When I find misplaced modifiers in my own writing or in others (and usually I don't see it in my own until they are pointed out to me), I giggle like a delighted toddler. Everyone makes these grammatical goofs at one time or another. You find them in books, in signs, in Powerpoint presentations, in menu descriptions... the list goes on. So, what is a misplaced modifier? If you ask Google, this is the definition that pops up: a phrase or clause placed awkwardly in a sentence so that it appears to modify or refer to an unintended word.  The best way to know them is to see them. Here is one example from dictionary.com: Tall and handsome, the people looked at him with awe and admiration.  The way this sentence is set up, "tall and handsome" describes "people," not "him." So what can you do to fix poor misplaced modifier, so it points to "him?" Here's one solution: Because he was tall and handsome, the people looked at him with aw...

This post was first published on June 11, 2009 My knowledge of all things punctuation-y is flimsy. In the past, I’ve thought- “Okay now I’ve got it” but, sadly, I didn’t, and when someone pointed it out I felt a bit embarrassed about my proclamation made firmly from Dunderhead Land. I bought Eats, Shoots, and Leaves (ESL) and somehow feel I’ve made a breakthrough. I think I now understand the scariest punctuation mark of them all: the semicolon. Before ESL, I avoided the semicolon. I just accepted it was a punctuation mark out of my league. It was for writers who really got it; people who know what a non-defining participle clause is, for example. Those people do not include me. I just accepted that I would make my way through the writing world with the comma and the full stop. I would manage. If I needed more, I might resort to a dash, but that was moving toward shaky ground. It was okay. It was a smaller life, but still a life. But after ESL, I feel I can now use the semicolo...

This post first ran on 1/31/2009 and we still don't like being "scared" this way! ~ Dani Quote marks are probably the most overused form of punctuation. Quote is short for quotation, so essentially, quote marks should be used only to set off a quotation—the verbatim text of something that was said or published. If you’re writing a novel and using quote marks for anything but dialogue—take them out! Writers everywhere like to use quote marks around words they consider special for some reason or around words that are not being used in a traditional way. Old school editors call these scare quotes, a way of alerting the reader that the word may not mean what you think it does. Ninety percent of the time, the marks are completely unnecessary. If you’re writing logical sentences—even using euphemisms—readers know what you mean. Here’s  Here are a few examples of unneeded quote marks. “Quote” is short for “quotation.” (Did anyone misread the sentence when I wrote it...

Photo of Eduardo Paolozzi mosaic inside Tottenham Court road tube station by Mark Hillary , via Flickr Like many people with creative tendencies, I wear more than one “artistic” hat. I not only love to read, write and edit, but I also dabble in art, photography, poetry, bead-making and a form of mosaic known as pique assiette that uses pieces of broken crockery in place of colored glass. You might be asking yourself what does any of this have to do with a blog about writing and editing? Quite a lot, in fact. My artistic ramblings led me to the world of t-shirt design and I was pleased to discover it was a lot of fun and brought in a few extra dollars each month. A few years ago, I posted some tee designs on Amazon when they opened their print on demand division, known as Merch. These evergreen designs had all been best-sellers on other POD platforms in the past so I figured they were a good place to start. And there they sat. I was pulling out my hair trying to figure ...

Photo by Sean Mason , via Flickr Oxford English Dictionaries online defines a sentence as ”A set of words that is complete in itself, typically containing a subject and predicate, conveying a statement, question, exclamation, or command, and consisting of a main clause and sometimes one or more subordinate clauses.” In fiction, an enormous amount of leeway is given in sentence length and structure according to the novel’s genre. Short sentences increase tension in thrillers that feature fast-paced scenes. Dialogue-heavy fiction gives the author an opportunity to play with fragments and short, snappy exchanges. The secret is to understand what a sentence is before messing around with it. One of greatest failings of modern education is the removal of sentence diagramming from the study of writing. Editor Linda Lane explored this topic in her Blood-Red Pencil post, Excuse Me, Please, I Need a Diagram . Linda noted, “Knowing the parts of speech helps us use words most effectively...

So there you are, clattering away at the keyboard and filling page after page with enthralling dialogue and vivid imagery. Suddenly, your fingers halt as your brain wrestles with a question of grammar. You have a sentence in mind, but you’re not quite sure if the phrasing is acceptable. What do you do? Do you forge ahead, risking potential editorial wrath? Do you take the not-quite-easy way out and re-write the entire line, thus avoiding grammatical conflict? No! You grab that coat by the lapels and consult the Chicago Manual of Style. Now in its sixteenth edition, the CMOS gives definite and definitive answers to your most pressing prose questions. Is the singular they acceptable, or is the more formal (if slightly stilted) he or she required? Are social titles always abbreviated? What on earth is an em dash, and when should you employ one? Even a first-time reader will find that the CMOS is user-friendly, with clearly marked sections, a cross-referenced inde...

First, a  quick followup to my last post about pre-orders, and Windswept Danger . Since someone near and dear to me was recently diagnosed with MS, I'm donating ALL royalties from pre-orders of the book to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Pre-order price of 99 cents, a $3 savings, is good through Oct 26th. You can find buy links here . And now, on to your regularly scheduled posting. Language, as everything else, is constantly changing. But what constitutes a legitimate change? When does something that was previously "wrong" become acceptable? Back in the Dark Ages, when I was in school, we were taught that already was an adverb that had to do with time. "When I got to the mall (although there were no malls back in those Dark Ages of my school years), Mary was already there." This was not to be confused with all ready , which means that everyone was prepared, or someone was completely prepared. Likewise, there's altogether and all ...

Last week we began talking about interiority referring to the character's inner life. Today we'll continue with tips on using interiority to improve your story. Internal thoughts and narration do not require quotation marks. It is debatable whether internal dialogue should be italicized or underlined. Style guides insist that italicizing internal thoughts is the same as putting speech in quotation marks. Dick walked down the hallway that smelled of disinfectant. I hate this place , he thought. As mentioned last week, some readers find the switch in tense annoying if the story is written in third person. It can take them out of the total immersion experience. I have seen interiority presented in many ways: Third person without offset: Dick walked down the hallway that smelled of disinfectant. He hated the place. Third person with italics: Dick left the conference room.  I really blew it, he thought to himself . What now? Third person with quotation ma...

Interiority refers to a character's inner life: his thoughts, feelings, and view of the world. In order to show interiority, you have to reveal to the reader your character's internal struggle and self-talk. What he says to himself affects what he does and says to others. Does internal monologue constitute telling? It shouldn't.  Sometimes action and dialogue are not enough. We want to see inside Jane's head. Interiority gives us insight into the character's thought processes, decision-making, internal struggle to do the right (or wrong) thing, his moral compass, and value judgments. It reveals how he perceives other characters, the overall story problem, and his internal dilemma. Interiority is related via interior or internal thoughts, aka interior or internal monologue, aka internal narration. If the character argues with himself or talks to himself, it is interior or internal dialogue. Using interiority well is a skill worth mastering. ...

"Work, the what's-its-name of the thingummy and the thing-um-a-bob of the what d'you-call-it."—P.G. Wodehouse, Psmith, Journalist A placeholder is what a writer puts in when she can’t think of the right line or idea at the moment. Placeholders can be a useful tool when you are making that mad dash through your first draft, especially during November’s NaNoWriMo challenge. How often do you get bogged down when you stop to try to think of just the right word or phrase? How many times do you make a detour to the Internet to search for that word or phrase and get further derailed by blogs, articles or that “ding” that signals you have a Facebook message? Well, turn off everything but your word processing program and remember “placeholders.” You can use a placeholder when you can’t remember what you named the heroine’s fifth child ten  chapters ago. “When he saw the huge shadow looming, Little Whosit dropped his books on the ground and ran.” You don’t need to take...

Which sentence “shows” the action best? • Joe walked to the house. • Joe strode to the house. Verbs are action words and are key to showing rather than telling. Verbs themselves can be active or passive, as you can see from the examples above. Joe walked is pretty mundane. It’s not wrong, but you can show his state of mind by using a strong, active verb, such as strode, stomped, loped , or stumbled . You can also describe the character with a verb, such as Joe limped . Watch verb “helpers” , such as the “to be” form. Joe was walking . Again, it is not wrong, but it is more passive than even the simple Joe walked. The voice of a verb tells whether the subject of the sentence performs the action (active or strong) or is acted upon (passive or weak.) • Joe was praised by Glen. (passive) • Glen praised Joe. (active) The passive voice can be used when the actor is unknown or is less important than the object of the action. • Participants in the survey were asked about the...

I have several word pet peeves. One is “snuck”, which I have written about previously. Another is 9 a.m. in the morning. (Think about it! As opposed to 9 a.m. in the evening?) My word of the month is “Utilize”. Utilize is one of those fluffed up, pretentious, supposedly intellectual “dollar” words that people use when they want to sound smart. Many times we see it in PR copy: If you utilize this product, you will be better/stronger/smarter/richer etc. But I often see it in plain old prose: He utilized the rake to clean up the yard . Aw, come on. There is a perfectly acceptable, three-letter word you can “use” instead. That’s it—USE. He used the rake to clean the yard . If you use this product you will___. Simple. Utilitarian. Easy. And do NOT use the even fluffier, more pretentious verb form: “utilization.” Ugh. Here are the definitions of the two words: Use : take, hold, or deploy (something) as a means of accomplishing or achieving something; employ— Oxford English Dictionary ...

No, I don’t mean that tight feeling in your shoulders when you’ve been sitting at the computer too long! In writing, TENSE shows the time of a verb’s action. The following are the simple tenses we commonly use: • Action occurring now is PRESENT TENSE. She understands the problem . • Action that occurred before now is PAST TENSE. She understood the problem . • Action likely to occur in after now is FUTURE TENSE. She will understand the problem . Then, we get into somewhat more complicated versions. By adding a “to be” verb, we create a PERFECT TENSE. (That doesn’t mean it’s perfect to use all the time though.) • PRESENT PERFECT refers to completed actions whose effects are still relevant. I am walking that trail today. • PAST PERFECT: I had walked that trail last week.  • FUTURE PERFECT: I will have walked that trail many times before I grow old.  The tricky part is knowing which tense to use when, and when to limit the “perfects.” As authors, when we begin a sto...

Sometimes I marvel that anyone can learn English at all! We have so many words that sound alike but are spelled differently or that are spelled the same but have different meanings. I think one could write a whole book in this subject. But I’ll try to hit some of the highlights and the most commonly misused ones. As an editor, one mistake I come across fairly often is passed/past . Passed is used when a car is going around another. When that car has passed far enough by the second car, it is past . OR My grandparents lived in the past . Another is farther/further . This is a difficult one. FARther refers to distance. How much farther is it to the beach? FURther refers to additional time, amount or other abstract matters (I don’t want to discuss this any further . OR …to further (advance) a cause.) Then there is rein/reign . Rein is what you use to control your horse. Reign is what kings do. Try to remember the difference by thinking of “Reign” as a bigger word. A king’s powe...

Susie decided she’d had enough of his insubordination. It was time to let him go. “John,” she said, “You have been insubordinate one time too many. You’re fired.” Many beginning writers feel they must set up the dialogue by explaining first what the character is going to say, or to emphasize a point by repeating it in dialogue, but it is not needed. Unnecessary repetition weakens sentences and adds extraneous words to your manuscript. Say it once, cut to the chase. Another example of saying the same thing in different words: Many unskilled workers without training in a particular job are unemployed and do not have any work. (“Unskilled” and “without training” mean the same thing, as do “unemployed” and “do not have work.”) Better : Many unskilled workers are unemployed. Be aware of repetitive phrases: • Circle around  • Continue on  • Final completion  • Frank and honest exchange • The future to come • Repeat again • Return again • Revert back • Square i...

This post first ran here on November 29, 2009. ~~~~~~~~~ Whatever you write – whether it is a manuscript, an article, a business letter, or advertising copy – will require some level of checking for accuracy before it is ready to be sent out. Different types of documents often have different requirements, for example a manuscript often needs editing in addition to proofreading, while an informal letter may only require a read-through for spelling and grammar errors, and advertisements may even break grammar rules for effect. Read the original article here.

In recent years, I’ve read a couple of books by highly-acclaimed literary authors who use no punctuation. Well, almost none. They don’t use quotation marks for dialogue. Cormack McCarthy is one, and I do not want to read another of his books because it drives me absolutely crazy. (And that’s a short trip!)  On the other hand, the novel Dirt Music by Tim Winton didn’t bother me as much. I think because the dialogue was properly attributed with actions, reactions or taglines. And the author started a new paragraph for each new speaker. McCarthy doesn’t always, and sometimes refers to two different characters as “he” a couple of times within the same paragraph. Confusing? To say the least. That said, McCarthy is a best-selling author and has won many awards. He knows his literature and he knows the rules. I always tell my writing students and editing clients that it may seem like we are spending a lot of time on “rules” when maybe we should be concentrating on writing. But…we ...

How often have you see this type of thing? The Smith’s got together with the Johnson’s to discuss the problem’s they had with their kid’s . It seems to me when God handed out apostrophes, some people must have taken more than their fair share. Most nouns add an “s” or “es” to indicate more than one. (I’m not going to get into irregular plurals, like woman-women, child-children etc.) It’s very simple, really. The Smiths (more than one Smith) got together with the Johnsons (also more than one Johnson) to discuss the problems (oh dear, more than one problem!) with their kids. (also more than one kid. They must have been fighting again.) Here’s when you can use apostrophes : to indicate possession or ownership. The kid’s book, mom’s apple pie, Bob Smith’s beard, Jim Johnson’s wife. What if you have a plural that ends in “s” and you want to show possession? The style varies somewhat here. Some publications simply use the apostrophe after the “s”. The Smiths’ children . Other st...

Omniscient : having complete or unlimited knowledge, awareness or understanding. In this Point of View (POV), the narrator is a God-like character. The narrator knows everything about all of the characters, places and events involved. You can put the readers inside anyone’s mind at will and the author can state facts that none of the characters are aware of. Now this may seem like “the key” to you. We could tell the story so much quicker. Why should we worry about who is able to know what—that seems so complicated, right? But look at this example, something beginning writers often fall into: He bit his nails and thought that she did not understand him. He watched her and wondered what to say. She brushed her hair and thought that he needed therapy. It is jarring, and can bump the reader out of reading concentration, which is absolutely not a good thing. You want the reader to identify with your main character(s) and to keep turning the pages. This POV is considered rather an...