Richard Van Anderson's Blog, page 9

That, Which and Who, Oh My!

  In my last post, I discussed how I use the Find feature of Microsoft Word to hunt down and eliminate redundant redundancies from my manuscripts as I go through the final edit. I also mentioned how I’ll use Find to ferret out those pesky to be verbs and get rid of as many of those as I […]

Eliminate Those Redundant Redundancies

  I’d like to call your attention to an editing tool for the editing of redundant words and redundant word phrases that turn up in rough drafts and not-so-rough drafts. (What?) Why is this important? First, good writing is concise. Thomas Jefferson said, “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.” When someone writes past experience, fatally […]

“Okay, Let’s Crack Him!”

  Let’s crack him—three simple words that sent a shock wave through the ER. Three words that invited every surgery resident, internal medicine resident, medical student, respiratory therapist, lab tech, blood gas tech—and even the housekeeping staff—to flood into the room, hoping to witness the most dramatic procedure, the greatest spectacle, in all of medicine. […]

The Four D’s: Part 2 – What is Depth?

  Resonant stories have depth. Forgettable stories don’t. Literary fiction, for example, takes us deep into the lives of characters and creates complex stories that touch upon the human condition. A good literary novel may resonate with the reader long after the book is finished. Genre fiction, many will say, tends to stay on the […]