How We Put Words Together

 

Writers put words together. Short version of what a writer does.

Writers put words together that mean someting. A little better version of what a writer does. 

Writers put words together that mean something and that people will enjoy reading. That gives us a pretty clear picture. 

The main idea is that writers do put words together. That's a given. How they do it can be an interesting topic. Let's look at a few, totally made-up, writers to see how they write.

A. Grammar Gertie:  She works so hard at being grammatically correct that she loses track of what she is actually writing. Doesn't give much thought to what appeals to the readers. She wants to make sure every verb fits with its noun, that every period, comma, and quote marks are perfect, that she gets the main idea across without frills some writers use. 

B. Susie Saccharine:  She read in a book that adjectives enhance nouns beautifully. She takes it to heart and uses at least three adjectives before a noun. Oh, she thinks, they are going to love this. Instead, she comes across as being too sweet, too much of a good thing. 

C. Robert Repeater:  He is Mister Redundancy in person. He repeats words and ideas over and over until a reader might give up reading. 

D. Sylvia Speller:  She is so caught up in the topic of her writing that she never does a spell check, actually couldn't care less about misspelled words. She never won the Spelling Bees in 4th grade either.

E. Peter Plain:  He sticks to the topic, never uses similes or metaphors, no adjectives, doesn't bother with a little alliteration here and there, hates long descriptions of any kind. He doesn't worry that his readers might get bored with his plain way of putting words together. He's a 'just the facts' kind of guy.

After meeting these five writers, you can probably see that writing is not only a matter of putting words together. It's the way in which a writer does this. Writers start with an idea, and then they must put words together to get the idea across to their readers. That's the basics. Next, comes the different ways to make a reader enjoy what has been written by using good mechanics and other tools of the craft. The aim is to make the words you write be the most appealing possible. 

Which of the following sentences is a better read? 

A. Jane ate the popsicle.

B. Jane licked the grape popsicle so slowly that the purple juice trickled down her chin and onto her blouse like a leaky faucet.

If a writer attempted to write a novel with the majority of the sentences sounding like A above, she/he would have a hard time getting an editor to read past the first page. Yes, he/she put words together but not very well. 

Put your words together with some thought