How to Write

by Frank L. Visco

My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:

   1)   Always avoid alliteration.

   2)   Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.

   3)   Avoid cliches like the plague.  (They're old hat.)

   4)   Employ the vernacular.

   5)   Eschew ampersands & appreviations, etc.

   6)   Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.

   7)   It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.

   8)   Contractions aren't necessary.

   9)   Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.

  10)   One should never generalize.

  11)   Eliminate quotations.  As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said:
        "I hate quotations.  Tell me what you know."

  12)   Comparisons are as bad as cliches.

  13)   Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary;
        it's highly superfluous.

  14)   Profanity sucks.

  15)   Be more or less specific.

  16)   Understatement is always best.

  17)   Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.

  18)   One-word sentences?  Eliminate.

  19)   Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.

  20)   The passive voice is to be avoided.

  21)   Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.

  22)   Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.

  23)   Who needs rhetorical questions?

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                        WRITING CHECKLIST


1. Don't use no double negatives.
2. About them sentence fragments.
3. Try to not ever split infinitives.
4. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
5. Between you and I, case is important.
6. Correct spelling is esential.
7. When dangling, watch your participles.
8. Use your apostrophes's correctly.
9. Avoid cliches like the plague.
10. Don't use commas, that aren't necessary.
11. Proofread you writing.