Young Writers Society

Mary Jones. Our topic for this evening. We once read a book about Mary Jones - the girl who saved up for six years to buy a Bible. A good story, yes, but the impact was lost by the bad writing style of this particular book we were reading aloud. There was one part where she's knocking at this door, and she "heard the step of foot on the floor above". Most normal people would read that and accept it. Not little old uses.

That sentance had us all in stitches for five minutes. Basically, Dad made a comment about the one-legged man who must be upstairs, because it was just one foot that had been heard, and then it got complicated and blown up out of prorportion...

And the moral of this is: don't be too fancy when you're writing something, because there's bound to be some smart-mouth in your audience who'll pick up on it and add a comment that'll ruin your effect.

Like so (paraphrased and not word perfect) :

Jamie was ravenous and fell on the food provided for him.

It's all to easy to make that, Jamie was ravenous and fell on the food provided for him, getting a nasty stain on the front of his clothes.


Or again:

Miguel dropped his eyes in disappointment

Can become, Miguel dropped his eyes in disappointment and they fell on the floor with a clatter.


It's alright to use phrases like that in moderation, but remember that if they can mean two things, there'll be someone who'll pick up on the second, unintended meaning.

A rather humorous little tip you have here! And you make a good point Twit, sometimes it's bad when there's an ambiguous sentence in the middle of a really serious section of a book and instead of feeling sad, nervous or whatever the intended emotion is, it makes you laugh. There again, if the book is a comedy, that isn't such a bad thing. Lol.