When I’m out and about writing on my trusty laptop (My NEW trusty laptop… so giddy,) I don’t always have an internet connection, and lugging around a ten pound, 1500 page desk reference isn’t really practical. So in the past, when I found myself relying too heavily on a few favorite words (Okay fine… Kids,…
Category: Writing tips
Getting it down on paper figuratively speaking.
Crimes are committed in romance too…
Okay peeps and peepettes, for those not in the know, Mondays are my Twitter day. I spend a better part of the day playing with a game called #MondayBlogs. I spend the day discovering cool blog posts that others have found or created, and I share the same. But today, I came across what in…
Virual Romance Festing Instead of Literal Editing. I’ve been bad…
So my peeps and peepers, I’ve fallen behind… Again. Convincing myself I was still working (I’m extremely gullible, so it wasn’t very hard,) I spent the weekend attending the virtual Romance Festival. And now my brain is buzzing with new ideas, new story-lines and plot-twists. Strange and wonderful characters (some a little scary) are pinging…
She said what?
Punctuating dialogue is a nit-picky field of grey quicksand. And one of the most confusing aspects is speech attribution. You can use dialogue tags to explicitly state who said what… “Fuck you Bitch!” she said, opening up a can of whup-ass. Or action to imply who’s speaking. “The spots on your glasses are driving me…
We can all go to Stanford… Free!
As promised in last week’s post, today I’ll be talking about free educational resources every writer should know about. Back at the turn of the century—I’ve always wanted to say that—MIT decided to put a bunch of their course lectures on the web for free. While they weren’t the first to do so, they did…
I love tools… (well not the walking and talking kind.)
So for those of you out there who’ve decided you’re going to finally take the plunge, and write the world’s greatest novel, I decided to share some of the tools I’ve found to get the job done, and best of all, most of them are free!
How can I avoid going “down the rabbit hole” when writing a research paper?
Answer by Candace Vianna: One of the nice things about academic writing is it follows a standard format. I don’t know what grade-level you are writing too but I’m assuming it’s high school/secondary school or higher. Your instructor should have given you a rubric detailing all the elements needed to satisfy the assignment. If he/she…
How do I start and keep writing stories? I always want to but never was able to actually write something.
Answer by Clarence Sherrick: Get yourself a small easy to carry writing book. As well as a writing device. Keep these with you as often as possible. Even when in the restroom. Whenever you are sitting, standing or waiting for something at some length. Write a quick short passage on anything or anyone going on…
Nowadays, literally is used interchangeably with figuratively, is this truly acceptable? Does this constitute an erosion of the English l…
Answer by Candace Vianna: No, to the first part. These are not interchangeable. They are antonyms. Literally means without interpretation or embellishment, exactly as stated. Figuratively means you’re not being literal, you’re using figures of speech or are speaking metaphorically. The second part of the question is more difficult to pin down. Language evolves with…
Is this paragraph properly written?
Answer by Candace Vianna: I pretty much agree with the majority on this one, but here’s another punctuation trick to consider. On the way to his car, Dan analyzed what the man had said: The warehouse was occupied on Wednesdays and Thursdays. But the Buffalo murder occurred on a Saturday, and Sarah Johnson was killed…
