[I am writing MY story in tiny bytes and episodes, so here a=
re important lecture notes from a class at Pillsbury College where I taught=
on “Writing for publication”:]
Do not put statements in=
the negative form.
And don’t start sentences with a conjunction.
If you re=
read your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition =
can be avoided by rereading and editing.
=
Never use a long word when a dimin=
utive one will do.
The U.S. Army has a Department of Redundancy Department.=
Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.
De-accession euphemisms.
If=
any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. A prepos=
ition is something you never end a sentence with. Unless you have to.=
Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
Last, but not least, avoid run of=
the mill cliches like the plague.
&=
nbsp;
(Many of these are adapted from William =
Safire’s Great Rules of Writing)