Essay writing pitfalls

Summary is more like watching a character talking to you on the screen about something that already happened to him/her: this would get boring if it went on for too long. Most of us have heard the old adage “show, don't tell.”

We often overlook them because many such expressions are habitual figures of speech. In writing, though, they should be avoided since they add extra words without extra meaning. Of course, occasionally you may for rhetorical effect decide to use, say, an expletive construction instead of a more succinct expression.

Summary: moves quickly, giving the reader important highlights or reminders, and is used for background information. Bits of summary often occur within scenes. He remembered the letter she’d written him last summer. She’d given it to him on their last date after he’d driven her home.

This handout discusses the writing obstacles most frequently faced by beginning poets and fiction writers and will offer tactics for addressing these issues during a tutorial. Many of the issues with which beginning poets struggle will also apply to beginning fiction writers.