6-B Writing Tips

1. If you have a run-on sentence and you want to make a complete sentence, you can change it by making a compound, complex, or compound-complex sentence.
2. Establish the setting.
3. Make the characters more complex by giving them personalities.
4. Only one or two conjunctions per sentence.
5. When writing a longer story, try to write like your favorite author.
6. When writing in one tense, try not to switch to another.
7. Think about what you want to get across, like a thesis.
8. Pass your work through two friends to check for spelling, run-on sentences, fragments, punctuation, subordinate clauses, and grammar.
9. You should read over your work. Give yourself a fresh eye.
10. Go over or check punctuation such as commas, periods, quotation marks, colons, and exclamation marks.
11. Make an interesting plot by putting ideas into it and intensifying conflict.
12. When you are finished, make sure you got across what you wanted to get across.
13. Make your pronouns clear. Be sure your antecedents are clear.
14. Don't go crazy with descriptions.
15. Don't use too many (or too few) commas or other punctuation marks.
16. Write as if a Martian will be reading it. Make it clear.
17. Organize your thoughts and ideas before you write.
18. When writing the name of a book in a paragraph, underline or italicize it.
19. Make sure you know what you are talking about when you write about it.
20. A paragraph should consist of at least four sentences unless it's a quotation. You can break this rule, but you should have a good reason for breaking it.
21. Use the proper capitalization rules for proper nouns and sentences.
22. Make sure everything flows. Make sure it makes sense, is organized, and is not short and choppy.
23. Readers like a plot with some action but it should also have something you can learn from it.
24. Use strong and interesting verbs. Avoid over-used words such as "pretty," "awesome," "cool," "good," or "beautiful."
25. Use strong and interesting words in general so that your reader doesn't fall asleep.
26. Don't get your commas mixed up with your periods.
27. Have a good outline for your story.
28. Stay in the same tense.
29. Write a rough draft.
30. Don't change subjects in midstream.
31. Think before you start to write.
32. Have a main idea or thesis, something that you want to get across, and keep your focus on that.