From: blp
Category: Art
Date: 03 March 2005
I'm sorry to say this because it could hurt, but if you are a writer you must learn to write. Using even one cliche' at a time is bad enough, but using two or three in a row is really not writing. 'Well well well.' '...a breath of fresh air.' '...not a day too soon.' You should also watch out for repetitions ('Nice artwork...' followed quickly by the single verbless sentence 'Nice.') and sentences that don't make sense ('...into my present come the Playboys of the Western World.' What does this mean? Into your temporal present? This seems the more likely, but in the previous sentence you have used the word present to mean 'gift'. If you are still using it in the succeeding sentence in this sense, it's very hard to understand. Into your present come the Playboys of the Western World? How do they do that? Wouldn't it be closer to the truth to say that they are it, or at least a CD by them is it? ((this in itself must be inferred since nowhere in this introductory paragraph do you actually use the term CD.)) Sticking with the word 'present', the mere fact of having repeated it makes it very confusing. And if you are using it in the temporal sense, it's a very odd usage indeed.) Also, still in your first paragraph, how is your reader supposed to understand the link between a Canadian postmark and The Playboys of the Western World? Are the group Canadian? Is there any logical connection between the sentence about the postmark and the one about the group coming 'into your present?' It's not clear. I promise you I'm not being sadistic. Plumbers plumb, painters paint, lawyers practise law and so on, ad infinitum. And writers write and while there may not be one single way of doing that correctly, there are numerous ways of doing it wrong. It's no good to say this doesn't concern you for some reason. If it doesn't, you're not really a writer, just another person with basic literacy. You can't be a writer if you don't at least try to use language usefully, clearly or beautifully. You might start putting this right with William Strunk and E.B. White's 'The Elements of Style', available from all good bookshops, if not on the high street, at least online. More to the point, read good writers. Avoid rubbish. To finish with another verbless sentence:garbage in, garbage out. All the best.
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