One Of Harvey Stanbrough's Seven Writerly Sins

I collect editing tips as I edit others' work, but also as I read the ideas of other editors. I often put these ideas in my SharingwithWriters newsletter which is available with a free e-book on wordtrippers at http://howtodoitfrugally.com and sometimes here as well. Here's a recent entry on annoying use of the verb "gave."

I am reading Harvey Stanbrough's Seven Writerly Sins and in it he mentions a writing style that isn't exactly wrong, just wordy, a bit annoying, and an odd use of the verb "gave."

Stanbrough uses this example; "I gave a quick look at Nick Campbell, and he gave me a subtle nod for me to continue." He suggests, "I glanced at Nick Campbell and he nodded, indicating that I should continue," or just "I glanced a Nick Campbell and he nodded."

I prefer the latter because I try to avoid "ing" constructions, because they tend contribute to odd constructions and wordiness, too.

Stanbrough points out that the word "give" is "most often a transitive verb, meaning you actually give (or hand or grant) something to someone." You can see how an affectation like  the one in his example could be a problem if it's not used very, very judiciously.

By the way, Harvey gives this Seven Writerly Sins booklet away to those who subscribe to his newsletter or follow his other free services. Lean more at http://harveystanbrough.com.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson edits, consults. and speaks on issues of publishing. Find her The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success (How To Do It Frugally series of book for writers). Learn more about her other authors' aids at www.howtodoitfrugally.com/writers_books.htm , where writers will find lists and other helps including Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips on the Resources for Writers page. She blogs on all things publishing (not just editing!) at her Sharing with Writers blog. She tweets writers' resources at www.twitter.com/frugalbookpromo . Please tweet this post to your followers. We all need a little help with editing. (-:

May Vs. Might: You Might Be Surprised

Mindy Lawrence is contributing to The Frugal, Smart, and Tuned-In Editor today. In fact, she has promised to contribute a monthly post. So subscribe so you don't miss a single one.

WORD HIPPIE: MAY vs. MIGHT

By Mindy Phillips Lawrence


Many people confuse the usage of MAY and MIGHT for several good reasons. Their distinction is often subtle because they show a difference in MOOD.


MAY indicates a greater likelihood of something occurring than does MIGHT. For instance “I MAY go to the festival” shows a greater likelihood of attendance than does “I MIGHT go to the festival.”

A few exceptions to this general rule occur:

1. You should not use MAY in a negative hypothetical situation as it could indicate to the reader that the person does not have permission to do something. ”I may not go to the play” could be read as not having permission to go to the play. You always use MIGHT in this case.

2. To complicate matters, MIGHT is the past tense of MAY. If the event is in the past, MIGHT is always used. “My friend MIGHT have gone to the play last night.”


MAY is also used to ask permission, as in, "May I go to the play?" Using MIGHT here would show less hope for success in the request.

MAY you have good success with this rule.

LINKS

Writer's Digest Questions and Quandries
http://blog.writersdigest.com/qq/May+Vs+Might.aspx

The English Page
http://www.englishpage.com/forums/showthread.php?15868-May-vs.-Might

~Mindy Phillips Lawrence is the owner of MPL Creative Resources, http://www.freewebs.com/mplcreative . Reach her  for editing, writing, publicity, creative arts at mplcreative@yahoo.com ,


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Carolyn Howard-Johnson edits, consults. and speaks on issues of publishing. Find her The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success (How To Do It Frugally series of book for writers). Learn more about her other authors' aids at www.howtodoitfrugally.com/writers_books.htm , where writers will find lists and other helps including Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips on the Resources for Writers page. She blogs on all things publishing (not just editing!) at her Sharing with Writers blog. She tweets writers' resources at www.twitter.com/frugalbookpromo . Please tweet this post to your followers. We all need a little help with editing. (-:

A "Secret" Construction That Helps You Vary Sentence Structure and Avoid the Horrible Dangling Participles

This is a continuation of the conversation created by the post a couple of days ago. Just scroll down a bit. (-:


Question: This is a question about dangling participles (and I'm blushing at how guilty I am - but I never knew what they were. ahem!) The reason I do them is because I don't want to start every sentence with 'I' in a query letter or 'he, she, characters name,' in a fiction book - so I use the gerund or dangelly participle to change the sentence structure - Got any tips on how to do that without using the ING, ED, or EN on the end of my words.

Congratulations on being quoted in that book (Dee and Brian Powers' book on promotion) too.

Billie A. Williams, author of The Bread and Breakfast Murders

Answer: Billie, here is one rarely used construction one might use to vary your sentences. Begin your sentence with a "That." I goes something like this. "That Billie Williams didn't know the very boring terms for dangling participles and gerunds doesn't deter her from writing well." You see, the whole "that" clause serves as a subject and there is not an "ing" anywhere.

About that idea that verbs that end in "en" and "ed" might indicate that you have used a dangler and that they should be avoided. Not really. Where would fiction writers (and writer!) be without simple past tense! LOL. Those "ings" are a different story. If you use one, know that it could very well lead you in that dangling participle trap. Doesn't mean that progressive tenses and other uses for "ing" aren't grammatically correct. Just be careful. Double check when you see one. Because they are often associated with danglers, they may give you a clue. We all know those danglers are especially hard to see when they are our own.

BTW, there is a section in The Frugal Editor on dangling participles, gerunds and more. It may shed more light on how to avoid one and use the other less frequently.

PS: This conversation originates two posts down in this blog. Boyd Sutton, editor of the Wisconsin Writers' Journal, weighs in on grammatical terms, some odd uses of prepositions with verbs and more.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson edits, consults and speaks on issues of publishing. Find her The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0978515870. Learn more about her other authors' aids at www.howtodoitfrugally.com.

Seven Easy Ways to Keep Dialogure Sharp

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson


1. Keep it simple. "He said" and "She said" will usually do. Your reader is trained to accept this repetition.

2. Forget you ever heard of strong verbs. Skip the "He yelped" and the "She sighed." They slow your dialogue down. If you feel need them, look at the words—the actual dialogue—your character used when he was yelping. Maybe it doesn't reflect the way someone would sound if he yelped. Maybe if you strengthen the dialogue, you can ditch the overblown tag.

3. When you can, reveal who is saying something by the voice or tone of the dialogue. That way you may be able to skip tags occasionally, especially when you have only two people speaking to one another. Your dialogue will ring truer, too.

4. Avoid having characters use other characters' names. In real life, we don't use people's names in our speech much. We tend to reserve using names for when we're angry or disapproving or we just met in a room full of people and we're practicing our social skills. Having a character direct her speech to one character or another by using her name is a lazy writer's way of directing dialogue and it will annoy the reader. When a reader is annoyed, she will not be immersed in the story you are trying to tell.

5. Avoid putting internal dialogue in italics. Trust your reader. She will know who is thinking the words from the point of view of the narrative.

6. Be cautious about using dialogue to tell something that should be shown. It doesn't help much to transfer telling from the narrator to the dialogue. It just makes the character who is speaking sound long-winded. Putting quotation marks around exposition won't draw the reader into the scene or involve him more than if you'd left it part of the narrative.

7. And magic number seven is, don't break up dialogue sequences with long or overly frequent blocks of narrative. One of dialogue's greatest advantages is that it moves a story along. If a writer inserts too much stage direction, it will lose the forward motion and any tension it is building.

For more on writing dialogue check out Tom Chiarella's Writing Dialogue (Writers' Digest) and for more on editing in general—from editing query letters to turning unattractive adverbs into metaphoric gold—find The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success on Amazon.
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Carolyn Howard-Johnson is an instructor for the UCLA Extension Writer's Program. The first book in her HowToDoItFrugally Series of books, The Frugal Book Promoter, won USA Book News' Best Professional Book Award and Book Publicists of Southern California's Irwin Award. The second, The Frugal Editor, is also a USA Book News winner. It includes many editing tips on dialogue, the use of quotation marks and more.