Tag: editor
member name: John L.
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June 13, 2008 10:55 PM EDT --
In this post we're going to explore something you may use all the time in your writing—probably without even knowing it. I'm talking about the absolute phrase .
Basically, an absolute . . .
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July 28, 2008 12:44 AM EDT --
German may be a tough language to learn, but they did make it easy on us in one aspect: all nouns are capitalized. You never have to beat your Brain against your Skull wondering whether this Word or that . . .
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June 13, 2008 11:00 PM EDT --
Passive Resistance
In this post we'll begin to examine the dreaded critiquing mark of passive .
"Passive-ness" has received excessive and perhaps undue scrutiny in the . . .
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June 13, 2008 11:12 PM EDT --
In the "Passive Resistance" articles , we learned how to recognize some of the passive voice's many disguises and how to deal with them. While the techniques varied, the result was always . . .
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June 19, 2008 02:07 PM EDT --
The Dialogue Bog
The dialogue bog is where many beginning fiction writers seem to get caught. It's a set of common dialogue problems that mark you as an amateur. They're easy mistakes . . .
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June 22, 2008 08:58 PM EDT --
In my earlier post 22 Reasons Not To Trust Spell-Check , I gave you a test: Replace each (?) with the appropriate word from the following list.
I know (?) no way that Porsche could be (?). . . .
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June 23, 2008 04:54 PM EDT --
In the last post I offered you a challenge: to type the word 'til in MS Word . . . with a properly curving apostrophe. If you tried it, you probably typed 'til (note the mark is actually . . .
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June 27, 2008 06:04 PM EDT --
The comma is probably the most commonly used punctuation mark in the English language. Or maybe it's second after the period; I'm not sure. But I think I can say with certainty that it's the . . .
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August 05, 2008 12:20 PM EDT --
The lowly period is the smallest of all punctuation marks. Easy to overlook Easy to accidentally double.. And those two goofs alone might cost me a publishing contract.
But it’s the period’s other . . .
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June 16, 2008 10:20 AM EDT --
Earlier I promised a long-awaited distinction between passive voice and passive writing —or more specifically, passive verbs . Passive voice describes a sentence in which the subject receives . . .
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June 16, 2008 11:23 AM EDT --
I ended my last post with a curious sentence:
But was and were , along with all the to-be verbs, are the source of many grammatical misunderstandings.
Or, simplified: . . .
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July 17, 2008 01:16 PM EDT --
Most beginning writers use far more words than necessary. It's probably because we all had some junior high English teacher who demanded x-hundred-word essays ("Shakespeare was a very, very, . . .
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June 13, 2008 11:06 PM EDT --
In Part I we learned that a sentence with a passive-voice verb takes the form:
A was/were B -ed
where A is a subject receiving action (rather than performing it) and B is . . .
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July 22, 2008 12:10 PM EDT --
The Dialogue Bog
The dialogue bog is where many beginning fiction writers seem to get caught. It's a set of common dialogue problems that mark you as an amateur. They're easy mistakes . . .
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March 08, 2009 12:32 AM EST --
You’re anxiously awaiting the response to a manuscript you dutifully submitted for critique, competition, or publication. You’ve labored extensively on meticulously selecting the most incisively . . .
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March 12, 2009 04:10 PM EDT --
In the last post we examined how adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. And I asked if there were any one adverb capable of doing all three.
The answer was in my hint: there’s . . .
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June 16, 2008 10:28 AM EDT --
Last post we discussed the evils of the unofficial passive verbs was and were . We've already seen how to dispense with these verbs in association with the passive voice . . .
Miss . . .
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June 16, 2008 10:56 AM EDT --
Last post I asked you to evaluate the verb usage in the following sentence:
After capturing Dr. Maybe, Agent Pi was being a self-centered jerk.
Maybe you noticed that per the . . .
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June 29, 2008 01:25 PM EDT --
In the last post , we saw how commas not only connect, they set apart. We should set off with commas anything not essential to the flow of the sentence. This would include, with some exceptions, the . . .
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June 30, 2008 06:04 PM EDT --
Bad Comma
The previous post ended with a challenge: decide which of the following asterisks should be replaced with commas.
My wife* Mary* and my son* Thomas* stayed home, . . .
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