weareboysa

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best interviewee in the league- nikita kucherov

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5 editor’s secrets to help you write like a pro

1. Sentences can only do one thing at a time.

Have you ever heard a four-year-old run out of breath before she can finish her thought? I edit a lot of sentences that work the same way. You need a noun, you need a verb, you might need an object. Give some serious thought to stopping right there.

Sentences are building blocks, not bungee cords; they’re not meant to be stretched to the limit. I’m not saying you necessarily want a Hemingway-esque series of clipped short sentences, but most writers benefit from dividing their longest sentences into shorter, more muscular ones.

2. Paragraphs can only do one thing at a time.

A paragraph supports a single idea. Construct complex arguments by combining simple ideas that follow logically. Every time you address a new idea, add a line break. Short paragraphs are the most readable; few should be more than three or four sentences long. This is more important if you’re writing for the Web.

3. Look closely at -ing

Nouns ending in -ing are fine. (Strong writing, IT consulting, great fishing.) But constructions like “I am running,” “a forum for building consensus,” or “The new team will be managing” are inherently weak. Rewrite them to “I run,” “a forum to build consensus,” and “the team will manage.” You’re on the right track when the rewrite has fewer words (see below).

(If for some insane reason you want to get all geeky about this, you can read the Wikipedia article on gerunds and present participles. But you don’t have to know the underlying grammatical rules to make this work. Rewrite -ing when you can, and your writing will grow muscles you didn’t know it had.)

4. Omit unnecessary words.

I know we all heard this in high school, but we weren’t listening. (Mostly because it’s hard.) It’s doubly hard when you’re editing your own writing—we put all that work into getting words onto the page, and by god we need a damned good reason to get rid of them.

Here’s your damned good reason: extra words drain life from your work. The fewer words used to express an idea, the more punch it has. Therefore:

Summer months Regional level The entire country On a daily basis (usually best rewritten to “every day”) She knew that it was good. Very (I just caught one above: four-year-old little girl)

You can nearly always improve sentences by rewriting them in fewer words.

5. Reframe 90% of the passive voice.

French speakers consider an elegantly managed passive voice to be the height of refinement. But here in the good old U.S. (or Australia, Great Britain, etc.), we value action. We do things is inherently more interesting than Things are done by us. Passive voicemuddies your writing; when the actor is hidden, the action makes less sense.

Bonus: Use spell-check

There’s no excuse for teh in anything more formal than a Twitter tweet.

Also, “a lot” and “all right” are always spelled as two words. You can trust me, I’m an editor.

Easy reading is damned hard writing. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

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I'm just a girl, standing in front of my brain, asking it to not be depressed

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clips of Jonathan Toews swearing like a sailor but not as much as Coach Q, in EPIX’s Road to the NHL Winter Classic.

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happy new year 🎆

12.31.19 / via adam boqvists’ insta story

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Absolutey terrified the entire least minute but it was totally worth the last kaner goal

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jbone hanging out with the kids

blackhawks @ flames | 30th december 2019

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hawks with a powerplay goal?!! funny recognize this team anymore

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love to see noted third liner and asg star Patrick Kane playing for the hawks

Love to see it!!

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30.12.19 | x

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quote series (9/?) ⟼ andrés cerpa 

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A cute little 1988 moment from yesterday’s game against Columbus. I basically recorded my laptop screen from my phone so you know, it’s not great quality, but it’s very cute so I thought I’d share it anyway 😁

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23 Dec 2019: Toews on loss to NJD (x)

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AU where before the season, rookies get “adopted” like shelter pets. They go to someone’s big house and put them all in different rooms and vets get to wander from room to room and choose their rookie. And then that’s their rookie to take home and love. There are those signs on each door like “22, does well with children” and “18, needs to be an only rookie”

This is amazing. “An only rookie” omg what do they do that they have to be alone? Are they just needy? Of course then there’s also the Vlasic of rookie-collectors who wants to take them all home and has to be given a cutoff.

Does your rookie live with you? How do you handle giving them up at the end of the year? What if multiple vets want the same rookie how do they choose who gets them? WHAT IF THERE’S A ROOKIE NOBODY WANTS?

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when lizzo said “self love is survival” and when hannah gadsby said “do you understand what self-deprecation means when it comes from somebody who already exists in the margins? it’s not humility. it’s humiliation” and when mitski said “i used to rebel by destroying myself, but realized that’s awfully convenient to the world. for some of us our best revolt is self preservation”

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12.21.2019 - Blackhawks vs Avalanche | 1988 cellies best cellies

for @cbhlatebloomer!