Call 1-800-GOT-JUNK?

A hoarder's apartment
A hoarder’s apartment
By Grap (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)
Are you a hoarder? Maybe not in your home, but what about in your writing? Is it so cluttered with verbiage—wordiness, circumlocution, redundancy, modifiers, empty openers and phrases, pretension, clichés—that your readers stumble and rummage through it?

It’s time to purge. Even if you’re a creative writer.

If your writing is non-fiction or business, of course you want it to be clear and direct. But flowery embellishments and long, tangled descriptions don’t work now in creative writing, either. Maybe during the Victorian era that was the style, but today’s creative writing is clear and direct. All writers, then, need to use the “power” skill of writing concisely.  Continue reading Call 1-800-GOT-JUNK?

Life is a Beach!

Caneel_Bay
Caneel Bay, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands

Metaphor—it’s not just for poems any more. Metaphor is one of those techniques all writers should grab from creative writers to add creative power to their writing.

At its most basic, metaphor is a comparison in image form, and how effective are comparison—and creating an image in your reader’s mind—in making any type of point? A description, an explanation, an argument—all are enriched through comparison and imagery.  Continue reading Life is a Beach!