Note: The WritingEssentials blog is on hiatus. Meanwhile, favorite posts will be published with updates. Ellen ~~ Nearly 100 posts ago, we looked at parallelism, or parallel sentence structure. I’m revisiting this post after reviewing some writing of a Sprint group participant who had composed a list for a piece she submitted for publication. What …
Note: The WritingEssentials blog is on hiatus. Meanwhile, favorite posts will be published with updates. Ellen ~~ Some writers feel strongly about adverbs. For instance, Stephen King, or some say Nathaniel Hawthorne, is quoted as saying the following about this part of speech: “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” In this post, we’ll …
Note: The WritingEssentials blog is on hiatus. Meanwhile, favorite posts will be published with updates. Ellen ~~ A recent talk on voice by literary agent and free-lance editor Kaitlyn Johnson recalled this post. Johnston reiterated many of the points I make, calling voice an elusive concept, one that is hard to nail down and one …
Note: The WritingEssentials blog is on hiatus. Meanwhile, favorite posts will be published with updates. Ellen ~~ The original post was written in celebration of writers and writing, including over a year of weekly blog posts on writing essentials and English fundamentals here. Many have focused on grammatical and usage errors, including language myths and …
Note: The WritingEssentials blog is on hiatus. Meanwhile, favorite posts will be published with updates. Ellen ~~ Writers can use their understanding of grammar rules and sentence syntax to shape their stylistic choices. As discussed in a previous post, when writers make “accurate, effective, and helpful punctuation choices,” this adds to their competency and authority …
Note: The WritingEssentials blog is on hiatus. Meanwhile, favorite posts will be published with updates. Ellen ~~ This blog has focused a lot on surface errors, such as those of punctuation, partly because it’s a way to give writers quick and focused tips on common mistakes that appear in writing by beginners and professionals. “Mistakes …
Note: The WritingEssentials blog is on hiatus. Meanwhile, favorite posts will be published with updates. Ellen ~~ In revisiting posts that deal with what it means to be a writer, such as defining what it means to be a writer and what new writers need to know, I’m following with this one about how writers …
Note: The WritingEssentials blog is on hiatus. Meanwhile, favorite posts will be published with updates. Ellen ~~ I am revisiting posts that deal with what it means to be a writer, including this post originally published about what new writers need to know. In the previous post about what it means to be a writer, …
Note: The WritingEssentials blog is on hiatus. Meanwhile, favorite posts will be published with updates. Ellen ~~ As I work with aspiring writers in my Writing Workshops and Timed Writing Sprint Groups, many are hesitant to define themselves as writers. For some, this can be what is known as “imposter syndrome” – they have a …
Note: The WritingEssentials blog is on hiatus. Meanwhile, favorite posts will be published with updates. Ellen ~~ Dialogue poses challenges for writers, not just in punctuating it correctly, but also in using it to represent speech in an accurate, yet paradoxically artistic way. This post revisits an earlier one on dealing with dialogue. Writers, especially …