A Facebook friend shared a Helen Sword's (she has a cool
name) site, The Writer's Diet.
No, it has nothing to do with eating fewer carbs while
crafting mysteries, consuming dark chocolate while writing romance, nor chewing
on Space Food Sticks while writing science fiction. Does anybody besides me
remember Space Food Sticks?
The site deals with slimming down or tightening up your
writing.
I used the Writer's Diet test
to find out if various scenes in my WIP are fit or flabby. I got mixed results.
Some scenes were fitter than others.
Among other things, test counts your "to be"
verbs and how many times you used it, this,
that and there. It rates each
category and highlights words you may want to think about.
By all means, you shouldn't blindly delete any words, but
consider rewording sentences. I found it helpful, and I revised a bit
based on my results. However, I could not revise much in the scene that scored
rather badly. To change much of the wording would alter the nuances in the
dialogue and narration.
So, overall, the Writer's Diet test is helpful, and I'll bet the author's book by the same name, would be valuable for any
writer.
By the way, this post's overall rating was "needs toning."
3 comments:
That does look interesting. I'mm off to check it out! Thanks. :)
DL, I hope you find it as fun as I did! :)
I tried the program a few years ago. It didn't do much for story, but it was entertaining.
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