5 Ways to Strengthen Weak Writing

Every writer has to work on strengthening the construction of their sentences and paragraphs. No one’s writing is perfect, but with effort any writer can improve. There are always aspects to our writing that could be better. In this post we’ll take a look at 5 ways to strengthen weak writing, whether you are working on a fiction or nonfiction project, poetry or a screenplay.

One culprit of weak writing is the choice of phrasing. Weak construction sneaks in at the level of words and sentences, and like termites in a wood-frame house can bring the whole structure down. It comes in the form of passive voice, of ing verbs, of dangling modifiers. (“Yawning widely, the book was abandoned for another six-hour Netflix binge.”) It makes a swamp of our beautifully imagined worlds and drowns our dialogue in banality.

But don’t be discouraged! Every instance of weak construction is an opportunity to bring new, vivid life to every sentence and paragraph of the story, because we are not just cutting and hacking; we are replacing and rewriting—bringing in fresh phrasing, vivid nouns, active verbs, sparkling dialogue, and details that bring our worlds and our words to life.

Fortunately, while natural talent and a good ear certainly help, good sentence writing is not some mystical skill that only the most devoted Jedi will ever attain. This fatal flaw is all about weak sentence construction—or, more specifically, how to avoid it.

5 Ways to Strengthen Weak Writing

1. Avoid “to be” verbs. The eight forms of the verb “be”—otherwise known as state-of-being verbs—are useful, necessary little words without which English would hardly function. It’s a great mistake to try to excise them from our writing completely. (And contrary to legend, the use of a “be” verb does not automatically constitute passive voice.)

In storytelling, however, the state-of-being verbs can be a problem because they do just that: they state being. They do not show action. They do not move, act, or describe. They are just there. And nine times out of ten, they can be replaced by a stronger verb.

So rather than “She was at home,” you might try “She waited at home,” or “She stayed at home,” or “She twiddled her thumbs at home, wishing with all her might that she were somewhere else.” A “sky that was sunny” becomes “a sunny sky,” and “clouds that were puffy” become “puffy clouds.” “There was a man on the hill” becomes “A man stood on the hill.” Word count drops, rhythm improves, and images grow vivid.

The “be” verbs also act as helpers for past progressive verbs. Rather than simply stating that an action happened, a past progressive (or past continuous) verb traces its action—it shows that is “is happening. Weak construction is seen in “was being,” “were singing,” “were rustling,” “was coming.”

At times you may want to stress the continuation of an action. In that case past progressive is fine. But normally, the simple past form of the verb will be more effective: sang, rustled, came, encouraged, waited.

Even passive voice has its place in fiction. But active voice acts, and that makes it by far the stronger mode of construction. The After passage has people doing real things.

2. Avoid vagueness. Which brings us, finally, to the problem of vagueness. Passive voice and state-of-being verbs contribute to making a scene vague. So does past progressive tense with its tendency to suggest that nothing is ever really finished or going anywhere definite.

The more general the wording, the less vivid it will be. The more concrete and specific, the more vivid. Specifics make a movie out of mud.

If you’re writing fiction, more than likely the world you’ve created for your novel exists in your mind as fully imagined. This means you’ve assigned a myriad of details to it—far too many to write down in any one scene.

However, the details you do share with readers will muddy drastically if you employ words that aren’t precise. Using vague or generalized words to describe your world takes away from the experience you wish readers to have.

We can divide vague words into three general categories: intensifiers, diminishers, and vague-aries. These words are nouns or modifiers (adjectives or adverbs) that are meant to give a word more precise meaning but actually do little to define the object. Intensifier examples include very, really, mostly, many, large, a lot, huge. Diminishers: small, tiny, little, some. Vague-aries: something, situation, circumstance, thing, stuff, problem.

3. Avoid weak construction in dialogue. Dialogue gives a quick yet solid indication of a writer’s abilities. Strong dialogue keeps a story interesting by revealing characters’ traits, advancing the plot, and breaking up narrative with action that clearly describes what’s happening. Conversely, weak dialogue results in shallow characters with no individuality, a dragging plot, and an ambiguous, unsatisfying story. Even the best plot won’t hold a reader’s interest if the writer lacks the ability to create good dialogue.

A story flows so much better without repeated dialogue tags and adverbs ending in ly. Nowadays, most editors recommend said as the dialogue tag of choice (if a tag is necessary—many times they’re not since action or other dialogue makes it clear who’s speaking). That doesn’t mean writers should never use other tags, but said keeps the dialogue transparent by allowing the reader to skim over it, concentrating on what’s being said instead of how it’s being said.

 Omitting the ly adverbs supports transparency in the same way and also encourages the writer to show emotion through dialogue and action instead of telling it with words.

4. Don’t be redundant. The quickest way to slow down your manuscript is to be redundant. It’s boring, it’s overwriting, and it’s weak. What do you want your reader to learn from this passage? What tone do you hope to convey, and what emotions do you want to elicit? Keeping those ideas in mind, ensure that every word in your passage matches your goals.

Go through and look for repetition (I see a lot of this in manuscript drafts). That applies to narrative and dialogue. Just because you restate something with different words doesn’t mean readers aren’t going to notice the repetition in idea. Also pay attention to words you like to use that stand out. It’s one thing to use the or it a lot. But if you start using felicity or amorous over and over, it will feel like a thorn in your reader’s mind.

5. Watch out for modifiers. You may have heard of these terms, and you might even know what they are. But even being in the know doesn’t ensure writers will catch these traps of weak construction.

Here’s the problem with modifiers. We know what we mean when we put our thoughts into words. Sometimes, though, what we mean to say isn’t what’s actually written. Misplaced modifiers and badly placed participial phrases are often the result of quick writing. The challenge is in locating and rewriting these sentences.

A modifier, simply put, is something that modifies. It’s a word or phrase that modifies (affects, changes) another word. In the phrase “blue ball,” the adjective blue modifies the noun ball. Writers sometimes stick those modifiers in the wrong place in a sentence.

Take a look at these lines and see if you can identify the problem:

• This morning I chased a dog in my pajamas. (Did the dog dress himself?)
• I sold a desk to a lady that had broken legs. (Poor woman; how will she carry that desk?)
• We sat on the porch listening to the birds sing while playing cards. (Wow, talented birds.)
• She saw several whales on vacation in Mexico. (Do whales take vacations?)

It’s easy for these modifiers to slip into the wrong place in our fiction passages, so it’s important to watch for them.

What is a participle? It’s a verb or a noun that gets turned into an adjective. Participles can be in the present tense or the past tense, and the present participle always ends with ing. For example, “sing” is a verb, and “singing” is its present participle.

There is nothing wrong with beginning sentences with these words, but watch what happens when close attention isn’t being paid to the subject of the phrase:

• Floating downstream, the day seemed so peaceful.
• Beating me at cards, my fun evening with my friends cost me my week’s wages.
• Turning the doorknob, the noises in the creepy room scared me.

You’d have a strange story with days that float down streams, evenings that can play cards, and noises that can turn doorknobs.

How do these sentences sneak in? Often, they are buried in the middle of a paragraph or a description that surrounds the offending sentence with additional context and meaning. This is a reflection of lazy writing as well as fast writing.

As we crank out our scenes at furious rates, we lose contact with individual sentences and depend on context, general understanding, or the reader to make sense of our words. But every sentence matters, and constructing each one with care leads us to stronger, more understandable writing.

Weak construction sneaks in at the micro levels. Every superfluous or ineffectual word weakens your writing, so while you won’t often stop to examine every single word as you write a first draft, seeking and destroying weak construction should be high on your list as you revise and self-edit subsequent drafts.

It can show up at the macro levels too, so be sure to step back and look at your scenes. Search for long passages (or entire scenes) in which characters aren’t doing or saying much, or where what they are doing and saying doesn’t move your story forward in a strong way.

Weak construction makes for weak scenes and weak stories overall. Take the time to ferret it out. Checking your writing for these 5 weaknesses and then correcting them is the path to stronger writing!

Featured photo from www.freepik.com.