More Tips on Writing

This is from an article on writersdigest.com called 5 Tips To Polish Your Fiction. Like in other entries where I use an article from Writer's Digest, I onlu list the rules or major points without the descriptions. I do this because I'm encouraging to take at look at their site because it has a lot of helpful and interesting articles. That, and the fact that most of the rules are self explanatory. So here are the 5 tips:

1. Use paragraph breaks.
2. Use only one name for a character.
3. Choose entirely distinct character names.
4. Don't use slang unless you clarify it.
5. Limit your use of possibly offensive language.

I had a reading experience related to #4 when I read A Clockwork Orange. Anthony Burgess created his own slang for the book and it was hard to understand what most of the words meant. For instance, the word Bog is slang for God. However, the use of slang didn't stop me from reading the book. In fact, over time I began to realize what the words meant without having to look online or ask anyone. I asked other people who had also read the book and they said the same thing happened to them as well. My friend (who is also a writer) put it best when she said, "It's kind of scary when you find yourself understanding all the slang. It's like you get a deeper connection with Alex even though he's such a violent character." For those who don't know, Alex is the narrator of the book. In the end, I really enjoyed the book and highly recommend it.