So, Sol asked about how the rules of writing for a blog are different than the rules for other kinds of writing.

Now, this is a topic that has been covered at length by better bloggers than I, but it’s a good question and one that I’ve been circling around. There are so many writing rules that apply to all writing styles, except perhaps the truly esoteric ones like legal jargon or dry academia. When stringing nouns and verbs together, what works for a novel or a business letter also works for an accessible blog entry. Maybe you wouldn’t use the same descriptive flourish you’d put into a novel, but the basic fundamentals of how you put together a sturdy sentence apply to everyone.

So, what do I think are the rules for writing a good blog entry?

• Share your voice. To me, part of the point of writing and reading blogs is to make a personal connection with the blogger. I don’t mean knowing when he or she has to run their kid to the dentist, but I want to feel that I’m hearing a real person, not an instruction manual. There are plenty of sites on the internet that can provide good, basic information about just about any topic–but if I’m reading a blog, I want to hear from the individual behind the information. I want to get a feel for the kind of person he or she is when they’re not in front of the computer. Do they have a sense of humor? Do they take themselves too seriously? Do they chat easily with their friends? If they write their blog like a textbook, well, I’d probably opt for the book–it’s more portable and I can get all my information in one, big gulp.
• Make it entertaining. You can blog about the most boring (to others) topic in the world, but if you have an engaging style, I might stop by to read anyway. I read blogs about all sorts of things–reading, knitting, writing, blogging, archaeology, sheep-herding–but the ones that I make a point of going back to are the ones that are, well, fun. Or at least, entertaining in the way they present their information. I don’t have kids, but I read parenting blogs simply because the writers keep me entertained. I don’t “do” the SEO/marketing thing, but I read blogs about that, too. But I don’t have time for the boring ones, no matter how informative.
• Provide real content. This one should be obvious–it doesn’t matter how engaging your writing style is, if you don’t provide solid information, people won’t bother coming back. Although this, of course, assumes that you’re blogging for an audience. If you’re writing a recreational, family-oriented blog to keep in touch with your loved ones, a few photos and the occasional anecdote is sufficient. But if you’re blogging to connect with the larger world, you have to provide something that makes it worth your readers’ while.
• Decide who you’re writing for. Again, it’s all about the audience. If you are blogging as an internet version of journaling–recording daily events, or tracking progress on a diet or a getting a business venture started or struggling with daily bouts of chemotherapy–that’s fine. Why not? But in that case, you’re writing for yourself, not so much for possible readers. If, however, you’re writing to provide something for your readers–tips, knowledge, diversion, wisdom–be sure to keep your reader in mind as you write. Things that are clear to you may not be clear to them, and if you sound like you’re talking to yourself, they have no reason to come back.

What other tips would YOU give? Thoughts? Comments?

Out of so many grammatical stumbling points, I can’t choose one on which to focus today . . .

So, let me ask you. Do you have any specific questions you’d like to see addressed? Topics I have not covered yet? Tips you’d like to you share?

Honestly, I’m at a loss. Not because there aren’t enough points to cover–surely there are–but how can I choose?

I wrote last week about the “Knowledge is Power” theory of writing, but here’s the corollary:

If you tie yourself too tightly to “fact” or “experience,” you are effectively limiting your potential. Instead, use that knowledge as a springboard.

This is most obvious when writing fiction. Fiction thrives on conflict, errors, tragedy–things you certainly hope don’t occur too often in your daily life. You can ground your fiction in a place very like the one you live, but most of us (luckily) don’t have corpses making regular appearances in our lives, or catastrophes happening every other week. Writing fiction means putting your imagination to work to come up with an interesting story. That’s understood.

But don’t think this rule only applies to fiction, either. Even the most mundane how-to list can be improved with some creativity–make up fun examples. Joke a little with your reader. The Idiot’s Guide series of how-to books are experts at these. They sandwich real, solid information with a nudge-nudge, wink-wink kind of jollity that makes their books accessible and entertaining. That’s creativity for you. There’s even an entire magazine devoted to Creative Nonfiction.

The point is that writing–no matter what type of writing you do–is a creative endeavor. It helps to start with what you know. A technique, a lifestyle, the inner workings of a small town. But a good writer extrapolates from that to create something that is interesting, entertaining, informative. They take that dry knowledge and create something wonderful out of it. It’s the soil from which your seed of creativity sprouts. If the soil is barren or sparse–if you don’t have a solid base for your writing–it’s going to wither and die because there’s nowhere for the roots to go.

That’s why you start writing about what you know. So your writing can flourish.

Let’s just do a quick run-down on how you use quotation marks, shall we? (American-style, that is–I know some of these rules are different with British usage, but can only speak for American-English.)

• Simply put–and it should be redundant–quotation marks are used for quotations. If you are quoting some of my many words of wisdom, you should put them in quotes. “Quotation marks are used for quotations.”
  If you are paraphrasing–not quoting me directly–you do not need the quotes.

• Block quotes (those idented paragraphs usually used for quotations of four lines or more) do not require quotation marks.

• The first word in a quotation should be capitalized. “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party.“

• If you are writing dialogue and interrupting your quote, you do not need to capitalize the second half of the sentence. “Golly gee,” he said breathlessly, “that’s just swell, Mary Jo!“

• As a general rule (there are always exceptions), if your quotation is a full sentence, all punctuation should be inside the quote marks. “She sells seashells by the seashore.” This particularly applies to periods and commas.
• Punctation such as exclamation points, Question marks, dashes–these go inside or outside the quotes depending on whether the quote or the sentence “using” the quote is the exclamation or question.
  For example: Then I shouted, “You’re burning the toast!” has the exclamation point inside the quotes because it was the quoted shout that had the exclamation.
  Whereas Turn up the radio! They’re playing “Stupid Cupid”! has the exclamation point outside the quotes because it’s not the song title that has the “!” but the actual sentence that is being exclaimed.

• If your quote is only part of your sentence, the punctuation belongs outside. As in: Don’t ever forget the maxim, “Loose Lips Sink Ships”.

• When you have a quote inside of a quote, you should use single quotes: “Then he said to me, ‘Mary Jo, that’s just swell,’ can you imagine?”

This, of course, is not meant to be a complete list of all possible uses of quotation marks. In fact, I know that it’s incomplete. What did I not tell you that you’d like to know about? Is there anything I said that wasn’t clear? Let me know!

And, looking forward, are there any particular topics for Mangled Monday that you’d like to see covered? For some reason, I have trouble coming up with the ideas from week to week . . . probably because there are so MANY things to cover!

Writing experts like to tell you to “Write What You Know.”

The idea is that, especially for the beginning writer, you should stick to your own experience and build on it–whether it’s fiction or not. If you’re a teenager, for example, you might want to write about high school or the clique at the summer pool . . . but a space-adventure might be a little out of your league. If you’re a hard-working CEO who hasn’t had a vacation in ten years, you’re better off writing about, well, work-related issues than about, say, tips on how to relax.

It’s good advice, really, and hard to argue with exactly because it is good advice. There are so many writing pitfalls scattered along the route, the writing journey is perilous enough. Trying to write about the secrets of the rainforest when you’ve never left Schenectady is going to be challenging … a challenge you might be better off leaving until you’ve got some experience under your belt.

But…

If everybody stuck to this rule, how many great books would still be unwritten? How many murder mysteries do you suppose Agatha Christie actually helped solve? Did Mark Twain ever float down the Mississippi with an escaped slave? (Or visit King Arthur’s court?) And it’s definitely a safe bet that Arthur C. Clarke never travelled through space.

If people literally stuck with what they knew, we’d be awash in (even more) cookbooks and how-to guides, but fiction would be a wasteland. Sure, John Grisham could still write courtroom thrillers, and anyone who’d ever been a teenager could write a high-school coming-of-age story . . . but there would be no Harry Potter. Historical Fiction would only be written by historians so as to be historically accurate. Science Fiction and Fantasy wouldn’t exist at all.

Because–here’s the thing–writing is a creative endeavor. It doesn’t matter if you’re writing a novel or if you’re putting together a step-by-step outline on how to groom your dog. The very act of putting words together is a creative act of faith. Faith that they’ll be well-received by their intended audience; faith that they’ll be understood and appreciated; faith that they’ll be entertaining.

Now, that’s a lesson to live . . . or write . . . by.

Short but sweet today.

My sister (glaring at me because I dare to like Strunk & White, which she and my niece are studying) asked me today what I thought about whether the preposition “up” should be used when writing a sentence such as:

• You brighten up my day

Or

• You brighten my day.

I was in the middle of stirring a bit pot of goulash at the time and so didn’t give it a lot of thought, but said that I believed either one was correct, because it was describing the “direction” of the brightening, but wasn’t altogether necessary either way. But after dinner was over and I had some time, I started thinking. I can find plenty of guides to the usage of prepositions. Here, for example. And here. Also here. And yet, this example she gave me is an entirely different case.

Because, in this sample sentence, the word “up” is not a preposition at all. It’s modifying the verb, “brighten.” In other words, it’s an adverb. Prepositions can be just as duplicitous as any other type of word in the English language and serve more than one purpose. The question is whether they’re actually part of a prepositional phrase. If there is an object (”in the house,” “from the left“) they are acting as prepositions. If there is not, they are not.

Here’s a handy little quiz for you, to help clarify it.

I know. The tone here at Punctuality Rules! is so calm and gracious, it’s hard to believe that I basically started the blog as a place to air a whole series of pet peeves. People who can’t keep its/it’s, your/you’re or they’re/there/their straight. People who can’t be bothered to say thank you. People who are selfishly enwrapped in their own worlds. People who don’t use turn-signals when they drive . . . okay, I haven’t gotten to that one, yet, but you get the idea.

Personally, I feel that it’s reasonable to expect a certain amount of civility in my fellow humans, a certain respect for the rules (grammatical and otherwise). One of the interesting things about rule-systems is that they tend to develop as civilizations get larger and more complex. A group of 10 people can get along fairly simply with just a few, basic rules. (Don’t kill anyone, watch out for the community’s children, and share the food.) As you start adding people, though, the rules exponentially expand. And, why? Because it helps keep us all from killing each other.

“Good Manners” may have that namby-pamby, weak-wrist kind of feel–something ladies do over their teacups–but in fact, it’s a societal imperative that gives us formal means of not aggravating each other to the point of homicide. An 18th-century gentleman challenging another to a duel, demanding, “I must have satisfaction, sir!” is literally a step away from killing the poor fop who just insulted him by declaring blue neck-cloths to be in bad taste. Any number of duels have been fought over ridiculous reasons, and any number of them ended in the death of one of the participating parties. But … and this is important … they were civilized deaths. Anyone angry enough to challenge someone to a duel is angry enough to draw his sword right there and run the other through … which would probably lead to the victim’s best friend running the swordsman through, and next thing you know, you’ve got a free-for-all and a pile of corpses in the drawing room. The formality of the duel gave cooler heads time to prevail.

If you try to retain basic manners, you are going to be less likely to beat another car (or driver) with a baseball bat for cutting you off on the drive to work. A small sense of decency will keep you from smacking the pesky toddler to the ground when he breaks your priceless Ming vase … you might take the toddler’s mother to court and wring every penny out of her 401(k), but at least there won’t be any blood shed. That’s what manners and rules are for.

So, really, you see, Punctuality Rules! is just helping me keep my grammar-rage under control. Instead of lunging through the computer screen every time I see yet another person put an apostrophe in a plural, I control myself and get my satisfaction here.

My own little, personal dueling ground. How very civilized.

So … two questions for you:

• But, tell me, what are the pet peeves that would drive you to violence? (If, you know, you were less civilized yourself.)

• And, do you think that the distance of avenging wrongs through the internet is an improvement over a slap in the face by a glove? Or are we allowing ourselves to be too distanced from misbehaviors witnessed on a daily basis?

Of course, I should probably have posted about this earlier (and maybe gotten some more votes), but Laura over at the Writing Thoughts blog recently asked for votes for favorite writing blogs, and mine came up as one of the winners.

I’m in excellent company, and I wanted to spread some link-love to the other, no doubt more worthy, winners:

First Place Blogs

Grow Your Writing Business
Web Content Writer Tips

Second Place Blogs

Freelance Writing Jobs
Get Paid To Write Online
Inkthinker
The Article Writer
Punctuality Rules
Writing Forward

For that matter, check out the list of original “contestants,” because they’re all excellent.

Content Done Better; The CopyWriter Underground; Freelance Writing Jobs; Words On The Page; Grow Your Writing Business; Creative & Editorial Freelancing; The Writing Mother; Freelancing Journey; The Golden Pencil; Angela Booth’s Writing Blog; The Article Writer; Inkygirl: Daily Diversions for Writers; Inkthinker; Getting It Write For You; A Writer’s Words, and Editor’s Eye; Writing Spark; Writer’s Notes; Confident Writing; Grammar Girl; A Writer’s Rites; Write Stuff; The Copywriting Maven; The Copywriter’s Crucible; Drawing on Words; ChrisBlogging;
Lis Garrett ~ A Writer’s Woolgatherings; Get Paid to Write Online; Web Writing Info; All Freelance Writing; Michael Stelzner’s Blog Writing White Papers; The Writer’s Blog by Dana Prince; JCM Enterprises; Manage Your Writing; The Hidden Writer; Plagiarism Today; Kate Blogs About; The Writing Life; Wordpreneur; Writing FORWARD); Write-from-home.com; The Renegade Writer Blog; Marcom Writer Blog; and lastly, me at Punctuality Rules!

As I say, I’m in great company. Thanks so much, Laura!

Do you remember, from grade school English, how to properly annotate a title?

Titles of books, newspapers, magazines, movies, poems, journals, TV shows, works of art, musical compositions, ships, and airplanes should all be underlined. Or, italicized. They are more or less interchangeable so far as typing goes.

This is because handwriting, of course (does anybody write anything by hand anymore?) doesn’t really allow itself to the option of using italics, so when writing things by hand, underlining is the only real choice. It is also recommended for manuscripts–it makes it clear to see. So, for all intents and purposes, they are the same thing.

Now, quotation marks should be used for titles of articles, essays, short poems, songs, book chapters, and specifics episodes of tv shows.

So, really, it’s easy to remember. The big things get underlines/italics. The smaller pieces get quotation marks. So when you rave about this to all your friends, you’ll want to say, “I read this wonderful post called “MM: Titles” on the Punctuality Rules! blog.”

I’ve participated in the Bloggers’ Silent Poetry Reading for the last two years over on my knitting blog (here and here), so I couldn’t let this year’s festivities go by without playing, now, could I? I thought about posting one of my own poems, but figured it was better to give you something, you know, good. (Poetry isn’t exactly one of my strong suits as a writer.) So, from: Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems:

Winter Syntax
by Billy Collins

A sentence starts out like a lone traveler
heading into a blizzard at midnight,
tilting into the wind, one arms shielding his face,
the tails of his thin coat flapping behind him.

There are easier ways of making sense,
the connoisseurship of gesture, for example,
You hold a girl’s face in your hands like a vase.
You lift a gun from the glove compartment
and toss it out the window into the desert heat.
These cool moments are blazing with silence.

The full moon makes sense. When a cloud crosses it
it becomes as eloquent as a bicycle leaning
outside a drugstore or a dog who sleeps all afternoon
in a corner of the couch.

Bare branches in winter are a form of writing.
The unclothed body is autobiography.
Every lake is a vowel, every island a noun.

But the traveler persists in his misery,
struggling all night through the deepening snow,
leaving a faint alphabet of bootprints
on the white hills and the white floors of valleys,
a message for field mice and passing crows.

At dawn he will spot the vine of smoke
rising from your chimney, and when he stands
before you shivering, draped in sparkling frost,
a smile will appear in the beard of icicles,
and the man will express a complete thought.

Even if it keeps you up all night,
wash down the walls and scrub the floor
of your study before composing a syllable.

Clean the place as if the Pope were on his way.
Spotlessness is the niece of inspiration.

The more you clean, the more brilliant
your writing will be, so do not hesitate to take
to the open fields to scour the undersides
of rocks or swab in the dark forest
upper branches, nests full of eggs.

When you find your way back home
and stow the sponges and brushes under the sink,
you will behold in the light of dawn
the immaculate altar of your desk,
a clean surface in the middle of a clean world.

From a small vase, sparkling blue, lift
a yellow pencil, the sharpest of the bouquet,
and cover pages with tiny sentences
like long rows of devoted ants
that followed you in from the woods.