Earthy and Hard-Won Romance
So today while finishing up my manuscript and crossing my fingers that all loose ends have been tied nicely in a hundred bows, I saw this:
Aspiring fiction writer? Cool! Here are 2 phrases you must NEVER use: "for a long moment" and "for some reason." Find another way!
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) February 22, 2017
And off I went searching for the following words on my manuscript. And sure enough, there were six instances of “for a (long) moment” which when I promptly removed them, made the sentences a thousand times better. Even perfect.
Example 1: "He looked at her for a long moment." No. Just "He looked at her."
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) February 22, 2017
Example 2: "For some reason he had to go back to that house." Now, really–how lazy is that?
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) February 22, 2017
For some reason it took me a long moment–a very long moment–to look at the responses to my last tweets.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) February 22, 2017
Why does he have to make so much sense?
Romance me writes stories with happy endings while my naughty pen writes the naughty ones. I also accidentally step on Legos daily while balancing my cup of tea and biscuits. View more posts
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Liz Durano
Thanks for sharing this! I checked my manuscript, and I actually didn’t have those phrases in it. I’m kind of shocked.
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LOL I had 6 too many!
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Since college I have used Pinterest to keep up with what’s in and out as far as wording and dialogue. Some lists are exhausting and I find myself wonder if I only use the word said or if “said is dead”
I think I should just stick to a few more credible sources. King has definitively earned that title.
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The Pinterest boards drive me crazy with all the rules people pin on there. But King has some good ones especially from his book on writing (of which the title escapes me at the moment LOL).
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