Young Writers Society

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Dr. Bishop: Am I required to keep him alive?
-Fringe

What am I reading?

Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 2:13 am Post subject:

This one's easy; just take it out of the passive voice! Example: "[person/group] characterizes teenagers by acts of defiance and rebellion."

Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 2:28 am Post subject:

_________________
Dr. Bishop: Am I required to keep him alive?
-Fringe

What am I reading?

Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 3:09 am Post subject:

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Want a critique?

"Never bolt your door with a boiled carrot." -Irish proverb. (sounds best if you read it with an Irish brogue)

Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 3:13 am Post subject:

Becomes:

Jim loses his innocence again, by his own hand instead of by fate's, when he goes out to the dances.

Unless you're also trying to avoid subject-verb starts, in which case you could do:

When Jim goes out to the dances, he loses his innocence again by his own hand instead of fate's. (Should "fate" be capitalized? I know sometimes it is, but I'm not sure in this context.)

6 is a pretty easy one. You could replace "is" with "stands" or something like that. As for the "isn't", you could do something similar, like "does not lay in his hands but in God's...".

With 1, you can kill two birds with one stone.

Jim's first loss of innocence, the novel's opening conflict, shows that [insert something important here].

Et voila! A better sentence with no to be. (or not to be, for that matter Wink

)

4's another passive voice thing. Change it to "the rumors that they spread about him." If you haven't already, you should specify "they". I just don't know who "they" are.

I'm not sure about 5, but you could do it like:

Now that Jim knows the pain of losing his parents, and, as a consequence, the pain of losing his friends, he can no longer act like a child.

There's an awful lot of commas though...perhaps explain the friends part in a new sentence?

With 8, you could get rid of the passive voice (although I think it makes sense) by changing it to "...does what they ask of him."

I got pretty good at this after my 10th grade Advanced Composition class. My teacher made it no more than three "being" verbs per paragraph, no more than two subject-verb starts per paragraph, and no two sentences could start with the same word. It improves your writing a lot. It does suck that you only have four "to be's" in the entire paper, though.

Happy editing!

Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 3:23 am Post subject:

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Perception is everything.

(1) Jim’s first loss of innocence is also the novel’s beginning conflict. [This is also my paragraph's topic sentence, which is terrible, so it may end up being scratched out entirely]

Jim's first loss of innocence begins the novel by introducing the conflict between [blah blah].

(2) Teenagers are characterized by acts of defiance and rebellion

Teenagers resort to defiance and rebellion because [blah blah]

(3) Both Antonia and her brother, Ambrosch, are thrust into a position of greater responsibility.

Because of the conflict, both Antonia and her brother, Ambrosch, must take on extra responsibilities.

(4) . Jim’s decision shows that he actually defies the rumors that were spread about him,

Jim's decision shows that he defies the rumors about him

(5) . Jim can no longer act like the child he once was now that he knows the pain of losing his parents and, as a consequence, the pain of losing his friends.

Jim can no longer act like a child anymore now that he knows... [blah blah]

(6) ...instead Jim knows that life isn’t in his hands, but in God’s, and that he needn’t complain about where he is, or the tragedies that have come before this point in his life.

...instead, Jim realizes that he cannot control his life and he shouldn't complain about his current situation or about the tragedies that have come before this point in his life.

(7) Another situation where Jim loses his innocence, by his own hand instead of by fate’s, is when he goes out to the dances.

Another situation where Jim loses his innocence occurs when he goes out to the dances.

(8 ) He listens to his grandparents, loves them, and does what he is told.

He listens to his grandparents, loves them, and follows their orders.

(9) Now as a rebellious teenager, he makes the decision to go behind his grandparent’s back because he he knows they would not approve of him going to the dances, but it is something he would love to do.

Yuck. That sentence is riddled with grammatical errors, besides that.

As a rebellious teenager, he makes the decision to go behind his grandparents' backs because, though he knows they would not approve of him going to dances, he wants to go because [blah blah]

Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 10:34 am Post subject:

Yes.

My brain starts to melt after a while.

Really, though. I love you guys so much.

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