Tag: Writing Tips

There is no such word as “epithany”—nor is it “epifany,” nor “epuphany,” nor any of several other imaginative spellings I’ve seen in manuscripts (and on blogs and Facebook) lately.

Epiphany—as it’s most commonly used in stories and among writers—is when a character experiences a sudden moment of perception, insight or revelation of deeper meaning or direction.

An author might have an epiphany about a character or plot line.

A character might have an epiphany about the meaning of his/her life.

In the case of a character, it should be rare. Limit yourself to one per book.

Great to see someone else picking up on this! However, there’s something else that bothers me more, and that’s the mis-use of the ‘s. Because it’s sweeping across English-speaking countries, it’s even becoming prevalent here in Germany! There’s a shop not too far from where I live that proudly proclaims “Beauty and Nail’s.” Ugh! And recently, I’m sure I saw this line on the internet somewhere: “Who want’s to be a millionaire?” Holy flying cowpats!

Can you do a Writing Tip Tuesday about this? Help them, LDS Publisher, you’re their only hope! 😉

I have been guilty of adding or omitting the apostrophe—not because I don’t know better but because I’m typing too fast or my software does an auto-fix and guesses wrong.

However, on signage? NO EXCUSE!

The ‘s shows possession.

If the word is plural, there is no apostrophe.

There are some exceptions, for example, its vs it’s. The possessive its has no apostrophe. The apostrophe is only used in the contraction for it is.

Affect and effect are two words that get mixed up a lot.

First, let’s define the two words from Dictionary.com.

Affect is usually a verb, meaning:

• To act on; produce an effect or change in: Cold weather affected the crops.
  
  
• To impress the mind or move the feelings of: The music affected him deeply.
  
  
• To attack or infect, as a disease: Rheumatic fever can affect the heart.

Effect is usually a noun, meaning:

• Something that is produced by an agency or cause; result; consequence: Exposure to the sun had the effect of toughening his skin.

• The power to produce results; efficacy; force; validity; influence: His protest had no effect.

• A scientific law, hypothesis, or phenomenon: the photovoltaic effect.

• Advantage; avail: used her words to great effect in influencing the jury.

• The condition of being in full force or execution: a new regulation that goes into effect tomorrow.

• Something that produces a specific impression or supports a general design or intention: The lighting effects emphasized the harsh atmosphere of the drama.

• A particular impression: large windows that gave an effect of spaciousness.

• Production of a desired impression: spent lavishly on dinner just for effect.

Even with the definitions, sometimes it’s hard to pick. Here are a few rules:

1. Use “affect” as a verb when you’re talking about influence.

• Eating too many bon bons can affect your weight.
• Running into a werewolf was really affecting her mood.

2. Use the “effect” if you’re talking about results or to describe something that was caused or brought about.

• The effect of eating an entire pound of bon bons was immediate and uncomfortable.
• I cannot effect change in my life without a huge bundle of cash.

3. Use “effect” whenever it is preceded by any of these words: a/an, and, any, into, no, the, take(n) (with or without an adverb).

• Meeting a unicorn always had a calming effect on her.
• The magic wand had an effect on the frog.
• It’s all about cause and effect.
• The werewolf had no effect on her mood at all.
• The effect of the vampire bite was instantaneous.

Here is a quiz. See if you can get them all right.

You’ve been picking up on some common errors I’m seeing a lot of lately and handling them well. How about clarifying “different from” and “different than” sometime.

I lot of people use them interchangeably and see no problem with it. I’m a nit-picker.

“Different from” is almost always the correct one because it is used for simple comparisons between two things—and that’s a more common sentence structure.

Example: My book premise is different from the one that made the bestseller list.
(Comparing my book with another book.)

Example: My grammar preferences are different from a second grader’s.
(Comparing my grammar prefs with someone else’s.)

“Different than” is only acceptable when followed by a full clause.

Example: The publishing industry is different than it was twenty years ago.
(You would never say “…different from it was…” although you could say “…different from the way that it was…” but that’s cumbersome.)

Clear as mud?

I was reading a partial the other day and the author used this sentence:

Uhhnnn. (That’s the sound of the incorrect buzzer going off.)

“Could of” is wrong, wrong, wrong. As is, “would of” and “should of.”

My guess is this mistake originated from the contractions “could’ve/would’ve/should’ve” which sound like “could of/would of/should of” when spoken aloud.

• Correct: It could have been different.
• Correct: I would have eaten the pie but I was too full.
• Correct: You should have gone to the movie with us.

I have a question for your blog. If this has been answered before, then just ignore it. If not:

How do you feel about the use of semi-colons in fiction, and how and when do you think they should be used?

Personally, I love semi-colons. They are so cute! (I could have sworn I’d talked about them before but couldn’t find it using the Search feature…)

I hate reading about semi-colons (and other grammatical stuff) because it’s so darn boring! And confusing. (Unless you’re a word nerd.) So I’ll try to make this easy.

There are a few other rules, too. Use a semi-colon when:

1. Connecting two independent clauses (phrases that could be stand alone sentences) into one long sentence, without using a conjunction. (This is the most common usage, and IMHO, the only way it should be used in fiction.)
   Example: I looked into the vampire’s cold, black eyes; I was doomed.
2. Connecting two independent clauses into one long sentence, while using a conjunction. This is only done when one or both of the independent clauses is really long or uses a lot of commas. (Most of the time, IMHO, it’s better to go ahead and make it two sentences.)

   Example: The vampire loved the flavor of types A-positive, B-positive, and O-positive blood; but AB-negative always gave him a stomach ache.

3. When a sentence contains a long and wordy list. (Use this only in non-fiction, scholarly works. It’s just too cumbersome in fiction.) (It’s also telling, not showing.)

   Example: The vampire had lived under many identities during his six hundred plus years—a farmer in the 1600s, a lesser prince in the 1700s, a ship’s captain in the 1800s, a merchant marine in the early 1900s; most recently, he was posing as a dot com millionaire and that suited him just fine.

There are a few other times when using a semi-colon is acceptable, but they’re awkward and I don’t recommend using them that way in fiction. If you really want to know ALL the details of the semi-colon, do some research; look it up on Google.

I want my book to be appropriate for my potential readers, but my main character is having a problem with a person who is s~xually harassing her. It is driving me crazy trying to figure out how to hint that this problem is happening without it sounding either prudish or too loose with my language. I really like how you handled the swearing situation when it comes to writing and being LDS. PLEASE HELP.

Dealing with s~xual situations in an LDS market is like walking a tightrope. We all have different comfort zones. Personally, I can handle it if characters go into the bedroom and close the door, but I don’t want to watch. As for s~xual violence—and I include harassment in that category—I need to know what’s going on, but subtle is better.

One of the best ways I’ve seen this handled is in Josi Kilpack’s book, Sheep’s Clothing, about an Internet predator who kidnaps a teenage girl. Josi writes, “The first time he touched her…” That’s all I needed to know.

Keep in mind that if you’re writing the scene in real time with sensory details, it’s going to draw the reader in, which will be offensive to some readers. If you have your character tell someone about the it, it allows for some distance between the reader and the event. This is one case where, in my opinion, telling is better than showing.

One thing I do when I’m going through a book that deals with possibly offensive material is to imagine my mother reading it. She’s your average LDS Relief Society sister and the target audience for most of the novels I work with. If I think she’d be offended and put it down, I lighten it up.

My best advice is to write your scenes the way you feel it best serves your story. If it’s too harsh, your publisher will let you know.

Readers, authors: How do you handle these types of situations? What advice to you have?

Over and over I see this error:

His comment peeked/peaked/piquet my interest.

I see it a lot on blogs. I’ve also seen it recently in a couple of published books.

The correct spelling of this word is piqued, meaning, in this case, that his comment created an interest or curiosity in the listener’s topic.

Pique can also be used to indicate irritation, resentment, frustration, but this usage is less common in America English.

In the past month, I’ve read two books that use the phrase “all of the sudden” as opposed to the correct version, “all of a sudden”. In one book, the girl is young and a bit backward so I suppose I could give the author the benefit of the doubt and say she was speaking in the girls voice, so it was legit to use the incorrect variation which is sadly gaining way too much popularity. But in the other book it was narrative, not dialog.

What the heck? Both times it yanked me right out of the story!

I was all poised to write a scathing commentary on this but decided to Google it first and make sure I was still in the majority position. (Not that it matters, because I am still right and they are still wrong—but I wanted to impress you with the strength of my rightness.)

First link, I found this perfect article saying exactly what I wanted to say. So here it is:

Put simply, the idiom is “all of a sudden,” not “all of the sudden.” That may be all you need from me on this matter, so if it is, feel free to click on out of here.

Most of you probably don’t make this error, but I know you have seen it and heard it. What surprises me is not only how often I encounter this butchered idiom, but where I encounter it. I have read it in papers by graduate students in English, and I have heard it from the mouths of pretentious and pedantic newscasters and talking-head pundits on television.

It is difficult for young people to learn the proper forms when so much of the language they hear comes from the mass media, and the mass media so regularly offer up the wrong forms.

Even those young people who read are likely to do much of their reading in mass circulation newspapers and magazines. Unfortunately, those who write for such publications are often not well-versed in matters of grammar and usage, and even those who edit their writings–if indeed much editing is done at all, which I am beginning to doubt–may not be quite as knowledgeable in those areas as we might wish.

“All of a sudden” is an idiom. There is no logical or grammatical reason why we say “all of a sudden” rather than “all of the sudden.” It’s just that, until recently at least, no native speaker of English would say “all of the sudden,” just as no native speaker of English would say “She was hit with a car.”

True, idioms are shaped by widespread usage, so that if enough people over a long enough period of time say “all of the sudden,” eventually that will become the preferred idiom, and someone many years hence will write an article deploring the fact that some benighted speakers and writers don’t know any better than to say “all of a sudden.”

But that day has not yet arrived, and until it does, the proper phrasing remains “all of a sudden,” and those who use “all of the sudden” will be marking themselves as imperfectly educated, or at the very least as careless in their use of language.

Here are other people who adamantly agree with me and Tina:

1. WSU (See their whole list of common errors HERE)
2. Grammarphobia

3. The Grammar Logs (scroll down about mid page)
4. and lastly, Urban Dictionary (where I get all my most valuable grammar information)

Update: Thanks to Th. for THIS LINK. My idiom can beat up your idiom any day! (You have to click the blue “Make a Fight” button for the really fun part.

At every writers conference, workshop, or author presentation I’ve ever been to, when the floor is opened for questions to authors, one of them invariably is, “Where do you get your ideas.”

The answers range from the serious to the silly, but one that I really like is:

“Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.” —Orson Scott Card

Your assignment as you go about your regular life today is to notice one thing—just one—that would make a good story.

(Okay, you can notice more than one, but notice at least one.)

Seriously.

Read your manuscript aloud from start to finish. You will hear mistakes. You will find awkward sentence structure, names that are more difficult to pronounce than they are to read, unclear references, holes in scenes, etc.

Read aloud. Fix it. Repeat.

Reading your manuscript aloud is the second best self-editing technique.

The first best self-editing technique is to read your manuscript aloud to someone else.

When you read aloud to just yourself, you tend to tune yourself out. But when you read to someone else, you notice every single word.

This is why a good critique group, where you read your pages in front of the group, can be so powerful.

I have been taking a writing course where the teacher criticizes the use of “he said” or “she said” and prefers the use of character action to tell who is talking. I find that at times adhering strictly to action (as my teacher demands) over an occasional “said” tag line can create a cumbersome experience for the reader. Do we really need to show the reader every body movement the character makes? Isn’t it possible to tell you who is talking without weakening the story?

Dialog tags are used to remind the reader of who is speaking. Unless you have extremely individualized and unique character voices, you have to use something to differentiate speakers.

There are two types of tags:

The standard dialog tag, which attributes the dialog to a particular character using the “he said/she said” (or a variation thereof). The word “said” is nearly invisible to the reader and is therefore preferred over things like, “he shouted” or “she squeaked.”

Examples:

• “Get out of my way before I knock you down,” she said.

• John said, “I’d like to see you try.” [a little less invisible when the tag comes before the dialog, but still okay when used sparingly.]

This type of dialog tag does not weaken the story, but neither does it move it forward or provide the necessary beats to keep your conversations from bouncing like a ping pong ball in play.

The action tag, which shows action by a character before, after or in the middle of speaking, allows the reader to assume that the acting character is the one speaking. This is a great way to add a beat, deepen characterization, and to disrupt the repetition of the bouncing he said/she said pattern.

Examples:

• LDS Publisher tossed her head and laughed. “That Anon is such a smarty pants!”

• “I just don’t know what to think.” Kara brushed her bangs out of her eyes. “Is it possible? Could he really like me?”

I find that action tags are often underused—and I personally like them. Many books would do well to use them more often. I do agree with you that if used exclusively, they can become annoying and cumbersome, but perhaps not as much as you think.

Pay attention to dialog tags as you read your favorite books. When do they use one over the other? Ask yourself if it adds to the story or detracts. But bottom line—do what your teacher (or agent, editor, publisher) tell you to do.

Having recently seen several manuscripts where ‘swearing without swearing’ was not handled well (you can’t make up fake swear words unless you’re in a whole new world, like James Dashner’s Maze Runner), today’s Writing Tip Tuesday comes compliments of Day to Day with Valor Publishing. (Re-posted with permission from Valor Publishing.)

Are you writing for the LDS market? Mormons do swear differently from other people. If you want to write literature for Mormons, you have to tone it down. You will not get swear words past an LDS censor. And unless you’re a cartoon character, or writing an e-mail, you won’t get away with $%&#(@#*%&@!

But now you’ve got a problem. You’re writing a tense scene where Marco, the assassin from New York, has flown into town ready to do the job he’s been hired to do. Along with him he brings Fredo, his loyal sidekick. They’ve cornered their prey, a sniveling coward named Jones, and Marco brings out his gun. He puts the silencer in place, his movements slow, all the while watching the face of their hapless victim. He wants to prolong the agony as long as possible, and he knows by watching the beads of sweat roll off Jones’ face that his methods are working. He brings the gun up and prepares to shoot. As he pulls the trigger, the gun jams.

“Jeepers,” Marco says. “That’s rotten. Hey, Fredo, hand me another gun.”

“Rats. It sure is too bad your gun didn’t fire,” Fredo says, handing over another gun. “I bet you’re really disappointed.”

We sort of lost all the tension in that scene, didn’t we. Unfortunate.

Let’s try again.

As he pulls the trigger, the gun jams. Jones, eyes clenched tight, flinches, then slowly raises one eyelid. Marco flings the gun to the side, cursing under his breath.

“Give me another gun.”

Fredo removes his own firearm and hands it to Marco, taking the safety off in the transfer. Only a moment has gone by, long enough for Jones to feel relieved but not long enough for Marco to forget why he’s there.

“See you on the other side,” Marco said, pulling the trigger.

Notice how we switched it out and said “cursing under his breath.” We know he’s cursing, but we don’t know what he said. That is one way to interject a “swear word” into LDS fiction. Because Marco isn’t LDS, it doesn’t matter that he swears, as long as we don’t know what he’s saying.

You’ll find plenty of examples of how this is done as you read LDS fiction. The trick is, finding a way to keep the tension high without breaking it by sounding silly. If you can’t find a way to imply a swear word, evaluate if it really needs to be there. Use them only when the scene demands it. And, whatever you do, never use the term “yippee skippy” as an interjection. Please.

Copyright 2009. All rights reserved by Valor Publishing Group, LLC.