THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF WRITING (in my humble opinion)
At the risk of sounding pompous or arrogant; I’ve compiled a list of things that I have found to be the seven most common mistakes made by us amateur writers. I am in no way saying that I am a good writer; in fact I will be the first to admit that I myself am guilty of committing most of these sins, but I do feel that the first step to improving your writing is to know what to avoid doing.
I promise to try and be as brief as possible and to keep it relatively painless.
“Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing.”
First Deadly Sin – Passive Voice
For the benefit of those of us who do not know the difference between active voice and passive voice, I will explain it in terms that are hopefully easy to understand.
I will start with active voice, as it is the simpler form of writing. In an active sentence, the subject is doing the action.
For example, “Jessica wrote the letter.”
“Jessica” is the subject of that sentence, and she is the one doing the action, or “acting upon the verb”, so this sentence is said to be in the active voice.
Thus it stands to reason that in passive voice the subject of your sentence receives an action.
For example, “The letter was written by Jessica.”
“The letter” now gets promoted to being the subject, yet isn’t “doing” anything in the sentence, instead it is being “acted upon”, so this sentence is said to be in passive voice.
Most editors advise that you avoid writing in passive voice if you are writing a creative piece. I am not saying that the use of passive voice is wrong, as there will be times when it is entirely acceptable, but generally when writing a story, it is best to avoid it. Passive voice comes across as unclear and oftentimes confusing or vague, whereas active voice tends to be more concise.
Classic examples of passive voice can be found when listening to politicians speak. Have you ever noticed how they can talk for hours without really saying anything at all? Or without taking any real responsibility for their actions? Lawyers use it as well, it helps them to intentionally hide intent and keep all references to the subject vague.
There are times when passive voice would be the more effective option though, for example when you are writing a mystery novel or any other piece that requires suspense and an element of ambiguity or vagueness.
For example, “The editor was murdered by a writer.” And “A writer murdered the editor.”
The first sentence is in passive form, which makes “The editor” your subject, whereas the second sentence is in the active form, which now promotes “The writer” into being the subject. While neither sentence is incorrect, the sentence in passive form would be best suited to a mystery novel, as it draws your focus to the crime that was committed, rather than to the perpetrator of the crime, which would be what you need in the initial stages of your story.
I feel like I will be drifting too far off my intended point if I continue, so I will rest here for now. I trust that this will help at least one person in writing more effectively.
“Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing.”
Second Deadly Sin – Improper Use of Apostrophes
I cannot speak for anyone else, but I know that personally I get very annoyed when I see writers using the apostrophe where it does not belong. I can overlook this when reading chat messages from friends who have English as a second language, I can even overlook this when I find it while grading a 5th grader’s essay, but I think that it is inexcusable when an adult writer uses it. We should know better.
Basically, you use an apostrophe in two cases.
To show possession. For example:
Helen’s car broke down.
Grammar is everyone’s friend.
One has to choose one’s words carefully.
Here you are quite simply showing possession.
Bear in mind though, this does not indicate plural. The examples as shown above apply only to the singular form of a noun. If however, the noun is in its plural form, which likely will have the word ending in an s, use the apostrophe after the s.
For example:
We visited his sister’s house. (this indicates one sister)
We visited his sisters’ house. (whereas this indicates more than one sister)
Is this clear? I trust that it isn’t too confusing.
There are also exceptions to this rule, which may seem confusing. Nevertheless I will attempt to explain it as simply as possible.
This rule never applies to personal pronouns (words like I, you, she, he, we, they, it). These words indicate possession by becoming a whole new word, therefore they don’t require an apostrophe.
Here are some examples :
The teacher said the book was hers.
The dog shook its head.
The choir claimed it was theirs.
But really it was ours.
The other purpose of the apostrophe would be to mark omitted letters in contractions.
Some examples of contraction are:
Don’t – Do not
Aren’t – Are not
Can’t – Can not
They’ve – They have
I need to mention that it’s/its are two of the most commonly confused words, so be sure that you are using the correct form in the proper context.
It’s is a contraction for it is. It’s is NEVER a possessive.
Its is the possessive for it.
For example: It’s a brave cat that shakes its tail at a dog.
Enough said? I think so.
“Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing.”
Keep posting more of these, yas. I know I've committed at most three of them.
teach me teacher I need you
OK Yas, it's tommorrow now.
For one who never liked school, I'm enjoying the lessons.
I should print these as completed, and hang them as reminders.
Now, if I could just do something about all my other sins.
That's one of my peeves when I read someone's writing. Makes me go into Grammar School teacher mode adn mark up every single thing.
I agree Yasmin, You're doing a fine job.
It's hard to be brief, when there's so much to learn.
Yasmine, my pet hate is the aprostrophe thing. It makes me want to tear my hair out when I read something that doesn't denote possession with an apostrophe or contractions of words. It turns me off reading it.
The fourth sin should be run-on-sentences...
Yas, I was thinking about adding to your deadly sins list. Wanna discuss it later?
You two sinners going to come up with a big sin list? Shouldn't be that hard...
I could probably come up with a couple myself...but, I try not to think about it too much...
I once knew a drinker who had a moderating problem...
Don't worry, Alan. I have a couple of pet peeves I'm about to throw into the mix.
to be continued tomorrow.....
as I have proven with this rather wordy forum post. When I talk about verbosity or wordiness, I am not talking about word count; I am talking about when you are saying so much that you lose your readers. 
Please note that this has nothing to do with grammar, just my personal view. 
mistakes I make when writing. Each of these are 'sins' I have been guilty of, so I hope it can help others as well.
