Fluff Words: Cut Them From Your Prose, Keep Them in Your Dialogue
Fluff words make a sentence longer without making it say more. Cut them from narration and business writing, and keep the ones that make dialogue sound like real people talking.
Tag: Vocabulary & Word Choice
The right word does work no sentence rewrite can match. These posts cover expanding a writer’s vocabulary, the difference connotation makes, and choosing words that land precisely instead of approximately.
DystopiaGeorge Orwell Day: The Rules About Sentences
Orwell spent his life dismantling the class and empire he was raised inside, took a pen name so his family would not be embarrassed by his poverty, and died at forty-six. His most useful legacy to writers is not the…
Book ReviewsThe Fear Thesaurus
A reference for writers on how fear shows up in a character: the physical signals, the behavior, the internal experience, and the ways people hide it. Useful when a scene needs a reaction that is not the obvious one.
JanuaryThesaurus Day
Thesaurus Day is January 18. How to use a thesaurus to sharpen your writing instead of bloating it, and why the simple word usually beats the fancy one.
JanuaryNational Word Nerd Day
National Word Nerd Day is January 9. Why caring about words at the nerd level is the foundation of good writing, not a quirk. A celebration for word lovers.
Grammar & SpellingDictionary Day
Dictionary Day is October 16. Why a misunderstood word corrupts everything you read, the value of looking words up, and what Weird Al's Word Crimes gets right.
Book ReviewsPaperback English Dictionary Essential: All the Words You Need, Every Day (Collins Essential)
A competent compact everyday dictionary, affordable, portable, and adequate for quick student and general lookups. It rates modestly because it lacks the depth and nuance a serious writer needs, and its everyday-lookup job is now handled as well or better…
Book ReviewsNew Oxford American Dictionary, Third Edition
Oxford's flagship dictionary of American English, pairing the publisher's lexicographical rigor with a specifically American focus. Ideal for a US-market writer settling spelling, meaning, and usage. A first-rate reference, held back only by the free, continuously updated digital dictionaries that…
Book ReviewsConcise Oxford English Dictionary
The best of the major dictionaries for a serious writer, because its depth and precision, near-synonym distinctions, fuller senses, etymology, actually serve the craft of choosing words where a basic dictionary does not. British-English oriented, and like any print dictionary…
Book ReviewsThe Languages of Tolkien’s Middle-earth
A handbook to Tolkien's fourteen invented languages, built on a golden principle: languages first, world grown around them. The trouble is it is decades out of date and in places simply wrong on Elvish grammar. A useful doorway to how…
Book ReviewsThe American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
An excellent American dictionary with a feature writers can actually use: a Usage Panel that reports expert consensus on contested usage questions, plus rich word histories and illustration that reward browsing. That guidance rates it a notch above the utilitarian…
Book ReviewsThe Klingon Dictionary
Most dictionaries document a language that already exists; this one documents an invented one, and does it seriously, a linguist-built guide with real grammar, syntax, and vocabulary, far more rigorous than its Star Trek origin suggests. Solid for its craftsmanship…