“If I don’t know what’s wrong, I can’t fix it.” - Clifford

Two friends are in my circle who seem to have no problem being honest.

Many times, people are afraid to tell their friends when something is not right or they’re making a mistake.  I blame this partially on the whole “politically correct” phase inflicted on the American public.  People seem to think that any criticism will be taken badly, thereby ending the friendship.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not sadistic.  If people say to me “Cliff, this sucks.” and fail to provide ideas on how to improve it, then their commentary is useless.  Believe me, the internet is chucked full of anonymous critics who love nothing more than tear people down without providing useful feedback.

Of course it must be stated that useful feedback peppered with personal insults is not welcomed.

This last weekend, one of my friends sat down with me over coffee.  On the table was my eBook.  I almost didn’t recognize it with all the red markup.  His comments didn’t revolve around grammatical mistakes, which I first suspected.  It was the writing style of the book he had an issue with.

My friend is a professor.  After teaching for 20 some odd years, he has a lot of experience in writing material to keep people’s attention.  The feedback he provided in how to “Jazz Up” the book was incredible.  During the entire conversation, I had to keep reassuring him that his feedback was important and I wasn’t offended.

A quick example: I seem to be suffering from an acute case of the passive voice.  An English expert I am not but I do understand that the passive voice is boring while the active voice is engaging.

Passive Voice:  The boy was bit by the spider.
Active Voice:  The spider bit the boy.

Both are grammatically correct.  One is more engaging than the other.  When your book is 110 pages, you need to have engaging content or people put your book down.

Readers putting your book down is not good.

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