This little mini-rant is brought to you by my reading an article over at InD’Tale. In fairness, I hear people refer to the “YA genre” and the “new adult genre” all the time, and I get that I’m fighting a losing battle. Out of sheer hardheadedness, however, I continue to talk about the difference between […]
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Writing Tip: Show vs. Tell—the Natural Pause with Dialogue
Using “paused” as an action beat seems a little like an oxymoron, but I digress. If you use an action beat or a dialog tag, you have inserted a “natural pause” into your dialog. What do I mean by this? Basically this: if we’re reading dialog and the character stops speaking and does something, or […]
Read More »Grammar: Daresay or Dare Say?
Daresay—is it one word or two? Here’s a crazy little thing that you might not know: it’s one word. Yes, that’s right. It’s one of those words you don’t hear all that often anymore, but it’s a lot of fun. I always picture myself saying it with a very proper British accent, and it makes […]
Read More »Grammar: Past Perfect Tense Is Perfectly Okay (do NOT delete all your hads)
I had a question from a friend tonight about the had in past perfect tense. She was wondering if she should remove the hads as she “dislikes unnecessary words.” This is the sound of tires squealing and my jaw hitting my desk. Had is not an unnecessary word. Not to pick on my friend Betty (not her […]
Read More »Grammar: Pronoun Antecedents—Make Sure Your Readers Aren’t Confused
Pronouns are wonderful tools—they keep our sentences from being repetitive and are super versatile. In a way, they’re like a shortcut on a computer. You know those little icons on your desktop that point to an application but aren’t the program itself? Likewise, pronouns are stand-ins for a noun. But in order for a pronoun […]
Read More »Grammar: Verb Tenses and Sequencing of Action
Verb tenses can be tricky when you’re trying to sequence action in your manuscript. Depending on how you phrase a sentence, the actions can be simultaneous rather than sequential. Consider the following example. She finished cleaning the kitchen when the doorbell rang. That reads that she finished cleaning the kitchen at the same time that the doorbell […]
Read More »Style Choice for Writers: Should You Capitalize or Lowercase Names of Dances?
Characters dancing comes up pretty often in fiction. There are nights out clubbing with friends, weddings, heck, sometimes characters just start doing the Macarena in their kitchen. And that inevitably leads to the question of how that should be written. Capitalized? In quotes? Italics? All lowercase? That last option definitely doesn’t seem right. This question […]
Read More »Grammar: Collective Nouns—Singular or Plural?
Grammar Question Are group nouns treated as singular or plural? That depends on a couple of things. First is whether you’re using American or British grammar rules. And then the next question is whether or not the group is acting as a unit. I’ll never forget when I was a kid and first realized that […]
Read More »Publishing: Amazon Feature Alert—Follow This Author
Amazon has a really cool feature that allows readers to follow their favorite authors. Doing so will get recommendations dropped into their inbox when those authors release new titles, make new update, including blog posts, and otherwise tweak their author page. But in order to maximize this feature, you need to have set up your […]
Read More »Grammar: Commas with Dependent Phrases and Clauses
Dependent phrases and clauses usually take a comma when they’re at the beginning of a sentence but not when they’re at the end, especially if they’re adverbial (describing when, how, or where). For example: If I go to the store, I need to take my wallet.BUTI need to take my wallet if I go to […]
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