"Reads sentence with -ing words" Oh well, sounds fine to me. "Reads same sentence without -ing words" What sorcery is this.

1. cut your "-ing" verbs 2. avoid adverbs 3. avoid dialogue tags 4. no abstract words (some, thing, it was) 5. no overspecifics (holding in hand, shrugging the shoulders, blinking the eyes) 6. no unneccessary adjectives 7. no overused/weasel words 8. would/had constructions. if you need it, introduce it at the start of the paragraph and then go into simple past 9. don't use as/while illogically 10. no convuluted phrasing 11. no suddenly/started/began 12. no up/down (Stood up, stat down) 13. avoid to be words 14. avoid to me/ to myself 15. avoid realisations (realised, felt, saw) 16. avoid unplanned repetition 17. no passive voice in general 18. telling when its already implied 19

It's proven that when you put a text in another sort of... format, or font, you can better see the mistakes. That's why many fanfiction authors notice mistakes only after they've published the story to whichever site they use.

I watched this video five years ago and it SIGNIFICANTLY changed the way I write. I implemented this advice and saw dramatic improvement in my poetry and prose overnight. Thanks for this!!!

Bottom line here is to JUST WRITE. Even if it reads like shit. I go out of my way to write poorly. The beautiful prose happens in the editing process.

3:39 The “everyone’s style will just be the same” argument always peeved me off. The nuts and bolts of concise, good writing have so, so, SO little to do with authorial style. Stephen King and Noel Gaiman both know how to avoid unfitting adverbs and use active voice, but you couldn’t possibly mistake one with the other. You’re not going to lose the forest by trimming the rotten branches.

watched the whole video without knowing what prose means

Rule 19. Remove all squirrels.

I first learned the "ing" thing from resume writing. An -ing word is something you are doing and maybe you'll succeed or maybe you'll fail. An -ed is something you did, it is an accomplishment.

"I know 'it was' is basically the weakest way you could possibly start a sentence." "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." ~1984. How about starting a book? :D Good advice, and though it's clear a lot of writing advice is debatable, it's very useful to know both sides so you can form your own opinions and writing style from them. What's that saying, learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.

Here's one that peeves me. "Her lips let loose a growl." If your lips are growling, you need to see a medical professional.

I JUST SAW THIS. AND LEGIT THREW MY HOMEWORK TO THE SIDE, AND DRRAAAGGGED MY SCREEN CLOSER.

Who needs to go to English class when we've got Shaelin!

Regarding adverbs, I keep them out of my prose for the most part, but I find one recurring place that I'm not comfortable cutting them is something like "said softly/quietly." I know that looks ripe for 'whispered' or 'murmured' or something instead, and sometimes I do use those, yet often I specifically don't want to imply whispering. To me whispering is a specific, muted thing, like...speaking in black and white. There's not really a tone/timbre to the voice. It's just gusts of air. You can 'speak out loud' QUIETLY and with the full spectrum of voice, yet not be whispering. And it's THAT that I often want to convey that my characters are doing. Mostly because it's a richer way of communicating. Likewise, something like 'murmuring' or 'mumbling' implies that the speech is unclear/indistinct. When I hear 'said quietly/softly' I imagine the person using their NORMAL complete voice, just at a low volume; whereas when I hear 'whispered' I imagine that wispy, gusting speech. It's just not the same thing. I'd love a verb that conveyed that method of speech without an adverb, but I don't know of one.

I'm an engineering student with a long-time passion for writing. Wish I could have studied this instead. Your videos are amazing. It really makes a difference learning from someone who's clearly so passionate.

I used to write "nodded his head" ALL THE TIME. Who knows what else you can nod...

The longest book i wrote was ONLY 17 pages.🤣🤣🤣

one of the things that completely changed the way i wrote was reading my immortal. it’s both one of the funniest things i’ve ever read and a surprisingly helpful what not to do guide. whenever i use or read the word suddenly and overly descriptive dialogue tags in place of said, i catch it instantly. bless your soul, ebony dark’ness dementia raven way

I love the info that you give in your videos. You clearly know your craft. BUT please!! Could you slow down the pace a bit, and make the transitions more obvious? For example, here you say “18 writing hacks”, but I lost track after the first 2 or 3. If you could just pause between key points and stress each of them when you first mention them, your videos would be more viewer-friendly. I know that you don’t like to make things too obvious because you believe in trusting the audience’s ability to understand. But when it comes to tutorials and tips, the easier to understand, the better. Remember that information is much more digestible when clearly segmented than when presented as a continuous stream. So the best you can do is treat each of your tips like it’s a PowerPoint bullet point in a presentation to a slow audience. Mention each number, announce the transition, “now tip number 5”. If possible, show the number on screen. I guarantee, your viewers won’t feel like you’re insulting their intelligence, if that’s what you fear. They will thank you

I love the suggestion of introducing the past perfect and then dropping it. I'm not going to pull out my copy to confirm this, but I'm pretty positive Alice Hoffman did does this quite a lot in Practical Magic, and it did so much for the whole tone of the storytelling. It created a dreamier, more vivid, and more engaging experience.

*Shaelin lists weasel words* *anxiety rises*

A simple sincere thank you Shaelin, for all the work you do to bring us your videos. Bravo!

a good example is the word "then". The first time I heard it's a bad word and you should cut it, I thought 'why? this is a pretty common word, everyone uses it constantly, no one will notice whether I used it or not'... but the thing is: "then" instantly structures the actions in your story and gives them a chronological order. So it basically functions as a cheap trick. If you have to cut it though, you have to make sure, with your sentence-structure and arrangement of words, that the chronology of actions comes across. So your writing improves immediately in ways it wouldn't have with the word "then".

Ahhh this is amazing!! I just found your channel and I'm so glad I did. I also really like the way your profs phrased following prose rules as a way of enhancing one's style. Tha's beautiful. Thanks for sharing what you've learned :)

This video is fantastic - it includes a lot of specific advice that other writing vids gloss over. Shaelin, you're great - keep making awesome videos :)

To paraphrase Will Hunting: you're giving me a $100,000 education for free. THANK YOU!!!

I love you and the way you write! I look forward to your next video, I get super giddy when I see you post a new video!

Easily the best and most useful writing advice video I've seen so far. These are great rules, and I shall endeavour to apply them from hereonout.

when you’re trying to use this for roleplay but it all comes down to first drafts..

Thanks, Shaelin. I'm definitely coming back to this video when I get to the editing stage.

Wonderful advice, as always! A lot of these are ones that definitely took me a long time to incorporate, and I still catch those pesky sneaks in my drafts. The -ly and -ing elaboration was great. You explained everything so well. :)

This is an excellent video. I learned so much from it. I'm definitely going to rewatch this and take notes. You make some great videos

I recently changed "The van parked across the street. The driver pretended not to be watching." to "The driver appeared not to be watching" because the first one has a POV problem: only the driver knows whether she's pretending or not; from anyone else's point of view, the driver appeared not to be watching.

Thanks for all of the wonderful information Shaelin. I'm a self-taught writer, and have never taken any creative writing classes. All of my writing education has been from KZfaq and online writing forums. I am so thankful for fiction vloggers such as yourself. I also subscribe to Jenna Moreci and Vivien Reis for their views on writing fiction. I am currently in the world building phase for the fantasy series my writing partner and I are working on. If you have any tips for building a fantasy world (particularly a large urban metropolis which will be our primary setting) I would really appreciate it. Thanks!

This is a great KZfaq crash course video for writing stronger prose! Thanks, Shaelin!

Great video! I definitely plan on saving it. There is a lot of good advice!

Just found your videos and they're so good! Watching this video I realized, wow, I do everything in this video. Thanks for helping me make my writing better 😊

this is such a great video if you're starting out to understand writing craft. It touches upon a lot of things and gives you handles to dive deeper into the material. Thank you so much for making this. It's been very helpful.

finally, a truly helpful writing video. examples! you give us many. thank you!

Thank you for these tips Shaelin; now I can edit my writing effectively.

I adore this video. So helpful. I can’t find the full essay you’re speaking of, just snippets of it here and there on random blogs.

Your amazing Shaelin

Lovely video, I've been coming back to this video over the last 3 years and it's still as good

I'm glad to hear the "edit on paper" advice. I thought I was the only one who experienced that phenomenon.

Thank you so much! After watching this video, I went over my own book, and I found eighty - count 'em, eighty - instances in one chapter where I used "ing" verbs and I didn't need to. I have some sort of "ing" verb disease. This advice is invaluable to me, and I'm sure my beta readers will thank you. God bless you, Shaelin!

deadass going to make a list of these when i line edit my next draft

This was a wonderful video. You're right, I won't be able to unsee it lol. I just looked up the paper you suggested and I am going to read it probably several times over. You're a huge help. Thank you :)

best part of this video is coming back to it after a year or so to go through your story and then finding that you've stopped doing most of these things

Great vid Shaelin thank-you for the essay resource and giving examples of the parts of language you're using that helped me avoid confusion I'm definitely coming back to these vids for my edits. Hayley ^_^

Great video. I am very much looking forward to the one about interesting prose!

You make a lot of valid points. My critique partners and I have discussed these issues to no end. I agree with you on a lot of this.

Loved this want to scan through my work with this eventually!

This video is liquid gold for writers. Thank you!

i was so happy when i saw that you had posted. like i always am that is. :)

This was amazingly helpful, thank you so much!!!

Really found this informative and educating - I'm going to look at all your other works too. Thanks a lot! Roger

I’m having such a great epiphany watching this. She’s going off on great things I will be incorporating in my speech and writing!

Thank you! This will be very helpful once I get to editing. Enjoy your trip!

"I don't think I use unnecessary language in my writing..." *peeks at first chapter of current fanfic....'she picked herself up off the ground'* "Gosh DANGIT"

This video is amazing, this really struck a chord with me. Sometimes my writing just has TOO MUCH, too many unnecessary words, and this has really helped.

This is a really helpful video. Awesome stuff.

There are so many good hacks/tips/philosophies in here! Some of them I've stumbled onto implementing myself, like avoiding dialogue tags as much as possible. I try to replace them with formatting or action beats as much as possible, and reading stories that use them prolifically drive me mad now. I was skeptical about getting rid of -ing words, but after hearing your before and after, I think I'm going to give that serious consideration. I've been spending some quality time with online dictionaries to make sure I'm not wasting time and space on words already implied by the word I was wanting to use. It's been eye-opening; I've learned I had very wrong assumptions about a lot of words. lol I'm so glad you pointed out "as" means simultaneous. I am enmaddened by most uses of "as" and use it carefully myself.

Some great tips here - really compels you to re-examine work you thought was finished!

These are really good advice. So glad I clicked on it. I'm going rewatch it later when I'm more awake and take notes.

"Nobody is going to be in a kayak and not feel it flip if they are in a kayak and it flips" Quote of the day! (This made me sub btw)

some excellent advice, ones I can use- the change in font/format looks like a good idea for me.

I think adverbs are best used with oxymorons, such as someone screaming silently or deafening silence.

Same! I haven't read My Immortal, but I've read lots and lots of similar shit on wattpad (I did it bc I was desperate for fanfic, don't judge), but yeah whenever I see a mistake I catch it instantly! I've also started hating ing-verbs, I literally rewrite the sentence in my brain bc it bugs me so much. But even though I see these mistakes, it has also made me immune to bad writing so there's that

Shaelin, I first came across this video about 2 years ago and it's stuck with me until now. It really took my writing to a whole other level. Tbh, at first I was a little skeptical. Then I saw change take place in my first drafts. It was crazy. Honestly the opening point (treat these as rules and not guidelines) made the difference. When these things started looking like 'mistakes' to me rather than choices, I was able to truly grow as a writer. ❤️

Hi I'm a new subscriber and your videos have really helped me out with my writing! I was wondering if you could do a video on things it's safe to start writing a chapter or scene, not knowing. So basically things you can come up with and improvise if you will, as you go. Love you videos! X

"No verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job" - T.S. Eliot

Super useful and I agree with all of those and gives me hope as already noticing it all as I write. There’s only improvement that will come next time

This saved my prose. You're a gem ❤

this was so helpful. Thank you.

Great post and thanks for the reference. Writers don't talk enough about prose and opt to discuss character development and plot (I guess it is fun to talk about) looking forward to reading the essay. I'm particularly bad for weasel words (i.e. particularly) but also took ages to get away from ING verbs accidentally using them as sequential rather than simultaneous

this video helps SO much. before, i edited grammar etc because i didn't know how to improve my prose sounds way better now. i can't thank you enough

Your vids are so helpful ;_; Hell, you even made me edit that sentence! I originally wrote "Your vids are all so helpful to me", caught myself, and changed it to that. *I'M LEARNING, BITCHES*

I've always taken adverbs as a way a writer gives me mental camera. If you say someone is holding an item, my mind doesn't zoom into it, it would if you mentioned they held it in their hands. So earning them makes sense.

Thanks for the advice. I will share it with my writers club!

This is amazing, thank you :)

I feel like this episode needed more squirrels. Four stars! Thanks for the info. I get a lot out of your videos.

David Michael Kaplan wrote a book called "Revision." This "Essay" "Revision your Prose for Power in Punch" is Chapter 9 of that book.

i need a written version of this so i can follow them, these rules are so useful

Thanks I've been waiting for this help thanks so much

Yo! This was useful AF. Thank you. It's also relatively easy for me to get out of writing shape and let excess verbiage sneak back into my prose, so I'll likely return to this and read the essay you noted.

Your strongest video to date. keep it up! :)

You've made me realize that the english curriculum of my public school was extremely lacking. Thanks for teaching me now 💗

I always replace just with simply but turns out I replaced one weasel word with another...shit lol.

'Avoid having your characters shrug because it's the least interesting thing they could do' LIKE THIS! THIS HERE! I can't tell you how many times I've been reading an awesome scene, when suddenly the character just shrugs, making it seem like they give exactly ZERO rats for what was going on. It's a good way to turn (imo) a fleshed out character into a one-dimensional character that is no longer worth my time XD

This was really helpful! Thanks!

SIgh I'll be back when my first draft is done.

The thing about rules is that they're easier and sometimes better to build off of. Limitations give a visible starting point, which is why people so often make good things out of them. Ignoring rules can leave you stranded. I could just have a bad sense of direction, but I personally love rules and tips. :)

Thank you for the amazing tips Shaelin. I enjoy culling adverbs ;) That's why first drafts should be free so they can then be refined otherwise as you said we would never write anything!

Everyday, I say "I'm not going to take notes!" But here I am with my phone, typing everything you say XO Keep up the good work :)

"I'm just trying to make these all have squirrels." - subscribed

ing-verbs. I use them, they exist in the language for a reason. That said, I am limiting them because it's not nice to have them everywhere. :P Oooh, I've removed sooo many dialogue tags when editing! XD The up and down thing. I think you can use it sometimes. Like, if you describe someone entering a room and dude in there just stands up from a sitting position. Then, you can say "he stood up". Because if I write "he stood" it would seem that he was standing from the start. But if we know he's sitting already, it's not needed. Oh, and I've cut SO many "to be". XD To run - ran, to walk - walked. They often come with the "started/began" thing as well. He started to run - He ran. Or There was a stair in the back of the room. A stair rose from the back of the room... or something.

GOLD. Thank you.

The thing about -ing verbs though... not using them actually changes the meaning of the sentence. Example: "I'm happy," she said, putting her sunglasses on. Without -ing verbs, it would be: "I'm happy", she said, and put her sunglasses on. I'm not saying it doesn't sound better in the second example, maybe it does, but it did change the sequence of events described. That's why -ing verbs exist, they're not just an odd-sounding quirk of the English language, they exist to express an action simultaneous to another. So how are we supposed to render that? Do we just replace all the actual simultaneous actions with "as" constructions? Also with words like "started" or "began", cutting them out can also change the meaning of a sentence. The example you used is a good example of that: he started climbing the tree implies that he is in the middle of doing so (perhaps something happens before he reaches the top). He climbed the tree implies the completed action. He's now at the top. This is a difference of meaning. Again, that's why these verbs exist, they're not arbitrary quirks of language... Realized is another one I don't agree with. Saying "he realized she was trying to kill him" implies a level of subjectivity that "she was trying to kill him" just doesn't have. It implies a change in perception, which is part of telling the story. That's what realizations are. They are moments when we become subjectively aware of a truth we were oblivious to before and this can alter our behavior. She may have been trying to kill him all along, but that's not what we're focusing on. We're focusing on the fact he realized this at some point. Am I making myself clear? It's one of those instances where we're more interested in the subjective development of the character than the actual facts. Taking "realized" out of the sentences changes the focus of it, so it isn't a superfluous word.

One thing that really helped me in my writing was being on a panel in which I had to write essays about 150 words each. That was not easy, when they asked about politics or other sensitive topics. So I learned how to cut unnecessary words, and how to add unnecessary words to make things longer!

Limit adverbs. Develop a style by cutting out all the common mistakes. No weasel words. No convoluted phrases. Limit -ing verbs. No repetitive adverbs like "shouting loudly". Abstract words like "something" got to go. No adjectives like "unknown" and "stranger" together. No "simultaneously" if the actions cannot actually be simultaneous. No need to say "to me" or "thought to myself". No passive voice.