by Sarah Chauncey | May 1, 2017 | Writing
“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” — Writerly idiom”The road to purgatory is paved with adjectives.” — A former writing colleague of mine Great writing is tight writing. One of the most frequent comments I make to clients is...
by Sarah | Mar 24, 2014 | Editing, Writing
If you’ve studied psychology (or ever watched Lie to Me), you’ll know that microexpressions are split-second facial expressions that we’re not aware of making, but which reveal our true feelings about a given conversation. Although most people can’t consciously...
by Sarah | Mar 19, 2014 | Editing, Writing
The other day, a friend sent me a job posting from a well-known technology company. The first sentence included the phrase “creates top-of-the-funnel content to drive form completes, engagement and establish thought leadership status.” I nearly broke out in hives. My...
by Sarah | Mar 16, 2014 | Editing, Writing
One of the fundamentals of narrative writing is “show, don’t tell.” People retain stories and scenes better than they do a list of facts. Stories resonate more deeply with readers, creating more of an emotional engagement with the material at hand. For example,...
by Sarah | Mar 5, 2014 | Editing, Writing
As writers, we work painstakingly to craft beautiful sentences, paragraphs and stories. And then there comes a time when an editor says we need to cut 1200 words, or a client wants us to “tighten it up,” and the horror of having to delete those beautiful pieces often...
