Writing dialogue seems like it would be so easy. We talk all the time, right? How hard could it be to just write it down? But it takes a little more than that to make dialogue seem real. Frequently, the dialogue we imagine for our characters sounds stilted or overly formal. That’s partly because, when … Read more
Using a colon is an excellent way to tack a list, dependent clause or other relevant information onto a sentence. Yet if you don’t use your colon correctly, your editor (and potentially your reader!) is going to notice. First off, remember that a colon can only be added to a sentence that’s already complete—in other … Read more
Remember the days when we learned to type in school? “Remember, kids, the way you break up a sentence when you type is by putting two spaces after a period. Got it?” Those days are over. Today, every major style guide, including The Modern Language Association Style Manual, the Oxford Style Manual and the Chicago Manual of … Read more
What’s an adverb? It’s a word that modifies an action. Think of it as an adjective that describes a verb. An easy way to recognize an adverb is to look for a word that ends in –ly. For example: The fox jumped tentatively over the log. The birds flew away silently. Used once in a … Read more
One of the persistent archetypes of the editorial world is that of the tight-lipped, punishing grammarian wielding her red pen with ferocious delight. This editor slashes mercilessly at the page, eviscerating all instances of bad punctuation, misspellings and sentences that end with a preposition. But I gotta be honest: That’s not the kind of editor … Read more
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