Writing tips on the web

[Shelagh Watkins]

Before I set up this new board, I decided to do a search on the 'net -- well I would, wouldn't I? I'm a researcher. I Google therfore I am -- a researcher that is.

So, what did I find? The first website I visited was full of tips that I didn't find particularly helpful. With the emphasis on particularly. I hadn't read many of the tips when I came across this about avoiding using too many adverbs:

Be particularly wary of words ending with -ly.

It made me laugh, but it also made me stop reading further. I decided I would start a thread instead and see if anyone else had any useful tips or insights into the art of writing.

Tell me more, I'm always on the lookout for new ideas, and I don't mind stealing yours. LOL!

~Shelagh

[Shelagh Watkins]

Thanks for the tip!

[Zada Connaway]

Interesting and timely, too!

[Malcolm R. Campbell]

Minor pet peeve: The use of an apostrophe when creating a plural in dates, as in saying "he lived during the 1960's" instead of the 1960s.

Malcolm

[Ron Kruger]

It's probably a 1960's thing, or a hangover from living through the 1960s.

[Rainbow]

I' m a 60's child from swinging London, England and English Grammar permits the use of an apostrophe for the 1960's, or 60's, mind you what are the 2,000's the nothings?????? Thank Noah Webster for butchering The Queens English :-)

[Malcolm R. Campbell]

I grew up with U.S. newspaper style and there one is not only discouraged from putting that apostrophe there, one is shot instantly if they're caught doing it. :-)

Malcolm

[Ron Kruger]

I know, Malcolm, but what about when 1960s is used as a possessive, such as "a 1960's thing."
And, Rainbow, the style I learned instructed one to put '60s to denote missing numbers.
Anyone have an AP Stylebook handy?

[Malcolm R. Campbell]

Sure, possessive is fine. Most of the time when I see the apostrophe, people are putting it into a plural where it makes absolutely no sense. Sorry, both my UPI and AP stylebooks aren't in my den and that means they're stored away in the garage.

Malcolm

[joylene butler]

When choosing the POV for your story, decide how intimacy plays in the narration. If you want full-blown intimacy btw reader & protagonist, chose First Person. If you want flexibility & versatility, (far less intimacy) choose Omni. If you want to play safe & stay somewhere in the middle, choose 3rd person.

[Malcolm R. Campbell]

Interesting idea. Probably works for mainstream fiction. I write in restricted third person and I do believe that interior monologue can pretty much put the character right in the reader's face about as close as he or she can get. And then with second person--ah, try it sometime--the reader becomes the character. Talk about intimate!

Malcolm

[susie hawes]

I like first person best, but have written in the other two. I guess it's up to the readers, writers and editors. You see arguments for first and third, but few talk about second.

Same with tenses.

I know that if I'm having trouble with a story, changing pov and/or tense can make it owrk for me.

[Sunny Frazier]

Okay, this is going to sound very nit-picky, but I hate to see the word "it" anywhere on the page. The word means nothing. Actually, using the word means the writer hasn't got enough imagination to supply a real word for the noun.

I guilt my critique group by circling all the "its" on a page. They know better than to let the word show up in their work.

I felt vindicated when an article in Writers Digest listed the "it" problem. Sometimes people need to see it from a respected source to believe what I'm saying.

So, just don't do IT!