Chicago Manual of Style devotes 16 pages to the correct usage of the comma. I’m sure you’re familiar with its use with coordinate adjectives, transitional adverbs, appositive clauses, and participial phrases. I won’t insult you by repeating that information here. Instead, here are the most common errors in comma usage spotted around the Web. Omitting […]
Top 5 Comma Errors Read More »
Celebrate Thanksgiving with the books Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Franzen, R.L. Stine, James Patterson, Rainbow Rowell, Michael Chabon, Lemony Snicket, Chuck Palahniuk, and more of your favorite authors are grateful for. See More . . .
22 Famous Writers Told Us About The Book They’re Most Thankful For Read More »
By Beth Hill Dialogue has its own rules for punctuation. Commas go in particular places, as do terminal marks such as periods and question marks. Only what is spoken is within the quotation marks. Other parts of the same sentence—dialogue tags and action or thought—go outside the quotation marks. Dialogue begins with a capitalized word, no
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By Nathan Bransford So you’ve already decided that you want to write in third person instead of first person. Good work! That’s half the battle. Did you know there’s another battle ahead? That is when you decide whether you’re going to write in third person omniscient or third person limited. This decision comes down to whether
Third Person Omniscient vs. Third Person Limited Read More »
By Angela Ackerman Emotional wounds are transformative and have the power to re-shape a character in many negative ways, impacting their happiness, their self-worth, and causing mistrust and disillusionment to skew their worldview. This critical piece of backstory is key to understanding their motivations, and will impact their individual character’s arc, so knowing what it is, and
Supplying Breadcrumbs: How to Hint at a Character’s Emotional Wound – Angela Ackerman Read More »