{"id":4086,"date":"2015-03-23T10:07:55","date_gmt":"2015-03-23T14:07:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.old.caraghobrien.com\/book\/?p=4086"},"modified":"2015-03-23T10:07:55","modified_gmt":"2015-03-23T14:07:55","slug":"one-small-tip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/writing\/one-small-tip\/","title":{"rendered":"One Small Tip"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-4087\" src=\"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/IMG_4252-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_4252\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/IMG_4252-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/IMG_4252-144x144.jpg 144w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/>If you\u2019d like to make one small change to strengthen your writing, become aware of how often you begin a sentence with \u201cThere is\u2026\u201d or \u201cThere are\u2026\u201d Almost always, you can revise the sentence to eliminate that opener, and by being more concise, convey information more efficiently. It makes for smoother, brighter reading.<\/p>\n<p>Example #1: There are too many bugs in this pie.<\/p>\n<p>More direct: Too many bugs swim in this pie.<\/p>\n<p>Example #2: There is a small, ugly boy living on my block.<\/p>\n<p>More direct: A small, ugly boy lives down the block.<\/p>\n<p>The one clear exception that I know of occurs in dialogue, because people often naturally start sentences this way in real life. (\u201cThere\u2019s no way I\u2019m going with you.\u201d)<\/p>\n<p>Bonus: you\u2019ll create a subtle difference between the spoken voices in your novel and the interior ones or direct descriptions.<\/p>\n<p>Happy writing!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you\u2019d like to make one small change to strengthen your writing, become aware of how often you begin a sentence with \u201cThere is\u2026\u201d or \u201cThere are\u2026\u201d Almost always, you can revise the sentence to eliminate that opener, and by being more concise, convey information more efficiently. It makes for smoother, brighter reading. Example #1: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-4086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-writing-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4086"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4089,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4086\/revisions\/4089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}