Reddit reviews Choose the Right Word: Second Edition

Choose The Right Word is the book you're looking for. It's been 10 or 15 years since I looked at it (though I still have my copy). It doesn't cover every word in the English language, but those it does cover it explains exhaustively. For example, he (author S.I. Haykawa) likes to go back to the Greek, Latin or Saxon roots of the words to show why one word is slightly different than a word most people think is entirely synonymous with it. It's really fascinating.

Another couple of great books I used to use a lot when I was an editor were Words on Words and HTK, both by John Bremner. The second one, in particular, is about writing for newspapers, specifically headlines. But if you're looking for books to help you understand how to write better and more concisely, a good book about writing headlines is just the thing.

What a great way to learn language! I fully support it. We'll start with...

Grammar/Mechanics

You may be surprised to hear this, but your grammar and mechanics are nearly perfect. I'll make some suggestions in the doc to point out some quirks, but for the most part your punctuation and syntax are right on.

On the other hand, the translation is really affecting your...

Prose

It's difficult enough to make sentences sing in one's own language, so don't be too hard on yourself here. It'll come with practice and reading a lot of English. But I want to give you some guideposts for helping your sentence construction not sound so Uncanny Valley, where it's technically correct but just off in some way. Usually because it's not how a native speaker would phrase something.

Let's take this third paragraph...

> Ryd sat up straight after the sound of running water woke her up. She stretched with a rather loud yawn before stumbling out of bed. Instead of making her way to the bathroom, she started collecting the pieces of her school uniform and the books she needed that day. With eyes still half closed she grabbed her bag and just stuffed the books into it. She tossed her bag and the pieces of her uniform on her bed while she went on her way towards the bathroom.

... And rewrite it.

> The sound of running water woke Ryd. She stretched and yawned loudly, then stumbled out of bed. Since her sister was still hogging the bathroom, she started collecting the pieces of her school uniform and the books she'd need that day. She stuffed the books into her bag without fully opening her eyes, then tossed the bag and uniform onto her bed and shuffled toward the bathroom. “Liz! My turn!”

Here's my thought process:

Sentence 1: While not wrong, it's narratively weird to say "X happened after X happened." Why not just put the events in the order they occur?

Sentence 2: Turning "with a rather loud yawn" into "and yawned loudly" tightens up the sentence. The "before" is technically correct, but "then" is more common.

Sentence 3: "Instead of making her way to the bathroom" assumes that we would assume she'd go straight to the bathroom. Changing it to "since her sister was still hogging the bathroom" adds logic to what she's doing (and the "hogging" lets the reader know how Ryd feels about her sister already). Also, "the books she'd need" just sounds more right because she doesn't need them in the moment but she will need them for the school day.

Sentence 4: I put the part about the eyes second because two sentences with introductory clauses in a row feels bad rhythmically, in my opinion ("Since her sister was still hogging the bathroom" and "With eyes still half closed"). I took out "just" because the verb "stuffed" gives a sense of unceremoniousness on its own. Then I took out the "she grabbed her bag" because it's implied in the stuffing action.

Sentence 5: I combined this into sentence 4 for flow. Much of this action is fairly mundane stuff, so we want to get through it quickly, without belaboring it. "The pieces of the uniform" can be shortened to just "uniform." Also, she didn't toss them while going on her way, she tossed them and then went on her way. And finally, as a writerly touch, always look for more colorful verbs that can tell how something happened. I chose "shuffled" here because it shows that Ryd is still tired and grouchy—she barely picks up her feet.

If you need a resource for finding those colorful verbs, I cannot recommend Choose The Right Word by S.I. Hayakawa enough. It's like a thesaurus, but it tells you the connotations and hidden meanings of the word too.

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I'm sorry that was a lot of words for a tiny cross-section, but hopefully it's stuff you can apply across the board.

And congrats on being able to write an intelligible story in a second language! That's incredibly impressive on its own.