Tipsy Tuesday

If you want your book to be a can't-put-it-down page-turner, one of the keys is vivid writing.

One way you can do this is to begin your sentences with the subject and verb--and keep them together. Make sure your sentence is active versus passive. For example, "Martha slammed down the phone and glared at her husband" is much better than "Martha was fuming and slammed down the phone as she glared at her husband." Use those strong action verbs and watch out for those -ing words (i.e., "slammed" versus "was fuming"). Collect verbs like a dragon hoards precious gems. Your writing will be the better for it.

This is not to say that every sentence should be this way or you should never use -ing words--you need to mix things up or your writing becomes too boring, and readers need to be able to take a pause from the action. Catch their breath so to speak. But you do need to make your writing as vivid as possible.