Paragraph breaks are something akin to a writer’s turn signals. They silently—sometimes almost subliminally—tell readers what’s about to happen and how they should react. As you may remember (or not) from school, a paragraph break in technical writing is meant to indicate a new thought. (I have clear memories of being required to find and […]
February 11, 2019 by 76 Comments ProseCritique: How to Use Paragraph Breaks to Guide the Reader’s Experience
August 2, 2015 by 54 Comments Most Common Writing MistakesMost Common Writing Mistakes, Pt. 43: Too Many Exclamation Points!
Exclamation points! Woohoo! Yeehaw! Is there any punctuation mark that could possibly be more fun for writers to use? (Okay, so there is the interrobang, but that’s still kinda the same difference.) Exclamation points are there to help us express our big emotions: excitement, joy, anger, passion. Naturally, we want all those big emotions in our stories, so […]
February 12, 2012 by 51 Comments Prose5 Punctuation Mistakes to Recognize and Avoid
Punctuation in a story is like the spice in a soup. When we’re sipping that soup off our spoons, we’re not likely to notice or identify every spice that has created the uniquely delicious flavor caressing our taste buds. Same goes for punctuation. When shaken out with a skillful hand, the very effectiveness of punctuation […]
August 14, 2011 by 101 Comments Most Common Writing MistakesMost Common Writing Mistakes: 10 Stylistic Mistakes
In writing, little mistakes are often big mistakes. Make sure you’re not letting any of these potentially tragic gaffes sabotage your readers’ trust in your competency. 1. Don’t Capitalize Articles Such as “the” and “and” Articles (such “the,” “an,” and “a”) should not be capitalized in a title, except at the beginning. This: Summer of […]
April 17, 2011 by 51 Comments Most Common Writing MistakesMost Common Writing Mistakes: Misused Speaker Tags and Action Beats
Don’t jeopardize your characters’ witty dialogue with punctuation and stylistic mistakes. Let’s a take a look at two means for indicating speakers and varying the rhythm of speech and narrative: the speaker tag and the action beat. How Not to Use Speaker Tags The speaker tag, which in its most basic form consists of the […]
April 25, 2010 by 63 Comments Editing Your Novel10 Ways to Write Skinny Sentences
If brevity is the soul of wit, then economy is the energy of prose. Let’s hear it for skinny sentences! Don’t get me wrong: I love complex, twisty, beautiful sentences. As Aleksandar Hemon pointed out in an interview with The Writer magazine: I like to push language toward poetry, to activate the dormant possibilities inherent in it. […]
March 24, 2010 by 69 Comments Narrative2 Must-Know Rules for Using Italics and Exclamation Points for Emphasis
Excitement is certainly something you want to infuse your stories with. Passion and power, danger and delight—they all require exclamatory writing. But something writers often forget is that emphasis (whether it’s in the form of italics or punctuation) should be treated like salt: A little goes a long way. How Not to Use Italics One of my […]
