Write Good!

By Michael Conniff

If you don't think writing can be taught, then you should read this book.
If you do think writing can be taught, then you too should read this book.

Either way, keep this in mind as you read: WRITE GOOD! is the by-product and end product of countless hours watching my writing students make the same mistakes over and over again while I tried to explain these rules born of tens of thousands of hours of writing.

I have written this book for the greater good of humanity but also so I would never have to explain the rules again. I wrote it selfishly to create shortcuts in my own teaching.

WRITE GOOD! is not meant to be definitive or exhaustive but exists for a more quotidian purpose: to eliminate the most common mistakes in writing.

I hope you will read it, learn it, and then forget it so nothing gets in the way of your words again. Once you know the rules, they become your best friend because they lose their power to confound.

How can that be?

Simple: once rules commingle with your writing DNA, they vanish—you use them in the real world of page and screen without ever thinking twice about it.

The rules no longer slow you down any more than a cloud on the horizon can keep you from your destination here on earth.

Our goal herein is to learn to internalize a handful of critical rules so we can more or less forget them in the act of writing—so they become second-nature whenever (and whatever) you write.

Once implanted in your cerebral cortex, these rules will disappear just as stitches miraculously vanish after surgery that time you fell from out of nowhere. And then the real writing can begin.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Conniff
• Release date: Aug 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223093725

Book preview

For Alan Brinkley and Gordon Lish

TABLE OF CONTENTS

About Michael Conniff

Author’s Note

Preface

#1

Break The Rules

Know the rule you are breaking.

#2

Complete Sentences

Write in complete sentences with a subject and a verb.

Except when you don’t.

#3

Mix Up Your Paragraphs

Varying the length of your paragraphs

will avoid visual and literary monotony.

#4

Dialogue Speaks

Put speakers and speech into separate paragraphs.

#5

Say Hey!

Use says or said as your go-to verbs in dialogue.

#6

For Repeat’s Sake

Repeat words for emphasis, not from laziness.

#7

The Oxford Comma

Use two commas in a series of three,

three in a series of four,

and so on ad infinitum.

#8

Dash It

Dashes push words and phrases apart in a sentence.

(Hyphens, in contrast, pull words together to form a new meaning: they work in opposite ways and are in no way interchangeable.)

#9

Hyphen Nation

Hyphens marry two words together

to form a new meaning.

#10

Colonoscopy

Use colons to introduce lists or quotes—

and to direct the reader forward into the rest of the sentence.

#11

Semi-Colonic

Avoid semicolons except in a series with multiple commas.

#12

The Point Of Exclamations

Use them sparingly if at all.

#13

Ellipsis Unbound

The ellipsis does not include punctuation.

#14

Its and It’s Will Never Be The Same

Never mistake the possessive (its)

for the contraction of it is (it’s).

#15

Don’t Get Started With It or There

Avoid the variations of it is and there are at the start of a sentence.

#16

Don’t Go For That

Eliminate the word that unless you absolutely need it.

#17

Which Ways

Which preceded by a preposition

will create a glitch in your sentence.

#18

Not Very

Don’t use very very often.

#19

But, So, And For Start-Ups

To start a sentence, no commas are required after

but, so, or and.

#20

Long And Short Of Dependent Clauses

Because long dependent clauses at the start of a sentence like this one not only suck but also suck the life out of your writing,

do not start with long dependent clauses

that work against the forces of gravity.

#21

However... Furthermore... Meanwhile... Moreover...

Forevermore eliminate

meanwhile, moreover, however, and furthermore.

#22

No Respect For Respectively

Don’t use respective or respectively

to indicate order in a sentence,

#23

The Fact That Is Fiction

Eliminate the fact that

because it calls your authority into question.

#24

A Great Deal Is A Lot Of Nothing

Avoid vague phrases like a great deal and a lot of

that literally amount to nothing.

#25

Vernacular

Avoid misspellings and made-up words

to capture colloquial language.

#26

Contractions

Avoid contractions with more than one syllable.

#27

Early Attribution In Quotes

Put attribution at the first break in the dialogue or text

for rhythm—and to avoid confusion.

#28

Use Quotation Marks For Quotes Only

Never put words in quotes unless they are spoken—

or quoted from the text.

#29

Think In Italics

Use italics when a character or subject

is actually thinking thoughts.

#30

Punctuation Within Quotes

Put punctuation within quotes,

not outside the quoted phrase or sentence.

#31

Decades Are Not Possessive

Use the plural, not the possessive,

to indicate years or decades when using numbers.

#32

Decades Reflect The Times

Spell out the word when invoking the decade as a whole.

#33

Capitalizing Titles

Limit capitalization of titles to people in government.

#34

Correct Mistakes Immediately

Don’t wait to fix a mistake.

#35

Spell-Check

Spell-check your text before you show it to anyone else.

#36

Be Wrong Consistently

A foolish consistency is better than an unknown inconsistency.

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MICHAEL CONNIFF

Michael Conniff’s  novel, BOOK OF O’KELLS: MOTHER NATURE, reached the Top Ten list for Historical Fiction in 2016 and again in 2018. The author of more than a dozen published short stories, he was nominated by Tim O’Brien and selected as a Sokolov Scholar in Fiction at the Breadloaf Writers Conference. His play, THE MADNESS OF HATTERS, from the multimedia, multi-form BOOK OF O’KELLS, was performed in workshop by Theatre Aspen. In addition, BOOK OF O’KELLS: THE GOOD EGG, was the first and only novel ever conceived and consummated on Facebook. In addition, he has written several TV pilots and screenplays, including SPY HIGH, a one-hour dramatic thriller; and the how-to book WRITE GOOD!

Mr. Conniff was