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the ball. (Active voice)

* The ball was hit by John. (Passive voice)

Another writer's adage is "Show, don't tell." Active voice is a characteristic of showing, while passive voice is a characteristic of telling.

MODIFIERS

The gross overuse of modifiers, sometimes in the form of "purple prose," can stop a story in its tracks. But even more subtle misuse of adjectives and adverbs can slow the momentum of a story.

"Most modifiers are filler, cotton batting or sawdust, their modifications perfunctory or already implied," observes Peter Selgin. And "As for adverbs, they seldom add anything to an adjective that isn't already there . . . ."

According to David Morrell "Adjectives tend to get in the way, overwhelming a description rather than sharpening it." Adverbs tend to have no other function than to strengthen weak verbs."

"When you use two words, a weak verb and an adverb, to do the work of one strong verb, you dilute your writing and rob it of its potential power," note Renni Browne and Dave King, in Self-Editing for Fiction Writers,

David Morrell says ". . . economy doesn't only mean reducing a description to its essentials. It also means going for so clean a line that adjectives and adverbs become a sign of bad writing."

Not all fiction-writing coaches agree on the avoidance of modifiers. After all, adverbs and adjectives are fundamental parts of speech, so avoiding them entirely may be difficult. According to Peter Selgin there is . . . "nothing wrong with adverbs and adjectives-as long as they pull more than their own weight by being fresh, unpredictable. Above all they must add something that isn't obvious or trite to the words they modify."

COMPARATIVE DESCRIPTION

A common technique for building an emotional connection with the reader is the use of comparative description: similes and metaphors.

Todd A. Stone, in Novelist's Boot Camp, observes that "Similes and metaphors are like hand grenades-they are two of the oldest and most used descriptive techniques. They're powerful, but you must use them carefully to avoid cliches, mixed metaphors, and figures of speech that just don't work. Otherwise, they'll blow up in the wrong place-your novel."

TRANSMORPHIC DESCRIPTION

Another descriptive technique for building an emotional connection with the reader is to endow the subject with traits not usually associated to it.

* Animals or inanimate objects portrayed as people (think cartoons, fantasy, and comics)

* Inanimate objects or abstract concepts seemingly endowed with human

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