Strengthening Writing

During the past few week, while editing Successful Project Management, I had an opportunity learned to discover other ways I weaken my writing.

I already knew about "get" and "put" and "do"--any words you can command a computer--are weak verbs. It's ok to use them to start writing, but my writing is stronger when I change those verbs to describe what I really want. I'd changed "Get people" to "Acquire people." Luckily, Esther reminded me we don't acquire people in organizations; we recruit, attract, or hire them, but we don't acquire them. (That's why we have review :-)

I also knew about the "lullaby" words: "just" is my favorite.

But I hadn't realized I was so enamored of "in order to," "So," or "Now." I managed to find all the "in order to" and remove the "in order". That helped me see what I really wanted to say. "Find a large wall in order to post your project dashboard" became "Find a large wall to post your project dashboard" which became "Post your project dashboard on a large wall." (That's an example, not a quote.) I started too many sentences with "So;" so I removed them all. (I might have 2 left, in dialogue.) Now, With those edits complete, I could attack the "now" removals. I used "now" as a way to sequence actions, without making a list.

I'm sure I have more strengthening to do can strengthen my writing more. The copyeditor is great, so I'll have lots of ideas/fixes when the copyediting is complete.