On Writing / Writing in a second language

Writing in a second language – part II

Last time I promised to share a few tricks that would help you to improve your second language writing skills. These are not ultimate truths (and maybe they will even they will be something obvious for you) and they don’t guarantee your second language will suddenly become perfect: in fact, they might not work for you at all. But I hope that at least they will inspire you to try or to come up with your own tricks.

I thought I’d be sharing all of them at once, but it turned out I have a lot more to share than I thought. This is why I decided to focus only on one or two tricks in a post otherwise the text would be too long and you’d have to wait for it much longer. Today comes the first of the tricks.

Do not translate

I have to admit that I sat for quite a while trying to decide which advice would be the most crucial, the most beneficial of them all. There it is: do not translate. (more…)

10 Comments
December 9, 2013
On Writing

You can find a story in a single sentence

Sometimes it feels like creating a story, a good story, requires a lot of time and effort, but a good story idea might be hidden in one sentence if you only give it a chance.

Of course, one sentence itself is not enough to be a story, there still will be some thinking and creating to be done, but it’s a good start and base you can build on. Contrary to what you think, I am not about to advise you to “try to sum up your story in one sentence”, as this would be something you do after all the creating and thinking is done. (more…)

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November 18, 2013
As a Side Note

Why I won’t buy the newest bestseller

Recently Polish sci-fi and fantasy websites were electrified by the news that Andrzej Sapkowski, the author of “The Witcher”, has written another book in the witcher universe, starring Geralt himself. Many people (myself included) grew up with the white-haired monster slayer, impatiently waited for every next book in the series, quoted the countless punchlines and consider the Witcher series somewhat of a legend. Regardless of speculations what was the reason for the author to come back to writing the series (which he said countless times was not an option), there was little doubt of whether to buy the book or not – we all pretty much knew we are going to get it. (more…)

4 Comments
November 11, 2013