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 …
Note: The WritingEssentials blog is on hiatus. Meanwhile, favorite posts will be published with updates. Ellen ~~ A recent request about SAT tutoring sent me to review the writing and grammar questions the Scholastic Aptitude Test, as well as the American College Test (ACT). These exams focus on errors that are often on lists identifying …
Note: The WritingEssentials blog is on hiatus. Meanwhile, favorite posts will be published with updates. Ellen ~~ With the return of my Continuing Ed Writing Workshop, I am reminded of the confusion and even reluctance of beginning and nonprofessional writer over editing and revision. Many of these writers, even if they’ve produced a lot of …
Reviewing the difference between editing and revision Read More »
Note: The WritingEssentials blog is on hiatus. Meanwhile, favorite posts will be published with updates. Ellen ~~ As my Adult Ed Writing Workshop goes virtual this year, I am reminded by the work of issues that plague writers, whether beginning or experienced. Despite being good readers, participants are not always able to decide on the …
Note: The WritingEssentials blog is on hiatus. Meanwhile, favorite posts will be published with updates. Ellen ~~ Ellipses and dashes are used to denote pauses, but according to creative writing copy editor, Caitlin Berve, are “two of the most commonly used and misused punctuation marks” she sees in her work. In this update of the …
Note: The WritingEssentials blog is on hiatus. Meanwhile, favorite posts will be published with updates. Ellen ~~ The New York Times Book Review had a recent essay in which the writer, herself an author of memoirs about her family, poses an interesting definition of a well-crafted memoir that “involves archival research, hours of taped interviews …
Note: The WritingEssentials blog is on hiatus. Meanwhile, favorite posts will be published with updates. Ellen ~~ Poetry, which is often compresses a lot of detail and meaning into smaller spaces, relies on finding the exact or right words. With the recent performances of Amanda Gorman, the youngest inaugural poet and the only poet to …
Note: The WritingEssentials blog is on hiatus. Meanwhile, favorite posts will be published with updates. Ellen ~~ As the current COVID-19 pandemic continues, I have been doing a lot of workshops and conferences on writing and writing—all virtual and many of them free—ones that I might not have easily done in “normal” times. The great …
Note: The WritingEssentials blog is on hiatus. Meanwhile, favorite posts will be published with updates. Ellen ~~ At a recent writer’s conference, a literary agent was talking about signs of weak writing, something we talked about in a recent post on subordination by reduction. Weak writing can occur when write a sentence explaining something you …