Word Choice (wc)/Sentence Fluency (sf)

Writing Ideas

Word Choice

  • Strong verbs (bury dead verbs)
  • Quality adjectives
  • Simile (using words “like” or “as” to compare things: You are as strong as an ox.)
  • Metaphor (using words “is”, “are”, “was”, “were”, “am” to compare: You are an ox.)
  • Hyphenated-compound words
  • Alliteration (Tommy Tunes took ten telephones to Timmy.)
  • “ly” words (usually adverbs)
  • New words & different words
  • Avoid same words over and over
  • Description
  • Emphasize words (Bold, CAPS, italics, underline, COMBINE)
  • Quotation marks around sarcastic/humorous/opposites (Moffatt is so “serious”.)
  • Interjections (words of excitement and expression: “Snikes!”)
  • Alliteration (Chuck chomped on cheese crackers while checking the chicken.)
  • Imagery (Description relating to any of the five senses – vivid, paint-a-picture detail)
  • Hyphenated Compound Words (usually writer-created; “ed” or “ing” endings most common)
  • Symbolism
  • Hyperbole
  • Idiom (figure of speech)
  • Irony
  • Onomatopoeia
  • Oxymoron
  • Personification
  • Stutter Effect (“I have to wi-wi-wipe my tears.”)
  • Spelling out words letter-by-letter (“I yelled out, ‘S-T-O-P!’”)
  • Leaving out letters in a word with a hyphen – for one or more letters (“Eat more chic-en!”)
  • Leaving out letters in a word with an apostrophe – for one or more letters at beginning or end (“We went fishin’ the other day.” - “The girls wanted the boys to send ‘em letters.”)
  • Leaving out letters in a word with an apostrophe – for two or more letters in middle of a word (“It was Jared’s b’day yesterday.”)
  • Use of the “(s)” concept (A dog(s) got into the garbage cans.)

Sentence Fluency

  • Who/which/that (asides)
  • Asides (brackets, parenthesis, hyphens, commas)
  • Doubles (adjectives, adverbs [ly], verbs, etc.)
  • Long sentences (can include compounds, long sentence descriptions, etc.)
  • Short sentences
  • One-word sentences (opener)
  • Compound sentences (comma, semicolon-comma, semicolon)
  • Introductory dependent clauses (Idc: although, since, when, if, because); “complex sentence”
  • “ing” sentence beginnings (opener)
  • VSS (very short sentence – opener)
  • Dialogue/conversation (quotes, interrupted quotes, QWAQ [quote within a quote])
  • Questions
  • Triples (adjectives, adverbs, nouns, sentences, ing words, etc.)
  • Avoid same sentence/word beginnings
  • Facts/definitions
  • Using “themes”/ “wise sayings” (quote opener)
  • Ellipsis (…) use
  • Slash mark ( / ) use
  • Colon to make a point (We had an important date: we went to see the circus.)
  • Lists (comma lists or comma-overload semicolon lists)
  • List of more than two sentences (maximum of three sentences combined into one) using commas or semicolons