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I take my local print newspaper, and in a few short years, I’ve watched it go from a wonderful independent to a skinny, USA Today clone. Almost every day, I read several articles with misspellings or typos. What’s going on? Writing Tip for Today: Print journalism is fighting for its life in the digital age. […]
During November, many writers are busy pounding the keys, furiously banging out a new novel. We’re ten days into NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), and the challenge is to produce 50,000 words of a novel in thirty days or fewer. Getting from zero to fifty-thousand (words, that is) in thirty days is a challenge, but Grammarly.com wants […]
So many workshops, courses and seminars advertise themselves as “taking your writing to the next level.” Often with superfluous exclamation points. But what does this really mean?Writing Tip for Today: You’re a pro, right? And you’re serious about writing. So how can you know what the “next level” is? Look for Definitions. Of course, the […]
Details matter, someone once said. As a writer and teacher, I’m willing to overlook spelling, grammatical and usage errors from new writers. But the moment I spot a small error from a writer who is supposedly a pro, something inside me cringes and I have trouble admiring that writer. Even if the writer is ME. […]
Let’s say Writer A wants to tackle a novel-length work. Her story is great but her weakness is spelling, grammar and punctuation. Another writer, B, wants to do the same. He is an ace at spelling, etc, pens beautiful sentences, but his weakness is story or scene writing or pace.Writing Tip for Today: Both these writers have a lot […]
Semicolons. Some writers use them because their sentences tend to the long and complex. Other writers, notably Kurt Vonnegut, advised against ever using a semicolon. Where do you stand on semicolons?Writing Tip for Today: Whenever my Word program insists that a sentence needs a semicolon (thank you squiggly green lines!), I reevaluate the sentence. Most […]
If laughter makes the world go round, writers who mangle their homophones help keep our planet spinning. Now and then we all write something different from what we intended, but a news article in last week’s paper made me laugh out loud. The feature, about an upcoming wild mustang (as in horses) sale, explained how […]