Who’s Your Audience?
To help focus your writing, it’s helpful to clearly identify your audience. A good way to do this is to develop a reader profile. Share This:
Storytelling for Non-Fiction
Storytelling for fiction is pretty obvious. There’s a beginning, a middle, and an end. There’s some kind of narrative, and a plot line involving a cast of characters. Storytelling has been around for a long time. It predates writing, and has been used in mythology, fables, fairy tales, sagas, etc. In more contemporary forms, it
De-Clutter Your Writing
Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular construction, pompous frills and meaningless jargon. But the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that
Periods in Abbreviations
Why is abbreviation such a long word? Periods in abbreviations can be a controversial subject. There are no hard and fast rules, and often the style manual used by the editor or publisher will prevail, so know your audience. Following are some general guidelines. Share This:
The Dash and the Hyphen
It’s often difficult to decide when to use a hyphen or dash, and whether to use a long (em) dash or a short (en) dash. The letters ‘m’ and ‘n’ are used to describe the length of the dash as the same as the matching letter. Share This:
Splitting the Infinitive
This grammatical bugaboo has been plaguing writers for hundreds of years. In spite of rules to the contrary, there are times when a writer can “get away with it”. But how are you to know? The following guidelines will, hopefully, provide some answers. Share This:
The Misunderstood Apostrophe
The apostrophe mark (‘) has two major uses in English. Usage 1: the apostrophe signifies that one or more letters in a word have been left out. So, for example, in poetry we have o’er for over; in contractions we have can’t for cannot and she’s for she is; and in abbreviations we have dep’t.
Paper or e-Book?
Which way to publish? This can be a challenging question for an author. There are so many options. You can go the traditional printed book route — hardback or paperback. You can save your book as a .pdf (portable document format), then print it on paper or sell it electronically from your website. (Note: pdf
Why Have an Elevator Speech?
When you give an elevator speech, you’re briefly telling someone what you do or provide. If done right, you’ll spark someone’s interest by explaining the value to them of what you or your product is about, and to stimulate further action. It’s not, repeat NOT, a sales pitch. The term “elevator speech” derives from the
Does Your Writing Contain Redundant Words?
A redundant word is one that’s not necessary for the transmission of a thought, which is the purpose of effective communication. Share This: