Prose Primer

Nancy Kress says that, "The building blocks of effective prose are simpler than you think" in Prose Primer at Writer's Digest online. She mentions several aspects of polishing your prose, aspects that correlate well with the most common mistakes I find when editing: brevity, transitions, variations, accuracy (yes, in fiction!), and using strong, descriptive nouns and verbs to make your writing sparkle and glow. Don't mention just a cat walking. Is it an alleycat, Siamese, tom cat? Does it slink, trot, zip past?

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