Writing in E-Prime

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The fundamental concept of E-Prime is to write without ever once using and conjugation of the verb to-be. And though this taks a little bit of effort, finding substitues for all these incredebly common words, often in writing's better.

For instance:

The light was green.
The house was ugly.
Is he here yet?
They are all asleep.

...Could be rewritten:

The light turned green.
The house looked ugly.
Has he arrived yet?
I don't see anyone awake..

And so on and so forth. ^_~ Sometimes, when you get really stuck on a certain paragraph or scene, try going over it in E-Prime. Strike out every word relating to "to-be" and replace it with something else:

"It is unbelievable" becomes "I can't believe this"...

"She is moving anyway" becomes "I told her not to move"...

... And so on. ^_^
Last edited by Dream Deep on Tue Aug 15, 2006 8:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.




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Hmm . . . Sounds tricky, but definitely a good thing to try to give your writing a little more variety to it.
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Just don't get to caught up with this! YOu don't want to inadvertantly censor yourself. ;)
Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.

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It seems like a worthy pursuit, but I like to be. It is VERY useful. I think I'll stick with it, though E-prime would be good in certain occasions
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That's a good editing technique. Thanks DD!
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I like this, I've actually always done it in my editing. I've really tried to vary everything, so nothing is repetitive. Thanks for the suggestion dreamy!
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I think this technique becomes slightly more complicated when you are not writing in first-person.
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E-Prime can improve your writing or hurt it. See
http://www.asiteaboutnothing.net/w_eprime.html
for a discussion of e-prime for writers.
Also, if you read articles by e-prime gurus, you see that many write poorly.



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