Polishing Your Prose: A Guide to Writing with Clarity and Precision

In the quiet corners of writing workshops and editorial meetings, there is an unspoken truth: many writers, even skilled ones, sometimes write dumb things. It’s not intentional, of course. Most start with noble intentions to craft vivid imagery, evoke deep emotions, and draw readers into the worlds we build. Yet, there it is, glaring at us from the page — the unnecessary redundancy, the over-explained metaphor, or, worse, the outright absurdity.

Consider, for instance, the classic blunder: “The peninsula was pristine, untouched, with water on three sides.” A geographically accurate statement, sure, but as helpful to the reader as a map drawn with invisible ink. Peninsulas, by definition, are surrounded by water on three sides. Why write it? Perhaps the author feared that without clarification, readers would imagine a peninsula inexplicably dangling over dry land, defying logic and gravity without clarification.

This isn’t an isolated issue. Its equally egregious cousin, “The island was remote and surrounded by water,” pops up with startling regularity. Islands, surrounded by water? Revolutionary. Yet, these sentences find their way into manuscripts, serving as unintentional monuments to what happens when we underestimate our readers.