A man walks into a bank with a gun in his hand. “Ok, everybody,” he shouts, “lie on the floor! This is a hold-up!” Some people obey immediately, but a few don’t. The man reaches into his pocket and pulls out a handful of bullets. “Get on the floor,” he commands. “I have a handful of bullets!” When that doesn’t provoke the desired response, the man begins throwing the bullets one at a time. The security guards quickly realize that the man has no bullets in the gun. They dodge the bullets the man throws at them, and quickly overpower him.

Why did this man fail to rob the bank? He had the necessary tools, namely the bullets and the gun. His problem, however, was that he used them separately. Each tool had some effect, but they did not help him accomplish his purpose when used alone. In mostcases, tools need to be combined to make the greatest impact on your audience, whether people in a bank or people who read your documents.

Strategies for Impact

Writers have at their disposal many strategies for making an impact. In most cases, they can be used independently to create some level of emphasis, or impact. For example,

1. Parallelism: Creating a series of parallel items provides increasing emphasis on those items while showing how they are related to a main point.
2. Framing: Framing ideas by stating similar ideas at the beginning and end of an argument reinforces those ideas and keeps the reader focused.
3. Sentence Fragment: A sentence fragment starting with a conjunction tells the reader to pay close attention to what comes next.
4. Style Shift: Dropping in a rare colloquialism garners reader attention to a particular point.
5. Terminal Placement: Stating the most important information or concept at the end of a sentence or paragraph demonstrates its importance and helps the reader focus on it.
6. Short Phrase or Sentence: Short sentences and phrases have the potential to create strong emphasis. They catch the eyes visually, and the punctuation on either side creates pauses so that the phrase or sentence stands out.

Many such strategies exist. In fact, the writing guide Bang! Writing With Impact contains over 200 such strategies.

However, these strategies increase the overall impact of your writing when they are combined logically and artistically. Let’s look at a great example of how the strategies described above can be combined to create an overall emphasis on a particular idea.

Sample of Strategies Combined

The text in this sample is taken from An Intellectual and Cultural History of the Western World by Harry Elmer Barnes (Author: 1937, 1941; Dover Publications Inc.: 1965). The passage discusses the idea that while human nature has not changed since the earliest days of our history, humankind has made great advances in culture, thus negating the idea that human nature is a barrier to societal advancement. By the time you finish reading this selection, you will have a good idea of where the author stands on this issue, and, likely, you will agree with him.

These considerations should serve to make clear that what we regard as human civilization has developed without any change in human nature. Our institutions, literature, art, and religion have grown from the most rudimentary beginnings to their present forms without involving the slightest changes in the physical equipment which we designate as human nature. We have passed from cave dwellings to the Empire State building and Rockefeller Center, from small clans and tribes to great national states and colonial empires, from the possession of a few skins and bone implements to billionaires, and from illiteracy to the wisdom of a John Dewey or the erudition of a Joseph McCabe. And all of these advances have been accomplished with the same old human nature, persisting unchanged.

The writer used the strategies above to emphasize his points, lead to a final conclusion, and make an impact on his readers.

1. Parallelism: This passage contains two major examples of parallelism. The second sentence contains a parallel series of 4 individual words (“institutions, literature . . .”). The third sentence contains a series of 4 parallel phrases. In most cases, four items in a series is the maximum for creating emphasis. Using more than four actually reduces impact.
2. Framing: The first sentence provides the context for upcoming text: “human civilization has developed without any change in human nature.” Then the author provides some discussion of this, some examples, etc. Finally, in the last four words of the paragraph, he reinforces his idea: “human nature, persisting unchanged.” Thus, we start and finish with the central concept, which frames the entire passage.
3. Sentence Fragment: Starting a sentence with “and,” “but,” and “yet,” (coordinating conjunctions) will always make a sentence fragment. However, this strategy tells the reader that the next information is inherently linked to and provides the conclusion from the previous statement. This tells the reader, “Pay attention. I’m about to write something important.” The author used this strategy by starting the final sentence, “And all of these advances . . . .” At this point, he begins to build up to the final impact statement.
4. Style Shift: This passage has a fairly academic tone. While the author obviously is passionate about this issue (we know this from the other strategies), he maintains a high, fairly impersonal tone. Then, he uses the term “same old,” which is a colloquialism. This draws the reader’s attention to what comes next. If the reader’s attention has started to wander during the previous discussion, this temporary shift in style will draw the reader back in so that the author can make his central point, which follows immediately.
5. Terminal Placement: The most important information in a sentence should be at the end of the sentence. Similarly, the most important information in a paragraph should be at the end of the paragraph. The reason for this is simple. The words at the end of the paragraph have the potential to create the greatest impact, so placing the main idea there means placing the greatest emphasis on the main point. The last four words of this paragraph summarize the main point.
6. Short Phrase or Sentence: Look at the final phrase of the entire passage: “persisting unchanged.” That is the point of the entire passage: human nature has persisted unchanged and yet all these accomplishments have occurred.

Harry Barnes packed many strategies into four sentences. The effect is cumulative, building to an impressive, emphatic paragraph. The final sentence, alone, combines four strategies, which together build to the final impact statement: start with a conjunction to catch the reader’s attention, shift the style to increase the impact, and conclude with the most important information in a very short phrase. Barnes would have been a very successful bank robber.

I spend a considerable amount of time each week preparing articles on writing for Internet distribution, making posts on various writing blogs, responding to users on our discussion board, and writing new posts for our blog—basically trying to give away as much information about good writing as I can. When I am not working on clients’ documents or promoting our services, I am probably writing about writing.

From time to time, my Internet marketing specialist and I search the Internet to discover where the articles have been reposted and what feedback they have received. Sometimes this is quick and easy, such as for our article “Creating Sentence Transitions,” which has good content but seemed dull to many readers. Sometimes this takes a long time, such as for our article “10 Overused Words in Writing,” which was reposted several hundred times.

We look for the articles because we are curious to discover what is resonating with readers, what their needs are for writing instructions, and the like. We read the feedback for the same reason, and because we want to continuously improve our ability to connect with readers’ needs.

From feedback over the last year, I have learned 4 lessons.

1. Editors are arrogant, self-centered, snotty, ivory tower, out-of-touch, disrespectful, irrelevant, good-for-nuthin’ know-it-alls.

I figured I might as well start with the negative feedback. While most feedback is positive and, in many cases, grateful, some people will disagree with what we write and will criticize our expertise. Most criticism comes from people who don’t “get” what we do, meaning they don’t recognize the value of external advice and they confuse recommendations for improvement with personal insults and attacks.

Negative feedback is expected. We could mimic our critics and lash out in return. Instead, we try to do what we counsel our clients to do: 1) Accept that criticism is a part of being a writer, and 2) Learn how we can better address readers’ needs without compromising our integrity.

We have a purpose for our writing: help as many people as possible improve their ability to communicate in writing. If we are going to accomplish our purpose, we need to address the attributes and characteristics that hinder reader acceptance and understanding, which is good advice for all writers.

2. People don’t always read carefully.

Words get missed, sometimes entire paragraphs. This may cause a reader to misunderstand what we write and not understand how to apply the information we present. For example, one reader criticized our article “10 Overused Words in Writing” by writing, in paraphrase, “It’s ok to use these words sometimes. Telling people that they shouldn’t use them is not right.”

I agree completely. In fact, I said so in the article, which states, “We don’t recommend that you remove these words from your writing. Instead, we recommend that you become aware of how often you use them and that you revise your documents to limit their use.”

This is a case where a concept was clear to the writer (me) but not to the reader. However, the point I was making was important. Had the reader read and understood my statement, the reader would not have criticized the article and, perhaps, would have accepted what I was trying to communicate. I can’t change what my readers do; I can only change what I do.

Since that point was so important, I should have found a way to emphasize it, make it clearer, and make it easier to find. For example, I could have made this statement a paragraph by itself. I could have used bold text. I could have used very short sentences. The point is this: I needed to employ a strategy to help the reader find and understand what I thought was important. It was my responsibility, not my reader’s.

3. Reader’s needs differ according to the format.

People read using different strategies and for different purposes depending on the format. A person reading a printed novel will read differently when perusing an informative article on the Internet. A person reading a white paper has a different purpose than someone reading a blog post.

Reading online is harder than reading printed copy. Reading a long, long web page is harder than reading a 6” x 9” printed page. A writer needs to understand how these are different and make adjustments to meet the readers’ needs. Some strategies include:

1. Using shorter paragraphs;
2. Writing shorter, simpler sentences, especially for significant points;
3. Create lists;
4. Adding headings and other signposts; and
5. Using text formatting, such as bold text.

Fortunately, some things don’t change. Clear, concise, and direct writing is essential regardless of the format, as are logical organization and using an appropriate style and tone.

4. A niche market has the highest frequency of readers.

One of the analyses we perform when we find our articles and review feedback has to do with placement. “Placement” is a marketing term that refers to choosing where the product is displayed and where the buyer completes the purchase process. For our writings, placement has to do with where we publish our writing and where people are reading.

In the best case scenario, an article (or blog comment) is posted on a site where the readers are actively interested in the topic addressed by the article. Where the content and the readers’ interests are not accurately matched, the article receives very little attention. On the other hand, we can apply the marketing concept of placement to increase readership.

What I have learned to do is this. First, identify the specific ideas I am communicating. Second, identify the specific type of reader who will be interested in those ideas (the niche market). Third, find where those readers are making reading selections (i.e., buying). Fourth, present the ideas to that niche in that place. The number of readers and overall reader interest is much greater.

This is how we get readers when we publish externally. When we publish on our blog, the same concept applies. In this case, readers are coming to us because they are interested in our topics. However, if we don’t keep focused on that niche market (for example, if we start providing movie reviews instead of writing advice), we will lose readers. By responding to the specific needs and interests of our niche market, our niche readers, we can maintain a large, loyal base of readers.

In conclusion

The lessons we have learned from our readers are the same lessons we give our clients:

1. Use feedback to improve your manuscripts and achieve your goals.
2. Present information in a manner that is accessible to your readers.
3. Consider the reader’s needs and purposes.
4. Match the content to the appropriate audience.

For some time now, I have been hearing about how bookstores are struggling to stay in business, not only the small, local bookstores, but also the big chains, such as Borders. My perception is that Amazon.com’s success is partly responsible for these struggles. I like Amazon.com, and I also like “bricks and mortar” bookstores. Amazon.com’s future seems pretty secure at the moment, so I propose three strategies bookstores can use to remain in business and survive Amazon.com.

THE NEW MARKET ENVIRONMENT

Once upon a time, if you wanted to buy a book, you bought it from a bookstore. Book buying possibilities have changed. Now you can pay to download a book to an e-book reader or buy it from an online source (e.g., the author’s or publisher’s website, Amazon.com). Book buying behaviors have changed, but bookstores seem to be trying to maintain the way they do business. Other than adding a coffee shop, bookstores now look much like I remember them before Amazon.com made online book shopping practical.

In my opinion, one of the advantages Amazon offers book buyers that bookstores don’t is the breadth of selection. Amazon has a wider selection of books than bookstores. The second advantage is cost. The price to purchase a book online is often lower than the cost bookstores offer. Amazon doesn’t have to pay for store furniture, decorations, floor walkers, fancy buildings, etc. With lower operating costs per book and greater volume, Amazon can keep prices down. As my Aunt Irene used to say, “Ain’t pretty, but it works.” To attract book buyers, bookstores are going in the opposite direction. This doesn’t seem to be working.

Sure, I can buy books directly from bookstore’s websites. I can go to the Borders site, for example, look up some books, and buy them. However, if I’m going to buy books online, I’ll probably buy them from Amazon.com. Bookstores offer a very different experience than online shopping, and I want bookstores to succeed. Thus, the advice I have is for getting more people to buy books in bookstores.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO BOOKSTORES

1. Employ e-book and web-based technologies.
Bookstores need to use the new technologies, not resist them. I’m specifically referring to e-book readers. When I was at a Borders bookstore earlier this week, I checked out the Sony e-book readers they had for sale. I was pretty impressed. The sample models were preloaded with long excerpts from about 15 books. They were firmly attached to the counter, so I couldn’t pick them up, much less walk around with them. While playing with them, I glanced around the store. Against nearly every wall and in every corner, I saw people sitting in comfy chairs reading books. They could browse the shelves, pick up a book, carry it to a chair, and read. I couldn’t do any of that with the e-book readers being displayed. That got me thinking about sales possibilities and buyer behavior.

People in bookstores like to browse books, pull out a selected title, and read a few pages. If they like what they read, they will buy the book. Unfortunately, they are limited to the books on the shelves, which might not be what people want. For example, I wanted to look at books on building tree houses. None were available on the shelves. (I was referred to the local hardware store!) I wanted to flip through the 2009 Writer Watchdog. I couldn’t do it. I wanted to read a few pages of Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates. Not available. Maybe I could look at Interpreter of Maladies, the first book by Jhumpa Lahiri. Same problem.

I understand that bookstores cannot stock every possible book in their databases. That’s a given. But shouldn’t I be able to look at them anyway, whether or not they are on the shelves? This is where e-book technologies can play an important role.

Here’s the scenario I envision. I check out an e-book reader (for free, of course) from the service counter. The e-book reader is connected wirelessly to the bookstore’s network. I walk over to the computer at the end of a bookshelf or the touch screen panel situated in a book rack. I search titles, check out authors, look at covers, and find a book that seems interesting. I punch in the number of the e-book reader I’m carrying, and the first 40 or 50 pages of the book are downloaded to the reader. I take the e-book reader to a soft chair, hook one leg over the armrest, and read. Maybe I find 10 books that look interesting. I download the excerpt from each.

(Why didn’t I just browse through the e-book reader? E-book readers are black and white—currently. I want to see color covers, so I use the color computer monitor or panel.)

Two of these titles are sufficiently interesting that I want to buy them. I pull up the menu on the reader and add them to my shopping cart. When I’m done browsing, I hit the purchase button. According to the displayed information, one of the books is in the store and will be waiting for me at the main counter. The other book isn’t available in the store, but it is in the warehouse. I can get it for a 10% discount. Would I like to buy it and have it mailed directly to me? Sure, I would!

(Why the 10% discount? First, if it’s not in the store, then the corporate office has determined that it is not a book that is likely to have high volume. It’s going to take up inventory space in the warehouse, and keeping inventory costs money. The discount encourages me to get it off their hands. Second, the discount helps justify the delay caused by shipping. Third, the discount also helps the store compete with Amazon.com prices. If I’m going to wait anyway, then the cost should be competitive. Otherwise, I will just buy it from Amazon.)

I can enter my credit card information and buy the two books through the e-book reader. If I don’t want to enter my payment information through the reader, or if I want to pay cash, I take the e-book reader to the sales counter. The clerk scans the number of the reader and pulls up my purchase details. The first book is, indeed, waiting there for me. The clerk confirms that I want the other book, too. I do. I make my payment, get the first book, drop off the reader, and I’m done. I’m another happy bookstore customer.

2. Improve book searching at bookstores.
I’m referring to new semantic mapping technologies. When I enter a book title or author name, I should not only get specific search results, but also I should get a list of books that are related. (This is similar to how Pandora.com creates online music stations for users based on the user’s musical selections.) If I am interested in a particular book or author, then the search engine should also recommend other selections. This will need to be far more in-depth than simple category searching currently available.

For example, if I enter the term “Sherlock Holmes,” I should see titles of other books in the Sherlock Holmes series, other titles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, other mysteries with a lead male detective, books written in the same style, and books written around the same period. Instead of just books about Sherlock Holmes, I can browse a broad selection of books that are related by a comprehensive set of identifiers. I can hit the “more like this” or “not like this” buttons to further refine my search.

Eventually I get to Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. I have never thought of reading this book, but it fits my interests; I just didn’t know it. “Ok,” I think, “I’ll check it out.” I download it to my e-book reader, read 10 or 15 pages, and find that it does, indeed, interest me. I buy a book that otherwise I would never have thought to buy. I’m another happy bookstore customer.

3. Use print-on-demand (POD) technologies.
Print on demand can increase available selections while decreasing inventory costs. As my former managerial accounting professor said, “Inventory is bad.” In the perfect world, a bookstore has no inventory. Exactly the right numbers of books are available, all the time, to meet customer demand. Of course, this is impossible. However, reducing warehouse inventory is possible by using POD.

Instead of warehousing 1,000 copies of a book in a central repository (or 25 copies for an independent bookstore), a bookstore only keeps enough books to meet expected demand for the next short period. This may be only 10 or 20 books if expected demand is low or unknown. The bookstore company (e.g., Borders) uses POD technologies to produce additional books as needed. Using POD technologies, short runs of books can be produced very quickly. Even 1 book can be economically produced using POD.

For large runs of books, over 1,000, for example, offset (i.e., traditional) printing is usually more cost effective. A new book by Stephen King should be printed with offset printing. The books will be on bookstore shelves, not in inventory, and will sell fairly rapidly. Inventory costs are not the same problem as they will be for less well-known authors or less popular topics. By using POD, bookstores can maintain a very small inventory (or none) of most books and have the books printed when they are demanded. Through POD, a book can be produced overnight.

Think about the first scenario above. I find a book I want, but it is not in the store. I can buy it and have it shipped to me. What I don’t know is that the book isn’t in inventory, either. All I know, all I need to know, is that the book will be shipped to me tomorrow. When I buy the book, the order is submitted, the book is printed that evening, and the next day it is shipped.

Bookstore companies can go about this process two ways. First, the bookstore company can license the right to print the books at its own facilities. The book will be the exact same book that the publisher would have printed: same ISBN, same cover, same everything. The bookstore is not the publisher—only the printer. This may be costly at first, but it will allow the bookstore to sell books efficiently without having to put in a buy order to the publisher or deal with “middle-man” costs and inefficiencies. The major costs will be incurred by the purchase and set-up of the printing technologies, as well as personnel to operate and manage the process.

The second way to do this is less expensive but also less efficient. Major bookstores can give preferential treatment to those publishers that employ POD, thus encouraging publishers to create this possibility. The corporate book buyer can then send an order to the publisher requesting 5 copies of a book. Normally, the publisher would laugh at such a request because it uses offset printing. However, a publisher that uses POD can do it, and the books will be ready tomorrow.

If the bookstore wants to keep books in inventory to reduce order and delivery costs, it can use a kanban system in conjunction with POD to keep books available while keeping inventory costs at a minimum. A kanban system uses a “pull” process to initiate the creation or purchase of a product. When only a specific number of books remain in inventory, an order is placed, and more books are printed. Here’s how this works.

Let’s say the bookstore anticipates selling 7 copies of a book per week, or approximately 1 per day. Some days, 2 copies are sold, but never more than 9 books in any week and never more than 4 books in 3 days. Let’s also say that books can be printed and delivered in 3 days, which is nearly impossible with traditional printing but simple with POD. Then, using the kanban system, when only 4 books are in inventory (the maximum that will be sold between the time of the order and the time of the delivery), the company places an order for another 9 books. This way, just when the inventory has no more books from the previous order, the next order arrives.

A bookstore can order 1,000 copies of a book. Some will be sold right away, but others will sit in inventory for a long time. Using print on demand publishing and a kanban system, many small orders are placed. Inventory is kept at a minimum, costs are reduced, and the books are always available when demanded. As the book shopper, I get the book I want, either right now or in a few days. I’m another happy bookstore customer.

LOOKING AHEAD

That’s it. Those are my recommendations for keeping bookstores alive and valuable to book buyers. My hope is that when I’m 80 years old, I won’t be heard saying, “When I was younger, we could go to an actual place where books were sold. It was called a bookstore. Gosh, I miss those days.”

Paragraphs can be written in many ways. In nonfiction documents, for example, a paragraph may first establish context for an idea, provide supporting information, and then conclude with an impact or action statement that leads to the next idea. In fiction or narrative documents, a paragraph may show a single action or provide a character’s immediate response to an experience. Some writers use long paragraphs to fully explore an idea, while others may prefer short, terse paragraphs.

In all cases, however, the purpose of a paragraph is to present one idea to the reader. The complexity of the idea and the reader’s need for explanation determine the length of the paragraph. A careful writer will balance the reader’s needs with his or her style preferences. This brings us to a question I have been asked occasionally. How many sentences should be in a paragraph? The answer I give is based on the “one idea per paragraph” concept: at least one.

If the precedingparagraphs have provided sufficient information for the reader to understand the idea, and if the connections between the ideas are clear, and if the value and implications of the idea will be obvious to the reader, one sentence may be sufficient.

Unlike paragraphs with multiple sentences, a one-sentence paragraph places heavy emphasis on the idea. It is a high-impact tool for telling the reader, “This is very important.” Very few ideas require this level of emphasis. Used sparingly, one-sentence paragraphs can be very effective for pointing out critical ideas or keeping the reader mentally focused on the content.

On the other hand, a document with too many one-sentence paragraphs loses this effect. The writer who uses too many, or uses them too close together, is telling the reader that many of the ideas are very important. As a result, he or she loses the ability to point out specific ideas as being the most important. This is similar to always shouting. If you shout everything you say, no single shouted idea has more emphasis than any other.

Another problem with documents that contain too many one-sentence paragraphs is that they are unpleasant to read. Each one-sentence paragraph creates an emotional impact. The reader will need time to recover, meaning the reader is no longer considering new information as it relates to the high-impact statement. If the effect of the previous emotional impact has not yet “worn off,” adding another impact places emotional stress on the reader’s subconscious. Eventually, the reader will become mentally fatigued, and the entire document will lose value.

In summary, here are three guidelines for using one-sentence paragraphs effectively.

1. Use them only for stand-alone ideas that do not need explanation.
2. Use them when you want to create heavy emphasis for an idea.
3. Use them infrequently.

One last note:
This does not apply to journalistic writing. One-sentence paragraphs are a common style for journalistic writing, especially in print journalism. For all other types of writing, however, these guidelines apply.

Most fiction authors write in the past tense. They tell readers what happened. This is as if the author says, “I see the events in my mind, and I’m writing about what I saw.” Very few fictional books are written in the present tense.

One reason for this is that writing in the present tense provides serious challenges to the author: maintaining perspective, introducing prior events, and filtering the stream of consciousness.

Below, we discuss these challenges and provide an example of present-tense writing done well.

1. Maintaining Perspective: Well-written scenes have only one perspective. As readers, our focus is on one character, and the scene is described through that character’s experiences. Usually, the focus will be on the protagonist. We perceive the scene through that character. However, that scene can be described again from another character’s experience. This is possible because the scene is written in the past tense. We already know that it has happened.

When writing in the present tense, the events have an immediacy that makes this difficult. We read about what is happening at the moment, not about what already happened. This limits the author’s ability to show events from multiple perspectives because when the perspective shifts, the events already occurred. As such, when the perspective changes, the author continues to show what is now happening but through a different perspective. The author keeps the readers in the “now.” This can be a powerful tool for keeping the reader engaged in the story, but it is difficult to accomplish.

2. Introducing Prior Events: Events do happen prior to the current experience, and describing them in a present-tense story requires a shift to the past tense. However, the author may need to include those events to help the reader understand the present experience or to provide the motivation for a character’s actions and thoughts. This is difficult to accomplish. The author must make these time shifts smoothly, without losing the present-tense perspective and without making the reader wonder when the event is taking place. The author has to separate present and past tense without damaging the readers’ engagement in the present tense events.

3. Filtering the Stream of Consciousness: The human brain is always thinking, which means that the character on whom we are focused is having many thoughts. Some may be repetitions, some may be revisions of prior thoughts, and some may be off topic completely. Some will be new and relevant to the experience the character is having.

The challenge to the author is identifying the thoughts that are relevant and necessary to the story without creating gaps in the character’s consciousness. Shifting between a description of thoughts to description of physical activities and environment will help, but as with introducing prior events, this can be difficult. While we are reading the character’s thoughts and feelings in the present tense, other actions and events are occurring. Thus, when the author “leaves the character’s mind” and returns to the “real world,” he cannot go back to describe what has happened in the meantime. So the second part of this challenge is to ensure that the reader doesn’t miss critical events.

An Example of Present Tense Fiction: Robert Silverberg, winner of multiple Nebula and Hugo awards, uses the present tense very effectively in Starborne. This is the story of 50 people traveling across the universe through “nospace” to find a new planetary home. Obviously, it is science fiction.

Here’s a quip from the book that addresses the second and third challenges:

“The year-captain wonders whether everyone aboard, one by one, is about to undergo some maddening transformation for the worse. Already Noelle is losing the ability to communicate with her sister on Earth; the blunt and straightforward Sieglinde has unsettlingly chosen to challenge the reliability of the theorems that she herself helped to write; and now the easygoing and irreverent Heinz is tiresomely eager to explain the year-captain’s own responsibilities to him. What next? What next, he wonders.”

Science fiction may not be your preferred genre, but this novel is worth reading if you intend to write in the present tense and are unsure about how to do it well. Find it in a bookstore, sit in a chair, and read the first couple chapters, at least. Study how Silverberg resolves the three challenges noted above.

We have a variety of editorial services for authors that will help you prepare your manuscript, but reading and studying Starborne will give you a good start.

From the Paris of New England: Interviews with Poets and Writers by Doug Holder (click on to order)

From the Paris of New England: Interviews with Poets and Writers
Print: $18.50










http://lulu.com/ibbetsonpress to order



A series of interviews with poets and writers that took place in the "Paris of New England," (Somerville, Mass.) Doug Holder the founder of the small literary press "Ibbetson Street" conducted interviews on his Somerville Community Access TV Show "Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer," as well as for his literary column in The Somerville News, and at the Wilderness House Literary Retreat, founded by his friend Steve Glines. Poets and writers included in this volume are Mark Doty, Tom Perrotta, Pagan Kennedy, Claire Messud, Lan Samantha Chang, Afaa Michael Weaver, Lois Ames, Steve Almond, and many more... There is also some striking photography by Elsa Dorfman and other photographers in this collection. Included is an introduction by Michael Basinski, curator of the University of Buffalo Poetry Collection...

Unless you string titles after your name (e.g., Ph.D., M.A.), your reader doesn’t know how much education you have. The reader only has the words you write, and your reader will judge your intelligence, education level, and credibility based on how well you write. No, this isn’t fair.

Let me be perfectly clear about this: The manner in which you write is only loosely connected to your intelligence, education level, and knowledge of the topic. Many intelligent, educated, knowledgeable people write poorly, use ungrammatical sentences, and misspell words. I am convinced that the way a person writes has little to do with his education or intelligence. Your ideas are a far better indicator.

As Claudius Caesar is quoted saying (paraphrased), “Is not what a man says more important than how he says it?” I agree with him. In spite of this, your reader may still judge you unfairly and discredit your ideas based on the way you write. Readers arewrong to do so, but they will.

With that in mind, here are some words, phrases, and expressions (in no particular order) that may cause your reader to ask, “Didn’t this writer ever go to school?”

1. More better
“More” + “-er” is redundant. That “-er” word already means “more.” Other examples of this problem are “more smaller,” “more faster,” and “more lazier.” The word “more” should be dropped.

2. Most biggest
“Most” + “-est” is redundant, too. That “-est” word already means “most.” Other examples of this problem are “most smallest,” “most fastest,” and “most laziest.” The worst use of this incorrect expression is “most best,” which means the “best best.” Only one thing can be the most of anything. The word “most” should be dropped.

3. My sister, she . . .
This is an example of telling the readers who the subject is, then telling them who the subject is again using a pronoun. You only need one. If your reader doesn’t know who “she” is (which is why you wrote the actual subject, “my sister”), then don’t use the pronoun. Instead, only write “My sister . . . .” Other examples:
“My uncle and I, we . . .” should be written “My uncle and I . . .”
“The dog and cat, they . . .” should be written “The dog and cat . . .”

4. Me and her went . . .
“Me” and “her” are not a subject pronoun. This should be written “She and I.” The subject pronouns are “I,” “you,” “he,” “she,” “it,” “we,” “they,” and “who.” Anything else is wrong. The second problem is the order of the words. In nearly every case, you should write the other person’s pronoun first. More examples:
“Me and him are . . .” should be written “He and I are . . .”
“My mom and me took . . .” should be written “My mom and I took . . .”

5. . . . for her and I
“I” is not an object pronoun, so it cannot be the object of the preposition “for.” The object pronouns are “me,” “you,” “him,” “her,” “it,” “us,” “them,” and “whom.” Anything else is wrong. More examples:
“. . . sent to John and I” should be written “ . . . sent to John and me.”
“. . . followed after Frank and he” should be written “ . . . followed after Frank and him.”

6. Been
“Been” is the past participle of “to be.” You don’t actually need to know this. What you need to know is that if you are going to write “been,” you also must write “have,” “has,” or “had.” If you use “been” without one of those words, you will have a grammatical error. So, instead of writing “I been to the museum,” you would write “I have been to the museum.” More examples:
“Susan been here for 12 days.” This should be written “Susan has been here for 12 days.”
“The dogs been to the vet every year.” This should be written “The dogs have been to the vet every year.”

7. Seen
“Seen” follows the same rules for use as “been.” So, instead of writing “I seen that movie,” you would write “I have seen that movie” More examples:
“She seen the ghost in that room.” This should be written “She has seen the ghost in that room.”
“Bob seen her before she saw him.” This should be written “Bob had seen her before she saw him.”

8. Irregardless
This is not a word. The correct word is “regardless.”

9. Alot
This is also not a word. The correct way to write this is “a lot,” which is 2 words. [The word “allot” exists, but it means something very different.] An Internet search for “allot of” resulted in around 1.3 million entries—and every one of them is wrong. The correct way to write this is “a lot of.”

10. Apostrophe-S for plurals
Apostrophes are not used to make plurals. They have two functions: 1) replace missing letters in contractions and 2) make possessives from nouns and pronouns. This mistake is becoming more common, but that doesn’t make it right. Sentences like “These book’s are missing page’s” are never right.

11. To, too, two
Any mistake using these words will be obvious to educated readers.
“Too” means 1) an excessive amount, 2) also.
Example: Too many people use this word incorrectly. Do you make this mistake, too?
“Two”: the number
“To” is 1) part of the infinitive form of the verb, 2) a preposition indicating movement away from one thing and in the direction of another.
Example: She sent a letter to me that explained how to use this word correctly.

12. Could of
The correct form is “could have.” The common contraction “could’ve” sounds like “could of” when spoken, but writing this is wrong. “Could’ve” is the contraction for “could have.”

13. Their, there, they’re
Any mistake using these words will be obvious to most educated readers.
“Their” is a possessive pronoun meaning, roughly, “belonging to them.”
Example: Their grammar is their own business.
“There” indicates a place, and is often used in poor writing as a placeholder for the subject.
Example: There is a dog in there.
“They’re” is the contraction for “they are.”
Example: Want some strawberries? They’re ripe now.

14. More than three dots for an ellipsis when indicating missing words.
You use an ellipsis to indicate that you have removed some words from a quote. An ellipsis is only three dots. Sometimes, you might use four dots if you need one to represent the period at the end of a sentence. Anything else, though, looks amateurish and uneducated.
Here’s a correct example: “The soap . . . is missing.” In this example, the ellipsis is representing the missing words “that you bought me for my birthday.”

15. Using more than one exclamation mark.
One is enough! Really.

16. Like or goes/went instead of said
Using “like” or “goes/went” in place of “said” is juvenile slang. While you might be able to get away with this in speech, it will damage your credibility in writing. For example, if you write “He was like, ‘I’m bored,’ ” you will sound uneducated. This is the same for “Then he goes, ‘I don’t like pizza.’ ” The correct way to write this is “Then he said, ‘I don’t like pizza.’ ”

17. Your, you’re
“Your” is a possessive pronoun. “You’re” is a contraction for “you are.” Choose the one you need.

18. Any type of “chat speak”
Chat speak includes using “ur” for “you are” and “your,” “frenz” for “friends,” “gud” for “good,” and “lol” or “lolz” to indicate your amusement. Many more examples are possible. They may be amusing or “hip” when chatting online or sending text messages to your friends, but they are all inappropriate for formal writing.

19. Pretentious writing
This one doesn’t have a specific example, so I’ll try to describe it. Writers use pretentious writing to make their writing sound very formal and professional. This may include using many official sounding words, lingo, acronyms, and long, complex sentences with many commas. While these can be used effectively, if they are not part of the writer’s normal speech patterns or are overly formal for the purpose or audience, a reader may recognize that the writer is trying too hard to be impressive. This makes the writer seem insecure and will damage the writer’s credibility. Instead, write simply and clearly so that the reader can focus on your ideas—not on you.

Some final notes
Why doesn’t this list include problems with “who” and “whom” or “that” and “which”? While mistakes using these words are very common, many readers will not recognize them as errors. Also, because so many “educated” writers have difficulties with these words, making mistakes with these words might not make you seem uneducated, at least not like the 19 items above.

If any of these items apply to you, I hope that this list will help you produce professional writing. Your reader will respect you as a writer and will focus not on you but on your ideas, which is the goal of good writing.

Your resume is your first interview. Most personnel directors will look at your resume before they meet you. They will form an opinion of your competency and your personality based on your resume. Based on our work helping clients prepare resumes, we have created a list of 8 words your resume needs, words that will create a favorable impression of you.

1. Successfully
Companies want to hire winners. Use this word to describe your accomplishments in a prior responsibility.
Example: I successfully negotiated a new contract for services.

2. Leadership
Companies want to hire leaders. Use this word to describe your involvement with task and project teams.
Example: Under my leadership, the customer service unit managed all client records.

3. Team
Companies want to hire people who can cooperate with others to accomplish company goals. Use this word to describe your involvement with colleagues.
Example: Our team was responsible for answering customers’ questions about products.

4. Created
Companies want to hire innovators. Use this word to describe new ideas and processes you developed.
Example: I created a checklist to track daily service tasks.

5. Expanded/Increased (the verb, not the adjective)
Companies want to hire people that will help them grow. Use this word to describe your participation in company growth.
Example: During this time, the company expanded the product line to include 2 new models.

6. Support (the verb, not the noun)
Companies want to hire people who will assist the management team. Use this word to describe your relationship with your former supervisors.
Example: I supported the division director by compiling financial data.

7. Will
Companies want to hire people who are confident about their ability to deliver what they promise. Use this word to describe what you will do if hired.
Example: I will solve customer software and hardware problems.

Some of these words may not apply to your resume. However, if you think carefully about your prior experiences, you will find that you can use most of them. Using these words does not guarantee that you will get the job you want, but they will help you make a good impression.

Effective writing and the correct use of writing mechanics are very important. Once you have developed the draft of your resume and cover letter, you will need to edit it carefully. Editing guides will help, as will daily writing instruction.

Good luck in your job search. [link “Editing guides” to the training manual page. Link “daily writing instruction” to the writing tips page.] Read Precise Edit's new article and optimize your resume.

All words are good words. Some, however, are overused without adding value to what you write. As a result, they reduce the readers’ interest, make text seem redundant, and cause the writer to appear amateurish.

We have created a list of 10 overused words, based on the documents we have edited over the last 5 years. We don’t recommend that you remove these words from your writing. Instead, we recommend that you become aware of how often you use them and that you revise your documents to limit their use.

1. There
When writers are not sure about the subjects of their sentences, they will often use this word as the subject. This results in weak writing. (For advice on correcting this problem, see our article “Where Is There?”)

Example: “There was no one at home.” This can be revised as “No one was at home.”

2. You
Writers often use this word when referring to general or reoccurringsituations. “You” rarely refers to the reader and should be avoided.

Example: “Our grandmother was nice. She always gave you candy.” This can be revised as “Our grandmother was nice. She always gave us candy.”

3. If
Although “if” is a fine word, it is overused by writers trying to describe options and thought processes.

Example: “If she took the bus, she wouldn’t have time to stop by the grocery store.” This can be revised as “Taking the bus would leave her too little time to stop by the grocery store.”

4. When
Readers realize that actions can occur at the same time, which is what the word “when” indicates. Thus, “when” is usually unnecessary.

Example: “When she opened the door, she saw blood on the floor.” This can be revised as “She opened the door and saw the blood on the floor.” Some writers use “when” to describe actions that cannot occur at the same time, as in “When she woke up, she made coffee.” Actually, she first wakes up and then makes the coffee. This can be revised as “She woke up and made the coffee.”

5. As
We once worked on a book in which the author used this word repeatedly to describe the timing of actions, often 3 or 4 times in one paragraph.

Example: “He was shouting ‘Follow me!’ as he ran down the road.” This can be revised as “He ran down the road shouting ‘Follow me!’ ”

6. Very
Mark Twain made this comment about using “very”: “Substitute ‘damn’ every time you're inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” “Very” is a crutch for finding the right word to describe what you mean to say. Find the right word.

Example: “He was very old.” This can be revised as “He was ancient.”

Also, in this example, you can simply write, “He was old,” and then provide text to further explain what you mean by “old.” For example, you could write, “He was old. He walked hesitantly, knowing that his brittle bones would surely break were he to stumble over an unseen obstacle.”

7. Really
Generally, this word can be removed without changing the meaning of a sentence. Anything that is true is also really true.

Example: “He was really nervous about speaking in public.” This can be revised as “He was nervous about speaking in public.” To show a greater degree, use a different word, as in “He was panicky about speaking in public” or “Public speaking scared him.”

8. Am/Is/Are/Was/Were (“to be” verbs)
Action verbs are always preferable to state-of-being verbs. Use words that describe the action occurring. Rather than saying what something/someone is, show the reader what something/someone does.

Example: “I am envious of her success.” This can be revised as “I envy her success.”

Example: “She was dressed in leather chaps and a flannel shirt.” This can be revised as “She wore leather chaps and a flannel shirt.”

9. So
See #7. “So” is also overused as a conjunction.

Example: “Her face was inches from his own, so he leaned forward and kissed her.” This can be revised as “Her face was inches from his own. He leaned forward and kissed her.”

10. Because
This word is overused to provide explanations. To fix this, use the word “and” with action verbs.

Example: “He wanted to go to the fair because his friends would be there.” This can be revised as “He wanted to go to the fair and meet with his friends.”

Example: “I want to leave because I am tired.” This can be revised as “I’m tired and want to leave.”

David Bowman, Owner and Chief Editor of Precise Edit, wrote this article.
(c) Copyright 2008, by Precise Edit

Human Derivatives in Doug Holder's: The Man in the Booth in the Midtown Tunnel

Human Derivatives in Doug Holder's: The Man in the Booth in the Midtown Tunnel (Cervena Barva Press)

article by Michael Todd Steffen



The man in the booth in the Midtown Tunnel, not the title of a poem but its subject, gives us, the passengers on the subway, a fleeting camera click of glimpse of a man defined in his function. He is confined to an extreme example of a human reduced from nearly all that makes him human, precisely because of how the world today is structured, encountered andprocessed. He is like a zoo animal. He paces the perimeter Of his cage, poet Doug Holder writes in lines reminiscent of Rainier Marie Rilke The Panther.



Holder typically takes these sorts of verbal photographs of people unusually overridden by probably what is not a definitive moment for the people as they really are, but by awkward vivid moments that would package them palatably for our quick-take-for-thrills media consciousness. People confined to monotonous jobs of function in a tunnel booth or at a post office machine, confined ridiculously for two years in a toilet, gotten up in colonial attire, apprehended at a maddened moment painting the statue of John Harvard red while tourists snap pictures.



The poet is snapping these photos partaking in the mania of his contemporary culture, and in doing so he is exercising a mimesis of the dynamics of 21st century perception, how data about ourselves is created and presented to others. As though our experience today consisted of a rapid succession of sudden images, spaced messages left, brief chats, sandwiches in wrappers on the go, news headlines, shifting windows, all with a hawks eye out for the next quirk or embarrassment to give cause to the perpetual laugh-track that must punctuate each moments joke, each segment of the day.



These are as serious implications as one would want to draw from a poet whose (can it be?) earnest intention is to humor us. Yet that Holder's perceptions are so keenly attuned to how the world works today gives an underlying substance to his seeming legerdemain, short poems of truncated lines, almost epigrammatic,laconic, tongue-in-cheek, yet at the same time oddly in the sympathetic spirit that Auden remembered in William Butler Yeats:



In a rapture of distress

Sing of human unsuccess.



And Doug Holder's disappointments succeed because, in partaking of the swift momentum of today's mediatized mindset, he stubbornly entertains his subjects as human in their dilemmas of being exposed. If the man in the booth of the Midtown Tunnel appears caged to us, how must we appear to him?



Faceless and a blur,

Behind thick plates

Of light-bleached glass.



Poignantly from so little, Holder produces a rather profound insight, articulated with lyrical simplicity:

And we will

All remain

Ignorant of

Each other.



A danger the poet risks in tailoring verse to popular contemporary expectations is that his or her work may be read with no more attention, say, than that ordinarily given to a cartoon strip or a note to the editor. Holders deft word-smithing, however, can halt us in the slaloms down the slopes, to want to mull over such coinings and scrivennings as blue uniform (Man in the Booth), It is only a hassle, (The Woman who Sat ), sea of manila (Postal Worker), the oxymoronic age's inertia (Two Old Women) and the metaphysical conceits of Bites of memory (The Last Hotdog) and of the final strophe in Postal Worker,

You feel

Ready to

Be returned to

Your sender



a dazzling compression of the momentary and mechanical with the ontological and transcendent.



In the recent year we have seen Doug Holder, a prolific and generous advocate of emerging poets in the Boston area, up in arms defending the worthiness of small press publications. Tirelessly he has organized readings and conducted interviews with local and national writers, giving them light of day on the Ibbetson Street website pages, in the Lyrical Somerville, and on the local Public Television program Author to Author. He has greatly helped give purpose to area intellectuals who meditate and labor to find expression in poetry and share as a community on Saturday mornings with the Bagels & Bards at the Davis Square Au Bon Pain. Cambridge/Somerville is a better place because of Doug Holder, and the small press made vital and serious because of the many publications he has been involved with, not least this latest collection of his own poetry that yields and yields enjoyment and meaning on reading after reading.



The Man in the Booth in the Midtown Tunnel by Doug Holder is available for $13.00 through Cervana Barva Press/P.O. Box 440357/W. Somerville, MA 02144-3222. http://cervenabarvapress.com



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