Road to Rejection: A Common Mistake of Many Writers.
by: Deanna Bounds Ross

A common mistake of many beginning or aspiring writers is using too many words. While it may seem advantageous to paint a picture for your readers; using wordy descriptions isn't the way to do it. Writers should strive to get their point across in as few words as possible.

Ernest Hemingway said:

"My aim is to put down what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way I can tell it."

Ernest Hemingway's reference to telling things the "simplest way" should not be confused with talking down to your reader. Simply put, we should tell our readers in a way they will easily relate to and understand. How can we do this? The best way is through showing our readers, not telling them.

For example, let's say our character really wants a bagel and coffee from her favorite bakery before heading to work, but they are really busy and the line is long. In our example, let's assume our goal is to get this information across to our reader, along with our character's irritation and final decision to stay despite being late for work.

The following paragraph is an example of "telling" our reader what we want them to know:

Leslie walked into the bakery. She was already late for work. There was a long line. This made Leslie irritated and she almost left. She wanted a bagel and a coffee so bad though, that she decided to stay, even if it made her late for work. "Why can't they just hurry up?" she thought.

This next paragraph is an example of "showing" our reader this same information:

Rushing through the bakery door, Leslie nearly slammed in to the last person in line it was so long. Biting her nails and tapping her foot rapidly, Leslie debated leaving. Mmmm. The smell of poppy seed bagels and fresh brewed coffee sealed her fate; she would be late to work again today.

As you can see, the 2nd example is more effective, as well as attention grabbing. Showing our reader provokes feeling, paints a picture and places our reader in the setting with our character. Showing fosters our reader's imagination. If we tell our reader what to think and how to perceive each situation; what is left for our reader to imagine? Without imagination, our reader can't place himself in the situations with our characters; and this makes for a very boring read.

Spend some time practicing showing, not telling. Pull out some of your old writings and rewrite them with a goal of showing your reader in any of the places you've told your reader what to think or feel. This could make such a big difference; you just might end up with a few "like new" articles to submit for publication! And, wouldn't that be great?

©Deanna Bounds Ross

Deanna Bounds Ross is a successful freelance writer, writing coach, internet business owner, and business consultant with over 15 years experience in business management and public relations in a corporate setting and 20+ years writing, coaching and teaching experience. Deanna is the founder and administrator of Creative Multiplicity, a resource site for writers, as well as an online education center for writers and entrepreneurs.http://www.creativemultiplicity.com/

Submitting Your Writing

Writing articles can be a powerful way to get your name established in the industry, as well as a promising way of getting published quickly.

What should I write about?

Write what you know. Are you an expert on tutoring, organization, school fundraisers? Just about anything you know how to do, someone else wants to learn. Write a how-to article and submit it to content sites for publishing.

There are hundreds and hundreds of content sites seeking just such submissions. And, each of those sites makes your writing available to other website owners for publication.

Your resource box, including a brief biography, link to your site(s), and any contact information you'd like, follows each article everywhere it goes!

Sounds great! But, how do I know where to submit?

There are several ways to find content sites that want your writing.

• 
  You could spend some time researching through the various search engines.
  
• You could belong to a membership, such as our Writer's Hub, which organizes and makes live links available to you for submission. Currently we have over 500 live links to content sites seeking writer's submissions.
  
• You could purchase an automated article submitter program that not only provides the sites, but also handles the submission process automatically for you.
  

Should you decide to go with an article submitter program, consider Creative Multiplicity's Writer's Hub Article Submitter; which gives you total control over your submissions. Unlike many other article submission programs, our software allows for manual submissions to each link for those sites that do not accept or allow automatic submissions. And! - the database is fully customizable: delete outdated links, edit links and add new links, anytime! You won't break the bank buying ours either!
Visit Writer's Hub Article Submitter to learn more or to purchase.

Wishing you great writing success!
Until next time . . .
http://www.creativemultiplicity.com

 

¶ 9:01 PM 2 comments

  Changes for our Entrepreneurs & Writers!

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