About Writing
Justin - “Sentence Length” - Advice on sentence length.
Writing Nag - “What Don Freeman Taught Me About Story” - Corduroy is a children’s book but this favorite celebrated 40 years this year. What makes this book so good and what can today’s writer learn from it.
JHS, Esq. - “Signs of the Times” - American’s print media face unique challenges that threaten the very survival of not just small, hometown newspapers, but periodicals serving larger markets, as well.  How does this crisis impact current or aspiring professional writers?

Fiction/Drama/Monologue/Serial Story
Penelope Anne - “Sweet Fortunes, Bitter Truths” - Love found, love lost, futures told, a 1000 word prompt inspired short story.

Poetry
Jennifer M Scott - “Before Today” - First line: Can you imagine a world
of new green and blue?

Donations - Click here to buy me a root beer float :) They keep me fat and writing...

Don’t be negative, be positive. You have probably heard that most of your life. Well, in writing that saying holds true. You shouldn’t be overly negative from a grammar perspective, especially double negative.

Avoiding double negatives should be simple, but for some reason it seems to be an ongoing issue with some people. If you put more than one negative in a single clause, you are breaking the rule. This is what breaking the rule reads like:

I didn’t hear nothing you said.  (Should read: I didn’t hear anything you said.)

or

We don’t need no stinking badgers. (Should read: We don’t need any stinking badger.s)

Some of the negative trigger words you can look for include: ain’t, nothing, nobody, no one, never, none, no, not and so on. This is a simple rule, just don’t be overly negative. You can be negative once, just not more than once in the same clause.

If you found this post helpful, please digg, or stumble it via the convenient button below.

Happy writing

Justin

Donations - Click here to buy me a root beer float :) They keep me fat and writing...

Every now and then I take a break from writing and I surf the net to see what the latest and greatest is in the world happening around me. I was surfing the web a few days ago and I stumbled upon a neat writing blog that talked about a pay per post program. Believe it or not, this was the first time I had heard of actually getting paid for writing a blog. Naturally I was interested learning more about this as I am currently blogging for free J

As I did some research, I found out that I was late to the game. Pay per post was legitimate, and a lot of bloggers have been making money with them for some time now. At this point, I started to dream. A lot of writers would like to do just that, make money from the writing that we love to do. I then started to dream about the things I could do with that money. Like, I would love to get a new laptop to write with. My current laptop is large – bulky even. A new laptop, slim and portable is in order I believe. Or, maybe I could buy my spouse some roses. Yeah, I should probably do that instead… Regardless of what I would do with the money, the question is what would you do with it?

Read more about pay per post at:

payperpost

Thanks for reading - and happy writing!

Justin

Donations - Click here to buy me a root beer float :) They keep me fat and writing...

I read this one all the time. When I see this mistake, it’s like getting gouged in the eye with a needle. There is a time to use the word “then” and a situation to use the word “than.” What do I mean by that?

The word “than” is for comparisons. When you are contrasting the attributes that a noun has with those of something else, you will use “than.” For example:

I write more than you.
He is faster than you.
She is smarter than them.

So when do we use the word “then?” Simply put, the word “then” is used when referring to time. The reason I believe people criss-cross these two words is because people seemingly contrast things in time as well. For example:

Let’s go swimming, then go for a walk.
Take out the trash, then wash the dishes, then clean your room.  Okay?
Finish the test, then you can leave.

The easiest way to remember when to use ”than” vs. “then” is to remember that ”than” compares, and “then” sounds like when. ”Then” orders events in time. 

If you found this article helpful, please take a moment to digg it, or stumble it via the convenient button below. (If you use another social bookmarking tool, such as reddit etc, I would appreciate one of those too).

Happy Writing

Justin

Donations - Click here to buy me a root beer float :) They keep me fat and writing...

For those of you who want to write, but who have a hard time either concentrating long enough to put pen to paper, or who perhaps can’t type very quickly, there is a solution. In case you have never heard of Dragon Naturally Speaking, its a great piece of software made by a company called Nuance . The software recognizes your speech through a microphone that you simply plug into your computer and start talking into. It allows you to dictate. You talk and it will take the notes. You can talk your story, or whatever you are “writing.”

I purchased Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 last year for my birthday. I have to admit, I was a bit skeptical at first. However, as I used the software it learned my voice, and got even better. I can now simply talk and the writing magically happens.

If you feel like voice recognition writing might be a solution for you, visit this link to learn more about it.

 
Nuance

 

Here are a few more details about the software. It’s easy to install, easy to use, and has saved me personally a lot of time.

Donations - Click here to buy me a root beer float :) They keep me fat and writing...

You should be mindful of the length of your sentences. Short sentences have a purpose, and so do long ones, but too many of either will leave your reader frustrated, whether or not he knows why. The proper flow a reader is used to feeling comes from a combination of short and long sentences. This is a general rule, unless you have a good reason to break it.

Here is an example of a short paragraph made of all short sentences.

There are short sentences. Like this one. And this one. See Dick run. See Jane fall down. You remember those. Listen to the sound. Feel the rhythm. It bugs you. This sentence has five words. Others have less. It’s choppy. Stop reading. You want to.

The short sentence stop the flow of the reader. It draws attention. You will see authors use this often in the form of one word paragraphs when they want to give the reader a clue about something. Too many short sentences strung together create a choppy flow. They agitate, and annoy. Don’t over use them.

Here is an example of a paragraph with all longer sentences:

The long sentence crept up on the writer like a bad habit, starting with his description. The sun arose and crawled up the sky trying to peak over his window, spilling enough inspiring light into his room to help him write the next bit of long winded description he could pluck from his surroundings. The problem is, he thought, that all of the inspiration I get is long winded, and if I don’t vary the length of my sentences, the reader will lose interest quickly; just like with the short sentences.

Longer sentences give information, and allow the author to go on and on. If they are not broken up with shorter sentences, the reader will not only become annoyed, but possibly confused. The shorter sentences give the reader a breather. Be mindful of your reader.

Take a look at your prose. Count your sentence length even! You can’t manage what you don’t measure. There is a time for short sentences, and a time for long ones. If you vary your sentence length properly, the reader will feel the rythmn he is used to, and will have one less thing to get distracted by. You want him lost in your story, not your words.

Give it a try. Write a couple of paragraphs. One paragraph focuses on sentences less than five words long. The other focuses on long sentences. Try to get gauge what it makes you feel when you read and write them. It’s a fun exercise, and can be eye-opening.

If you found this posting useful, please digg or stumble it using the convenient buttons below.

Happy writing!

Justin

Donations - Click here to buy me a root beer float :) They keep me fat and writing...

Home