8 Tips for Having Your Story Critiqued by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
8 Tips for Having Your Story Critiqued
8 Tips for Having Your Story Critiqued
Today I want to talk about the critiquing process—mainly, how to prepare for and deal with another person test-reading your story. With these suggestions, I hope to prepare writers for critiques of multiple calibers, how to interpret them, how to deal with the person giving the critique, and how to handle the suggestions that are given. It sounds simple but it may, in fact, be the most difficult part of the writing process to learn. But remember, I have faith in you, or I would not be writing this! :)
Tip 1: Remember that the critic is your best friend.
No matter if you are dealing with a very l
Proofreading Tips #5: Description of Verbs by GoldCoinComics, literature
Literature
Proofreading Tips #5: Description of Verbs
Use adverbs, not adjectives, to describe the action of verbs.
"He did well on the test." (not "good")
"She completed her tasks more quickly than expected." (not "quicker")
A note on "well" versus "good," though. You should always use "well" when referring to health ("she looks well") and "good" when referring to emotion ("she didn't feel good about the exam").
Proofreading Tips #6: Hyphenate Adjectives by GoldCoinComics, literature
Literature
Proofreading Tips #6: Hyphenate Adjectives
When are we supposed to use hyphens? One way is to pull adjectives together. Hyphenate two or more adjectives that are joined to create a compound modifier before a noun. Examples include:Step-by-stepWell-designed
Note that when you have several adjectives that are NOT joined, you would use commas to separate them like normal instead.
How to tell if the adjectives are joined? See if each adjective can "survive" in the sentence without the other. If a "well-designed" laptop suddenly became a "well" laptop--doesn't make too much sense, does it?
Proofreading Tips #4: Who/Whom/Whose by GoldCoinComics, literature
Literature
Proofreading Tips #4: Who/Whom/Whose
Pronouns come in subjective, objective, and possessive forms (there are more, but these are the three we shall focus on). We seem to understand this until we want to use the word "who."
Recall that a subjective pronoun is the subject of a sentence (naturally), whereas an objective pronoun is the thing receiving the verb/action ("she passed the salt to me"--where "she" is the subjective pronoun and "me" is the objective pronoun). A list of such pronouns would look something like this:I (subjective), me (objective), my/mine (possessive)We (subjective), us (objective), our/ours (possessive)You (subjective AND objective), yours (possessive)He/She
An Unkindness of COMMAS by OokamiKasumi, literature
Literature
An Unkindness of COMMAS
I SUCK at commas big-time. I tend to pull a "Mark Twain"; I sprinkle them in wherever to break up the monotony of the sentence. This article is my attempt to hammer the rules into my brain.
An Unkindness of COMMAS
What the heck are Commas for, anyway?
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Besides abusing the sanity of the writer, the comma exists to help readers organize information in a sentence. It makes all the stuff the author is trying to say easier to swallow. Without them, sentence bits and pieces collide into one another causing confusion; rather like a train-wreck, though not nearly as exciting.
Just in case you'd like to know who m
For non-native English speakers and young readers: If you hover over a blue word, you'll see its definition.
Punctuating dialogue can be surprisingly difficult, even for people whose first language is English. It's one of the things that you see all the time in books, but you pay little attention to, and all your English teachers assume that you already know it. Sure, if you read a lot, you pick up the basics, but even then it can be difficult to unconsciously absorb all the rules. (Until 2012, I was making heinous mistakes with commas vs. periods. I'm still weeding out errors from my novel.)
Anyhow, for the sake of my fellow spirits who be
Proofreading Tips #7: Introductory Clauses by GoldCoinComics, literature
Literature
Proofreading Tips #7: Introductory Clauses
As the name implies, an introductory clause is a dependent clause at the beginning of a sentence. The preceding sentence, in fact, contained such a clause. Use commas to separate introductory clauses and certain phrases from independent clauses. Introductory phrases of more than five words or phrases containing verbal elements also require commas. Dependent clause openers include:WhenIfAsAlthoughBecauseAfterThoughDuringBeforeWhile
Some examples are:
"As expected, she could not turn in the homework on time."
"In the fall of last year, we held a family reunion." (use a comma after a phrase containing five or more words)
"To decide, they held a