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…
MM: Brighten Up
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…
Better Than Two Pistols at Dawn
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.…
All Winners
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…
MM: Titles
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…
Poetic Pause
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…
Acknowledgement
Let me ask you two simple questions: When somebody pays you a compliment, do you thank them? If somebody sends you a gift, do you send a thank-you note? Thank-you phone call? Thank-you e-mail? Chances are, if your mother raised you well, your answer to these two questions was, “Yes.” Because…
MM: Negating Negativity
I almost touched on this the other day when I was talking about a kinder, gentler form of writing, and then realized that it was perfect for today’s Mangled Monday. Double-Negatives make a positive. (Raise your hand if you learned this in 7th grade math class.) Let’s do the grammatical…
Weakness is Strength (Sometimes)
Sometimes, though, that’s exactly what you need. Who wants to be told what to do all the time? Who wants the writer to do all the work for them? I mean, sure, that’s the writer’s job, but you have to leave something for the reader to do, a journey to take–and they have to choose to do it. If you’re trying to persuade, or trying to teach or explain, you can’t just say, “This is the way it is. Period.” You need to let the reader discover that for themselves.
MM: Splitting Hairs
So, let’s think … So many writing misconceptions abound, which one should I address today? How about split infinitives? That one’s always fun. In grammatical-speak, an infinitive is the most basic form of a verb. To be. To run. To cry. To write. The traditional idea is that they should…