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The Cabinetmaker John Doe, a cabinetmaker, was wandering through the stacks in the farthest, darkest corner of his local hardwood dealer’s lot one fine spring day, when he came upon a very old piece of old-growth cherry wood that had been lying there air-drying in that very yard for thirty years. It was four inches thick, Continue reading The Cabinetmaker, the Photographer, the Sculptor, and the Editor Trust your instinct as least as much as you trust your editor. I’m not going to link to the blog post where I found this, because it’s not my goal here to embarrass or shame anyone, or to set myself up as a better source than another blog. I only want to point out that a Continue reading Correction vs Incorrection “There was a man” is a profoundly different sentence than “There was an old man,” which is profoundly different than “There was, back when we lived in the blue house, a man down the street from us, down toward Graves Avenue.” And that last one is different than “There was in those days an elder Continue reading Four Sentences You have no idea how annoying this is to me! Or at least I assume none of my three regular readers have figured out, over the years, how annoying it is to me that so many people rant and rail against something that they call “passive voice,” or “passive tense,” or “passive verbs,” all the while Continue reading “Active” vs “Passive” Round N, or “Once more into the breach, my friends!” There’s at least one thing more amusing than people ranting and railing against passive voice: …the fact that they can’t even identify it. [P]eople disagree with me when I point out such things (over and over again, like a CD that has gotten stuc- stuc- stuc- stuc- stuc- stuc- stuc- stuc- stuck), and ask rhetorically where on Continue reading Another Jab at the Passive Phantom Advice on painting: Eliminate all unneeded colors. Eliminate all unneeded brush strokes. Every brush stroke should do one of two things: tell the story or build the subject’s face. Never use red. Whenever you want to add a color, ask yourself “Does this color add anything to the face?” If not, eliminate it. Ok, I made all that up. But I’m Continue reading Bad Advice, Part II – The Banned Tools Wandering slowly and aimlessly through the thickly growing vines of the cyber jungle, I happened quite unexpectedly upon yet another rant about the use of adverbs, this one (quite illogically) perpetuating the common and poorly-thought-out adage that using adverbs equals using passive voice.
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