sick. What happened? Whose writing is this? It’s obviously a mistake.

So you close the program, and you walk away, and maybe you have a cold beverage. Then you steel yourself, open Word again, and try to choke back (choose one) tears or profanity. Or (why choose?) both.

As you slowly pick your way through a sea of colored deletions and additions, comments, and queries, you recognize the original words as yours. And you realize your editor has taken grammar, vocabulary, syntax, and style to a whole new level. You see comments about consistency, concision, repetition, and clarity.

You start to understand why editing is a profession unto itself, filled with people who study not just grammar but also style, language usage, etymology, publishing standards, fact-checking, and the craft of writing.

It’s Not about Rules

Eventually, the paradoxical truth of Ann Handley’s writing rule number 11 begins to make sense:  “Editing is not just about fixing the grammar, it’s about fixing the clarity for your reader.” Ensuring flow. Avoiding bumps. Enforcing logic.

Would a trained editor change the comma splice and sentence fragments in the previous paragraph? Not without considering voice, audience, and place of publication. Would a strict grammarian understand and respect distinctions in tone and register when making those kinds of editing decisions? Doubtful.

Still, in helping you give readers the clarity, concision, and flow they need, editors do tend to repeatedly note three words that act like hiccups on the page. These words are short and ubiquitous; but if you know what to look for, you can handle the blips before they have a chance to unsettle any editor or reader.

Unfortunately, they’re also terms that can’t be unseen once they’re seen, which means you’ll now notice them not only in your own writing but in every text you come across, including movie subtitles. I apologize for giving you both a blessing and a curse.

Word One: That

That is an important word. In general, you can’t construct English sentences without it. It’s also an overused word; and in specific cases, you can frequently construct English sentences without it.

I could natter on about relative pronouns, adjective clauses, noun modifiers, subjects, and objects. Instead, let’s look at an example of how easily you can add flow and polish just by deleting the pronoun that:

• That editor showed me that I could make my good writing even better.

             or

• That editor showed me I could make my good writing even better.

             Another:

• She told me that readers would love my e-book.

             or

• She told me readers would love my e-book.

Which version rolls off the ear more smoothly? Yes, we’re talking about one small word. But as often as writers use that, it adds up. In fact, you might marvel when consciously paying attention to the number of times that appears in a small chunk of any piece of writing.  

You’ll be even more surprised if you mentally remove superfluous thats and discover how often the prose sounds more concise and reads better without it—while retaining complete clarity.

Naturally, if a missing that causes loss of meaning or ambiguity, you can trust your good writing sense to know this is one of those instances where it’s needed—whether or not you know its grammatical function in a sentence.

Word Two: Of

By this point, you’re getting the idea: unnecessary words don’t convey writing voice. Instead, they communicate amateurish, immature writing.

And as David Foster Wallace wrote in ”Twenty-Four Word Notes” for the Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus, “an excess of ofs is one of the surest signs of flabby or maladroit writing, and . . . the usage is often wrong.”

Where do you need to trim this particular fat?

• Between all and a noun:

             all the track changes
             not
             all of the track changes

• Between all and a possessive pronoun:

             all my hard work
             not
             all of my hard work
             (but keep of when it falls between all and a nonpossessive pronoun: all of us working together)

• Between all and a demonstrative pronoun (this, that, these, those):

             all that hard work
             not
             all of that hard work

The “of” entry for section 5.250 in The Chicago Manual of Style (17th ed.) further explains, “Avoid using this word needlessly after all, off, inside, and outside.  . . . To improve your style, try removing every of phrase that you reasonably can.” (I can’t help but wonder: would this sound better as “every of phrase you reasonably can”?)

Not surprisingly, the manual’s next entry after “of” is “off,” and the guideline is emphatic: “never put of after this word {we got off the bus}.”

You may have noticed couple is missing from the list of words that shouldn’t be followed by of. Although writers have started using it as an adjective, this change hasn’t yet reached the completely accepted category. At this point, couple is still a noun that needs of:

• Your editor made a couple of comments.

             not

• Your editor made a couple suggestions.

Word Three: We (or She, He, They, Our, It, That, This, These, Those, Both, Some, Many, Most, Which, Who, Either)

Pronouns are the culprits in much unclear and inelegant writing. 

Here, though, deletion may or may not be advised. As I mentioned when previously discussing the pronoun that, words are important when actually needed. And the pronouns I’ve listed above are useful in avoiding the stilted language that would result from an inability to use pronouns as noun substitutes.

The problem, and it’s a common one, occurs when writers know exactly what she, they, or it refers to, but readers don’t. If your editor’s comments mention “vague,” “ambiguous,” or “antecedent” in connection with “pronoun,” you can be sure you’re using a pronoun that will make readers stop, back up, reread, and then skim ahead in an effort to understand which which, who, or those you mean.

And editors know: readers don’t always continue after a forced pause.

To prevent numerous editing corrections, you must be the reader who stops at every pronoun you’ve written. Don’t breeze over a single one just because you already know what noun(s) it’s substituting for. These are the questions I’d ask about each of your pronouns:

1. Has any other noun or pronoun come between this particular pronoun and its antecedent (meaning the noun this particular pronoun refers to)?
2. If so, is there any way this particular pronoun could be logically interpreted as referring to the intervening noun(s) or pronoun(s), instead of clearly referencing the antecedent you had in mind for this particular pronoun?
3. If so, how can you gracefully tweak this section to make your pronoun unambiguous?
4. Does your pronoun even have an antecedent?
5. If not, how can you give it one? 

 
 Here are examples of confusing pronouns and their easy fixes:

• After my editor and I asked the publisher for advice, we decided to use the song title but no lyrics.

​
            As the writer, you might think it’s obvious we refers to my editor and I. But my editor and I are separated from                     we by the publisher, so the reader can’t be sure which nouns are the antecedent for we. Was the publisher also                 part of the decision?

            The following version is less vague, because it keeps my editor and I as the subject for the verb decided:
            My editor and I asked the publisher for advice and then decided to use the song title but no lyrics.

• The editor thought my writing was worth suggesting many changes. That felt good.​

       
            What felt good? The editor’s thought? The worthy writing? The numerous suggested changes? Trust me; what
            seems evident to you can be perceived through a variety of reading lenses.

            This brief addition prevents readers from needing to read your mind, rather than your words:
            The editor thought my writing was worth suggesting many changes. That level of care felt good.

Polished-Pronoun Bonus Points

While you’re looking at your pronouns, here are a couple of other editing issues to consider:

• Have you been indiscriminately switching point of view with your pronouns, randomly mixing they, we, and you within the same thought?

             As writers, you must look at your words and ask whether you’re using language clearly, concisely, and consistently.
             not
             As writers, we must look at our words and ask whether you’re using language clearly, concisely, and consistently.

• Have you remembered that any pronoun following a preposition (with, from, to, between, on, by, etc.) must be in the objective case (me, us, him, her, them, it, you)—and that in a list of nouns or pronouns, I and me always go last?

             Below, please share your comments about polished writing with my other readers and me.
             not
             Below, please share your comments about polished writing with my other readers and I.
             and definitely not
             Below, please share your comments about polished writing with me and my other readers.

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