on Live Write Thrive:

Every writer has to work on strengthening the construction of their sentences and paragraphs. No one’s writing is perfect, but with effort any writer can improve. There are always aspects to our writing that could be better. In this post we’ll take a look at 5 ways to strengthen weak writing, whether you are working on a fiction or nonfiction project, poetry or a screenplay.

One culprit of weak writing is the choice of phrasing. Weak construction sneaks in at the level of words and sentences, and like termites in a wood-frame house can bring the whole structure down. It comes in the form of passive voice, of ing verbs, of dangling modifiers. (“Yawning widely, the book was abandoned for another six-hour Netflix binge.”) It makes a swamp of our beautifully imagined worlds and drowns our dialogue in banality.

But don’t be discouraged! Every instance of weak construction is an opportunity to bring new, vivid life to every sentence and paragraph of the story, because we are not just cutting and hacking; we are replacing and rewriting—bringing in fresh phrasing, vivid nouns, active verbs, sparkling dialogue, and details that bring our worlds and our words to life.

Fortunately, while natural talent and a good ear certainly help, good sentence writing is not some mystical skill that only the most devoted Jedi will ever attain. This fatal flaw is all about weak sentence construction—or, more specifically, how to avoid it.