This is all so great. It's like FPW is giving us an "Editing 101" quickie course with his own stuff. I can't wait for the new edition (given that I just finished re-reading the 98 edition).
Has your editing impacted the page count significantly?
Has your editing impacted the page count significantly?
Throughout our history there are those ghosts
Compelled to illustrate our dreams and hopes
Victors hang in pictures, losers from ropes.
Regardless they all swing in the same boat.
Paul, you are "Editor of the year"! You should write script for movie. 
This is awesome and fascinating!
This is awesome and fascinating!
Lisa Wrote:Paul, this is great. I've been trying to cut out passive voice in my writing too, as you know. It's nice to see someone else's examples since it's easy to miss stuff in your own writing.
Word processors can be a big help here, Lisa. Do a global search for "There was," "There were," and "It was," then fix what you can. That's a good start.
Sometimes the simplest, clearest and most succinct form is passive, but not often -- especially in fiction.
FPW
FAQ
"It means 'Ask the next question.' Ask the next question, and the one that follows that, and the one that follows that. It's the symbol of everything humanity has ever created." Theodore Sturgeon.
fpw Wrote:Word processors can be a big help here, Lisa. Do a global search for "There was," "There were," and "It was," then fix what you can. That's a good start.
Yah, I've actually been doing that, per an earlier suggestion of yours. Still, it sneaks in there, and 95% of the time it looks better after I change it to active voice.
Lisa
Biggles Wrote:I took a judicial writing course back in the '80s, and the first thing the faculty told us was "get rid of passive voice". Legal writing from the 20th Century back is just filled with passive voice (and yes, I know that was passive voice ).Passive voice is a good way to abdicate responsibility. Perhaps that is why it is so popular among the justices.
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. ... The piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
~ Howard Phillips Lovecraft
fpw Wrote:Word processors can be a big help here, Lisa. Do a global search for "There was," "There were," and "It was," then fix what you can. That's a good start.
Sometimes the simplest, clearest and most succinct form is passive, but not often -- especially in fiction.
That's a good tip!
Susan
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A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world. ~ Oscar Wilde
Insanity in individuals is something rare -- but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.~Nietzche
Insanity in individuals is something rare -- but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.~Nietzche
jimbow8 Wrote:Passive voice is a good way to abdicate responsibility. Perhaps that is why it is so popular among the justices.
It is written that is so.
http://www.northernindianacriminaldefense.com
"I don't always carry a pistol, but when I do, I prefer an East German Makarov"
you're great, fpw
Biggles Wrote:It is written that is so.
On the rare occasions I write fiction, rather than lyrics, I prefer the passive-aggressive voice.