How to Write Good

Avoid alliteration. Always.

Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.

Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)

Employ the vernacular.

Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.

Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.

It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.

Contractions aren't necessary.

Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.

One should never generalize.

Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."

Comparisons are as bad as cliches.

Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.

Be more or less specific.

Understatement is always best.

One-word sentences? Eliminate.

Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.

The passive voice is to be avoided.

Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.

Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.

Who needs rhetorical questions?

Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.

Rules For Chocolate

• If you've got melted chocolate all over your hands, you're eating it too slowly.
• Chocolate covered raisins, cherries, orange slices & strawberries all count as fruit, so eat as many as you want.
• The problem: How to get 2 pounds of chocolate home from the store in hot car. The solution: Eat it in the parking lot.
• Diet tip: Eat a chocolate bar before each meal. It'll take the edge off your appetite and you'll eat less.
• A nice box of chocolates can provide your total daily intake of calories in one place. Isn't that handy?
• If you can't eat all your chocolate, it will keep in the freezer.
• But if you can't eat all your chocolate, what's wrong with you?
• If calories are an issue, store your chocolate on top of the fridge. Calories are afraid of heights, and they will jump out of the chocolate to protect themselves.
• If I eat equal amounts of dark chocolate and white chocolate, is that a balanced diet? Don't they actually counteract each other?
• Chocolate has many preservatives. Preservatives make you look younger.
• If not for chocolate, there would be no need for control top pantyhose. An entire garment industry would be devastated.
• Put "eat chocolate" at the top of your list of things to do today. That way, at least you'll get one thing done.