According to The Chicago Manual of Style, they, as a gender-neutral pronoun referencing an individual, was chosen in 2015 as the American Dialect Society’s Word of the Year. When I first learned about pronouns, a singular antecedent always required a singular pronoun: “Beth brought her laptop to class.” However, some individuals prefer they as their individual…
Tweak Your Style: A Quick Lesson In Clarity
Good literature isn’t a chore to read. A character performs an action, and I know what’s going on without having to reread sentences a hundred times. Even if the character is figurative, such as a personified earthly element, that subject’s action verb should stand close by: “Light twinkled off the water while Darkness lurked below.”…
Truth: A Blank-Page Writing Strategy
Many people forage for knowledge about writing. They skim through books at Barnes and Noble, read blogs and magazines, and watch vlogs by editors, authors, and agents. Occasionally, the foraging reaps priceless, insightful quotes from famous authors. Faulkner’s “Kill your darlings,” which I discuss in another article, helps me after I complete a first draft….
How to Write a Novel
Would you love to write a novel but don’t know where to start? Do you fear you’re not good enough to write a novel? If so, this article is for you. Writing is a craft that requires honing and a process as unique as each writer. Consider what you learn here and elsewhere, but do…
Sticky-Note Diary: Italics or Underline
Long before I bought my Chicago Manual of Style (CMS), 17th ed., I’d researched whether I should underline that which I wanted to italicize. I read (I forget where) that although in the past doing so was necessary, nowadays it’s not. However, in my last year of college–recently–two different older professors underlined my italics when…
How to Turn a Real Place into a Fictional Setting
Is there a place you frequent that gives you a sense of peace, or whose natural or man-made elements intrigue you, maybe even prompt you to silently describe them was you walk along, taking it all in? If so, consider it a potential setting for your novel. You may have to make adjustments to custom-fit…
My First Novel: How I Wrote It and What I Learned
When I started writing my first novel, I didn’t realize the endeavor would lead to a continual quest for knowledge. Not knowing anything about novel writing, I “pantsed” my story until I hit the proverbial brick wall some call writer’s block. Asking myself questions, researching my story’s subject matter, and researching story structure helped me…
Surviving Survival: My Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Story
As my “Critical Cardiac Considerations” article mentions, a good majority of children diagnosed with cancer will be cured, children including teens and young adults up to age 21. However, because research on adult childhood-cancer survivors, of which I am one, has shown that some cancer-curing treatments can damage the heart and/or cause other problems that…
MasterClass: Quality over Quantity
Main focus of review: writing Why I purchased this: I wanted to learn from experts on writing. I learned about Masterclass from their YouTube ads. This educational-content product offers an app and provides lessons from big-name experts in a variety of fields. James Patterson and David Mamet stand out as my favorites to listen to,…
Sticky-Note Diary: Tricky “One”
How To Ensure Proper Noun-Verb Agreement When “One” Mingles with the Plural During a grammar and style class I took a couple of years ago, I asked my professor a question she was unable to answer: When a sentence contains the dependent clause (often the subject complement) “one of those people who [verb],” is the…