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• Tangled Passages

  387 readersA pileup of dashes and commas in a sentence should be a warning sign. Sometimes the punctuation itself is the source of the problem, leading to snarled syntax. In other cases, the commas and dashes are a symptom. As a sentence gets more and more convoluted, the writer desperately clutches at punctuation to hold it

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  5 Ways to Improve Your Writing

  462 readersGuest Post by Heather HollemanIf I'm going to live with flair, I have to think about communicating with flair. Most of us will have thousands of occasions for writing in the next year: emails, text messages, resumes, blog entries, cover letters, articl...

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  Showing and Telling for Article Writers

  1185 readersWarning: I’m getting into realms that can send fiction writers to insane asylums – showing v. telling. Do you need to show rather than tell in non-fiction, as well? The answer, as with so many things in writing, is a definitive, “Sometimes.” (And that’s the case in fiction, as well!) The examples I provide in my

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  Let’s Get to the Action: Verbs

  1206 readersThis post is the second in my series on “parts of speech.” Workshop teachers often instruct aspiring fiction writers to begin their stories: “in media reas” (in the middle of the action). Without verbs, a story would have no action. How dull would that be? Verbs – Verbs are action words. Nouns can “do” verbs. Dogs bark. Writers have

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  Writing Action Scenes

  422 readersby Todd Rutherford No matter what type of novel you are writing, action scenes are the key ingredient to keep your reader's pulse pounding and to keep them turning the pages. However, there is an art to an action sequence and a balance must be found. ...

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  Comma Before Too?

  639 readersMost of us were taught to place a comma before a sentence-ending "too." But is that comma really necessary? Your eBook: Click here to download the Basic English Grammar ebook.

• Period Goes Inside Quotation Marks

  428 readersWhen does a period go inside the quotation marks? Your eBook: Click here to download the Basic English Grammar ebook.

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  More than a Wink: How to Use a Semicolon

  435 readers// As a copyeditor, I often correct semicolon usage. If you don’t quite understand how to use a semicolon, you’re not alone; you wouldn’t believe how many professional writers use this little mark incorrectly. And I’m not talking about when you want to indicate a joke or teasing in a chat room. A semicolon

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  All About Adjectives

  936 readersI recently talked about adverbs as an important part of writing. If verbs are the action – the core of our stories and articles – and nouns are the characters, adjectives are the color and style. An adjective is, quite simply, a descriptive word. In some circles, adjectives are as badly maligned as adverbs. “Flowery” prose

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  In Defense of Adverbs

  901 readersEarlier this week, I discussed verbs in our “Parts of Speech” discussion. Verbs create the “meat” of our writing. In fiction, they move the plot forward. In articles and speechwriting, they tell the story. They’re the “do-ers.” If the adage “90 percent of the work is done by 10 percent of the people,” pertained to words,