In this seventh instalment in this series of editing articles, I just wanted to take some time to comment on some commonly misused words that I’ve noticed.

Here’s a list of a few to get you started:

Your/you’re – ‘your’ is a possessive adjective (“your car”); ‘you’re’ is an abbreviation for “you are” (“you’re kidding, right?”).

Its/it’s – ‘its’ is a possessive adjective (“the cockroach moved its antennae”); ‘it’s’ is an abbreviation for “it is” (“it’s disgusting”).

Complement/compliment – ‘complement’ refers to an element that completes something (“the glass of Riesling was an excellent complement to the meal”); a ‘compliment’ is an expression of admiration (“his compliment regarding my work made me smile”).

Affect/effect – ‘affect’ refers to influence (“her healthy diet has affected me”), whereas ‘effect’ refers to a result or the ability to produce a result (“a fail mark was the effect of his insolence”).

Their/there/they’re – ‘their’ is a possessive noun (“their aggravating dog”); ‘there’ refers to a particular place (“put the dog there”); and ‘they’re’ is an abbreviation for 'they are' (“they’re not walking that thing enough”).

Who’s/whose – ‘who’s’ is an abbreviation for 'who is' (“who’s speaking tonight?”) and ‘whose’ is another possessive adjective (“whose brochure is that?”).
 
One of my recent discoveries:

Busyness/business – ‘busyness’ is the state of being busy, while ‘business’ refers to someone’s source of revenue (“I'm enjoying running a business”).

While writing, look out for these commonly misused words. In addition to this, Google “commonly misused words” to find longer lists that will help you revolutionise your writing.
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Editing Tip for Fluency No #7: take action with regards to frequently confused words.

Some weeks ago, I wrote about the necessity of avoiding repeated words. This simple rule alone makes the thesaurus look distinctly more attractive for authors. Nevertheless, I must stress that the thesaurus is not always the best tool for improving your fluency. You must know the precise definition of a word before you use it. You may be further confusing your reader by inserting a word that looks elegant but doesn’t really fit.
How then does one avoid repeated words and write fluent and beautiful prose? There are no easy answers to this question, but I do know of one activity that is particularly empowering: reading widely. I am not simply referring to reading books of commercial fiction in the genre that you happen to write in. I’m referring to reading classics, modern works, information books, and almost anything else worthwhile that you can think of. I’m referring to an author expanding their horizons.
The goal in writing is to communicate and to communicate well. Therefore, picking up numerous words that readers are not going to understand does not help your cause. However, reading widely will help you expand your useful vocabulary – the vocabulary that the majority of people do understand. You don’t need to necessarily make notes on the words that you find. You just need to make sure that you, as a writer, are continuing to feed on good books. Here are some tips that I have found useful over the years.

1. Don’t read too much by the same author.

The same author will write books with the same vocabulary and often a similar flavour to his or her other works. If you are a writer planning to read a whole series by one author, perhaps it is better to intersperse their books with other people’s books, simply so that you don’t wind up adopting their style. This said, if it’s a particularly hooking series, you’ll probably read through it so fast that you’ll be onto something else in no time.

2. Don’t read books that are poorly written.
This does sound snobby, but if you’re an author, it’s better to avoid consistently reading books with low quality prose, simply so that you’re not always telling your brain “this is okay writing”. Read books of a high standard and calibre that are well-edited. For instance, while the storyline may be engaging, the Hunger Games, volume one, is a poorly written book from a purely grammatical point of view. From confusing sentence structure to comma abuse to the use of slashes when the author is struggling to describe something precisely, the Hunger Games is an example of many rules that an author simply shouldn’t break, for the sake of communicating clearly. Hence, making books like the Hunger Games the majority of your reading diet may actually be harmful to your writing style long term.

3. Read books that you don’t understand.
While Moby Dick or The Illiad might not be your first choice of reading material, they can help you grow as an author. Even if you don’t understand a book, simply by reading it, you are taking things in, recognising patterns of prose, and coming into contact with new words. In the same way that you learned the English language – by hearing words that you could not understand around you – so you can learn more about it, by reading books that are “hard”. The journey of exploration will be rewarding in the end.

4. Read books from different eras.
​Those who read Victorian literature and only Victorian literature are still not well-read, even though they are consuming more difficult reads than your average reader. In my opinion, in order to be well-read, you need to read books about a variety of topics, by a variety of authors, from a variety of times and perspectives. You need to embrace the new, the challenging, and the foreign. This will improve your writing ability phenomenally. 

Editing Tip for Fluency No #6: Feed on a variety of well-written books to increase your useful vocabulary and improve your writing style overall.

Happy reading!

This topic is not strictly related to fluency, but errors in punctuation can certainly be distracting enough to stop a reader from focusing on what you’re actually saying and to lead them to stare at how you’re saying it.
 
Take the following dialogue as an example:
 
 
Sit in the chair, King Talmon said. What do you think we are going to do now, Rafen?
Rafen lowered himself into the chair. He had never sat on a proper chair before. It was different – nice. He stared up at the king, still slightly suspicious.
 I do not know. Rafen said quietly.

This short example exhibits mistake number one with quotation marks: there aren’t any. Speech must always be separated from common prose, otherwise the reader simply can’t tell when a character is speaking.
 
Here is example two:
 
‘Sit in the chair.’ King Talmon said. ‘What do you think we are going to do now, Rafen?’
Rafen lowered himself into the chair. He had never sat on a proper chair before. It was different – nice. He stared up at the king, still slightly suspicious.
‘I do not know.’ Rafen said quietly.

Notice this time that I’ve inserted quotation marks. However, they are only single ones. Single quotation marks are more than acceptable if you’re using Australian English or British English. In America, the common practise is to use double quotations and save single quotation marks for quotations within quotations, apostrophes, and other such uses. I personally favour the double quotation mark, partially because I’ve been published in the USA.
There’s one other thing that should be noticed in the above example. Each quotation is finished with a full stop or period, leading to a lack of continuity in the text. It is actually better to write like this:

“Sit in the chair,” King Talmon said. “What do you think we are going to do now, Rafen?”
 “I do not know,” Rafen said quietly.

Notice that this time the quotation preceding the dialogue tag is joined to the rest of the sentence by a comma. This is certainly to be preferred above the following:

“Sit in the chair.” King Talmon said, “What do you think we are going to do now, Rafen?”

Fuse the dialogue tag to the first quotation to avoid any confusion. It also gives the overall sentence a nicer rhythm.

Lastly, as the reader may have noticed in this eye-catching picture above, sometimes people use quotation marks for emphasis. It is not a good practise. Typically, when quotation marks are used in this manner, it is culturally accepted that they are there to give the appropriate word a veneer of irony or disdain - certainly not what the advertiser behind the above photo intended.
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Editing Tip for Fluency No #5: Separate quotations from sentences with appropriate quotation marks. But don’t forget to integrate them into the text by using a comma to join the first quotation to the dialogue tag. And "avoid" unnecessary "quotations" for "emphasis".

This past week, I was privileged to write a guest post for Australian authoress Steph Bowe's website. Steph Bowe is twenty-two as well and has had phenomenal success with her two novels. She has fantastic connections in the literary world, including a literary agent with Curtis Brown. 

Thanks so much, Steph, for having me on your website!

Read Six Practical Tips for Writing a Long Series.

Have you met an author that never realised they wrote with repeated sentence structure? Every single sentence they wrote began with an independent clause, and then the author added another one. The reader read the paragraph, and later on he or she became frustrated. The reader understood that the author always wrote like this, and the author had no idea. Hence, the author’s editor scalped himself in frustration, and the author did a happy dance because she did not like editing.
 
Repetitive sentence structure can be really hard to pick up when you’re always close to your work. The best way to find it is to read your work aloud. If every single sentence has the same basic rhythm pattern, it will swiftly become monotonous. I discovered during the editing process of my first four books that I consistently started a sentence with an independent clause and then tacked another independent clause onto it by sandwiching a conjunction in the middle. Everything sounded the same. The author intent on avoiding this and making his prose more fluent must use a variety of sentence structures and lengths.
 
Here are several examples.
 
​1. The short sentence. Short sentences frequently have a simple structure: one subject, one verb, and often one complement. These too can become tired if used too regularly, but when used in moderation, it is one of the most effective sentences in an author’s arsenal. 
“And so he had lived: 237, a little underground animal who did as he was told. Yet he itched” – excerpt from Rafen.
 
Here the short sentence offsets that longer one before it. The impact is increased by what precedes it.
 
2. The long sentence. Despite its length, this sentence makes the prose feel as if it is moving quickly. Too many long sentences render the text bewildering. However, one or two effectively placed can create a quick picture with broad brushstrokes. A long sentence may have a compound structure (two independent clauses) or a complex structure (an independent clause with one or more dependent clauses attached). 
“He only had a glimpse. The room was a deep, comfortable black, excepting a small circle of naked blue light at the head of the double bed, where the dripping Lashki Mirah was in an ugly sprawling position, grasping King Robert’s throat with one spidery hand and pointing the vibrating copper rod to his head with the other” – excerpt from Rafen.
 
3. Sentences beginning with a participle phrase. If you are close to driving your reader crazy because you start every sentence with a subject, you might want to try beginning the next one with a participle phrase. Like so: 
“Collapsing on the floor, Rafen discovered somehow he had retained his sword” – excerpt from Rafen.
 
4. Sentences beginning with a subject. These are among the most common sentences, and they are certainly some of the easiest for readers to get their heads around. However, an author should disperse them among different sorts of sentences for variety. 
Rafen is a midget with black hair.
 
5. Sentences beginning with a prepositional phrase. These are great tools for evading monotony. 
After writing this sentence, I am gratified.
 
6. Sentences beginning with a conjunction. When I learnt grammar in school, one of the first rules my textbook outlined painstakingly was that one must never begin a sentence with the conjunction “and”. I believe novelists can bypass this rule. Other useful conjunctions include “although”, “but”, “yet”, “because”, and so on. Starting a sentence with “and” gives the feeling of a continuing thought. 
And so he had lived.
 
These are just a few loose sentence categories. However, familiarity with even just these six can help you make your writing much smoother.
 
Editing Tip for Fluency No #4: Use a variety of sentence constructions and lengths to correct repeated sentence structure.