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“The state of being not or no longer needed or useful” (dictionary.com) I don’t think I’d ever heard of this word in relation to book reading/editing prior to the idea of ‘editing for a living’ popped into my head. But now, whenever I read a story, my eyes… My brain … are on the lookout…
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What are pronouns? They are words such as I, we, them, they, he, she, us, it, etc. Pronouns can be used to replace the noun(s) in a sentence. For example, you could start with the following sentence: “Jim loves going to the gym.” I could change Jim to the pronoun he. “He loves going to…
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Every author uses modifiers whether you are a professional writer or not. Modifiers are all about adding detail or description to a writing. It can consist of a single word, a phrase, or a clause. Modifiers are the needed element in writing that brings it to life for the reader. They can be adjectives, adjective clauses, adverbs, adverb clauses, absolute phrases, infinitive…
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If you love reading as much as I do, then I’m sure you’ve come across a story in which an uncommon (or common) word or phrase seems to be repeated … repeatedly? See what I did there? Repetition can be both a good or a bad thing, depending on the context. However, repetition can be…
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The magical world of the ellipsis! Who doesn’t love using an ellipsis? I even use it when I’m talking. I’ll say something like “I don’t know if we should do this” and then say “dot, dot, dot.” Seriously! The ellipsis is used when omitting words, plain and simple. Whether you’re writing a quote and leaving…
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Situation: You are an author and are in the middle of writing your story, or you have already completed a draft copy that you want feedback on prior to submitting for editing or publication.Challenge: How do you go about receiving the input you need to ensure your story is on the right path and that…
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Let me start by doing a little recap regarding the three symbols that look very similar to each other. There’s the hyphen (which I covered in a previous blog), the en dash, and the em dash (the last two of which I will be focusing on here). Note: while there are rules for using the…
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The dialogue tag is a key component of writing. The tag identifies the speaker or performer of an action in a selected portion of text and can be used to convey emotions or additional details about a specific scene. The tag is also referred to as an attribution element in that it ties a specific…
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I haven’t been editing for very long, but there have been times when I’ve been unsure of how to use the hyphen correctly. A hyphen is a punctuation mark that is used to join two or more words or parts of words. There are no spaces around the hyphens. As with most punctuation, the hyphen…
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Perhaps one of my biggest personal pet peeves throughout my studies is related to the proper use of the comma. When do you need one? Where? The common idea I’ve been taught is that a comma will go where a natural pause occurs when the sentence is read aloud. Easy enough, right? Not so much.…
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