Tag Archives: writing tips

advice

Today’s Writing Tip: Matching Terms

sig2010Quite a bit has been written about misplaced modifiers like “Sheila drove her car into the kitchen in a long dress.” We know that sentence needs to be rearranged so that no one mistakenly envisions the kitchen wearing a long dress.

Something similar to a misplaced modifier, but slightly different, is when we match up the wrong nouns and verbs.

“Tommy was sitting at the table munching on his milk and cookies.” I can just hear him biting into the milk. Hmmm. That’s not going to work.

You need to switch it around. “Tommy was sitting at the table munching on his cookies and milk.” I find that adequate, but some grammar Nazis might want to rewrite the last phrase to make it even more accurate: “Tommy was sitting at the table munching on his cookies and guzzling his milk.” Because then when you look at it, he’s not going to be munching on milk. Unless he’s a pretty weird kid.

Sigrid Macdonald is the author of three books, including Be Your Own Editor (http://tinyurl.com/7wnk5se) and two erotic short stories, which she wrote under the pen name Tiffanie Good. Silver Publishing just released “The Pink Triangle,” a tale of friendship, lust, and betrayal. You can view her story here: http://tinyurl.com/6v65rgr

advice

Today’s Writing Tip: Figuratively Versus Literally

sig2010You’d think that this would be an easy one, but many people misuse the word literally. Literally means in reality or actually. If something happens literally, it really occurs. Figuratively refers to imagination or something that is hypothetical. When something happens figuratively, it doesn’t really occur.

“She barked like a dog, literally.” Right or wrong? Wrong. Unless we’re talking about a German Shepherd, or a little schnauzer, a human woman can’t bark like a dog literally. She can bark like a dog metaphorically or figuratively speaking, but we wouldn’t phrase it that way. We would probably just say, “She barked like a dog!”

So, what’s the right way to use the term literally? “Forty-five people stood in line at the Dairy Queen on a hot summer night, but the DQ literally only had enough ice cream to feed twenty-nine of them.” As long as it took place and it makes sense in the real world, you can say literally.

Figuratively encompasses different forms of speech like metaphors and similies, when we compare something to something it’s not. The barking dog is a good example of a simile, which is a form of figurative speech that usually uses the term “like” or “as.” “He looked like a ghost” and “he swam like a fish” are both similies.

Sigrid Macdonald is the author of three books, including Be Your Own Editor http://tinyurl.com/7wnk5se and two erotic short stories, which she wrote under the pen name Tiffanie Good. Silver Publishing just released “The Pink Triangle,” a tale of friendship, lust, and betrayal. You can view her story here: http://tinyurl.com/6v65rgr

advice

Today’s Writing Tip: Convince and Persuade

sig2010The words convince and persuade may sound so similar that we think they’re interchangeable, but they’re not. They are not exact synonyms, despite what dictionary.com says!

According to The Chicago Manual of Style, persuade is related to actions and often takes the verb “to” before it. If I want to go to a drama movie, but you only like comedies, I have to persuade you to go with me.

Convince is related to ideas. Let’s say that you don’t know who to support in the federal election, so you watch the debates. You come away convinced that none of the contenders represents you. Note that convince is not preceded by the verb “to.”

Check out more grammar and writing tips in my book Be Your Own Editor.

Sigrid Macdonald is the author of three books, including Be Your Own Editor, and two erotic short stories, which she wrote under the pen name Tiffanie Good. Silver Publishing just released “The Pink Triangle,” a tale of friendship, lust, and betrayal. You can view her story here: http://tinyurl.com/6v65rgr

advice, editorial, fiction

Today’s Writing Tip: Assumptions

1 Comment

sig2010As a writer, it’s important not to make assumptions about what your reader knows.

Yesteryear, if you were writing in North America, you could probably talk about catechism and the Eucharist and people would understand that you were referring to Catholicism. Maybe they wouldn’t know all the specifics, but they had probably heard the terms. Not today in our multicultural society. Today if you talk about the Trinity, you may want to spell that out.

Likewise for many other terms that we use every day. We know what they mean and so do our friends, but be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking that everyone else knows what you’re talking about. This is especially true of technical writers or people who use acronyms. Often one additional sentence serves as an adequate explanation.

Reread your material to make sure that it’s clear and people know what you are referencing. If you’re making a joke and saying, “Call me, maybe?” a certain audience will know that you are referring to a pop song by Carly Rae Jepsen and others won’t. There is a time to spell this out and a time to let people read between the lines. Just don’t leave your readers confused.

Sigrid Macdonald is the author of three books, including Be Your Own Editor, and two erotic short stories, which she wrote under the pen name Tiffanie Good. Silver Publishing just released “The Pink Triangle,” a tale of friendship, lust, and betrayal. You can view her story here: http://tinyurl.com/6v65rgr

advice

Today’s Writing Tip: Establishing Authority

Freelance-Zone.com welcomes Sigrid Macdonald back with another round of writing tips. It’s great to have you back, Sigrid!

Often writers want to sound modest, so they say things like “I’m not an authority,” or “I could be wrong.” This may work well in general conversation or on a message board, but it doesn’t fly in a book, blog post or an article. Why not? Well, if you’re not an authority, why should I care what you write?

Let’s say you’re discussing bullying. If you preface your remarks by saying that this is just your humble opinion and you may not be right, readers have no reason to give your words any credibility. Take the time and the effort to establish and substantiate your position; then don’t undermine yourself by saying that you’re not an authority.

Sigrid Macdonald is a book coach, a manuscript editor, and the author of three books including Be Your Own Editor. BYOE is available on Amazon in soft cover and on Kindle . Or get 20% off the regular price by writing directly to the author at sigridmac@rogers.com. Read more at http://beyourowneditor.blogspot.com.

advice, editorial

Dirty Little Writing Secrets

dirty-secrets-writing-freelance-articles

All freelancers have dirty little secrets they won’t share because they know there are too many people fumbling around “trying to be a writer” who will stampede towards the dirty secret in question, ruining it for everybody.

This is rarely discussed on writing blogs, forums, and elsewhere, but we all know it’s true. Here are a few of mine, just because I like being a maverick–not in the Sarah Palin sense where “maverick” means “business as usual” but in the Barack Obama sense where some kinds of new ideas irritate and upset the status quo.

  • I don’t bother using online writer’s markets. I ALWAYS go direct to the source and read the magazine or website. The best way to land a gig is to read it first. This shouldn’t be considered a dirty secret, but trust me, once you learn WHY it works you’ll know why it’s my dirty secret.
  • I like to pitch to bizarre markets. If you know of a magazine or website paying for articles about cockroach wrangling, I’d be happy to take a look and make a pitch. These markets don’t get flooded with bad queries.
  • The dentist office is often a great place to find new markets to pitch to. Don’t bother with the magazines you know well. Look for the oddball ones you never heard of.
  • People blow their query letters by discussing things that have nothing to do with the query itself. Like whether or not you are a “full time freelancer”.
  • Query letters tied to current events sell. I just sold an article by riffing on those commercials on TV lately about “the Oprah Effect”.
  • The writer who is not prepared to at least consider turning in a queried article in one week isn’t thinking like a busy editor.
  • If you can’t write what you know, write what other people know. I don’t have to try to pretend I’m an expert, I simply let my interviews state the facts. But here’s my dirty secret–I never let on that I DON’T know. I state the facts with authority because my quotes did the talking for me.
  • Sometimes rattling off a list of highly technical terms makes you sound like you DON’T know what you’re writing about. Simplify. Jargon is for trade mags.