Don’t over-use adjectives to embellish or color your copy.
“Very interesting” can be better expressed using fascinating, riveting, noteworthy, and more.
Your writing should usually be grammatically correct. Sometimes the exception to the rule works—but usually it doesn’t! When writing dialogue, grammar can sometimes go out the door if the characters who are “speaking” wouldn’t speak grammatically in the real world. Examples: ‘Me ‘n Mike went fishin’.” “You ain’t thinking of skipping school again, I hope sure not?” Yoda is a prime example of someone breaking rules–but we all loved it!
About Paragraphs
A paragraph usually contains one thought/subject.
A paragraph usually includes three or more sentences. It takes special skill to use less than three sentences in a paragraph effectively.
Powerful paragraphs can have fewer sentences.
Your article, essay, etc. can have three or more paragraphs on the same topic.
There are no rules as to how many paragraphs should be in a piece.
A short paragraph of less than three sentences is often used as the first paragraph in a piece.
The first paragraph is your “hook,” your clincher. If it doesn’t grab hold of your readers, they’ll slip away unless the piece is required reading. So take good care of your readers. Don’t write anything you wouldn’t love to read yourself. It’s in your telling of a tale where the magic appears…or disappears!
Put the theme or topic sentence somewhere other than in the lead sentence in a paragraph to make it more interesting.
Make it enjoyable to read. Make sure the tense, the person or persons (singular or plural) remain the same throughout the entire paragraph. (Don’t start out talking about ‘we’ and then end up talking about ‘I’.)
There are no rules on how many paragraphs to a story.
About Sentences
How long should a sentence be? As long as it takes to convey a single thought.
Break up run-on sentences if you tend to use them habitually. Variety is the spice of life.
Sometimes breaking the rules adds “punch” but you really have to know what you’re doing to do it well.
