Sigrid Writing Tips

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Sometimes a sentence can be phrased in such a way that we don't know who performed the action. This is called a passive sentence. For example, "Expenses were covered for Matt’s trip to Japan." After reading that, what's the first thing that comes to your mind? Who covered the expenses? Did the school or his parents pay for his trip, or did he receive a visit from the Secret Millionaire? Let your reader know. Rephrase the sentence by saying, "Matt's trip to Japan was paid for by his scholarship and the money that he earned working at Apple.”

Most of the time we want to write active sentences; however, there are exceptions. You may want to keep the reader in the dark. "Blood was discovered on the stairway." If you're writing a thriller, you don't want the reader to know who discovered that blood until later in your book or short story.


Be aware of sentence structure and strive for active sentences.

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Often when I edit manuscripts, I see people use the word lightening to refer to a bolt coming out of the sky. Nope. Try again. The correct term is lightning. Lightning strikes!

Lightening means that you want to make something lighter; women lighten their hair. Maria became increasingly blonde as she got older in order to disguise her gray hair. She lightened her hair with L'Oreal.

Don't call Maria on the last Sunday night of every month, because she will be lightening her roots.


That's an easy one.

Happy writing.

sigridmac
 
Be your own Editor - by Sigrid Macdonald

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Be Your Own Editor

One day at a time.

A heart of gold.
Slow and steady wins the race.
He just got a slap on the wrist.


These are all clichés that you don't want to use in your writing because they’re trite and overused.

I always recommend writing the first draft of your story, article, essay, blog post or manuscript in a loose style. Get those thoughts out of your head and down on paper. Don't worry about grammar, facts, or details that may slow you down. Having a completed work is such a great feeling; it makes it much easier to return to refine your material. That’s when you want to go through it with a fine tooth comb—just testing you. That's a cliché! Let's paraphrase that: that’s when you want to assess your material to remove too many adverbs, adjectives, and stale or outdated expressions.

By trimming your work and using crisp and unique terms, you’ll take a good piece of writing and make it brilliant.

Read more about punctuation in my third book, Be Your Own Editor.

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Alternate and alternative often seem as though they are interchangeable, but they're not. They mean different things.


Used as a noun, an alternate is a standby. Think of an acting role where there is a main actor and an alternate. Alternate is also used as a verb, meaning to rotate. "I alternated my tires." But the most common and confusing use of the word is as an adjective where it means "occurring or succeeding by turn.” -- "Maria is taking a philosophy course on alternate Wednesdays."

An alternative is a choice or an option. I can write a movie review or I can edit a book of short stories; I have a choice between one or more things. That provides me with alternatives. "Maria took an alternative route when she saw the detour sign."

As Grammar Girl points out, alternate is often used incorrectly when we mean alternative, but because this usage is becoming so popular, it is acceptable in many situations. However, if you want to be official, there are differences between these terms and the best time to use alternative is when there is a choice involved. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/alternate-versus-alternative.aspx

Thanks for choosing to read today's writing tip! I know that you had alternative ways to spend your time. Please feel free to forward this tip to your friends and fellow writers.

Read more about punctuation in my third book, Be Your Own Editor, available in print and now a category bestseller on Kindle.

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Today's Writing Tip Is about Expanding Your Vocabulary


Indefatigable… pristine… eviscerate… antithetical… arduous… enervating. What do these words have in common? We don't see them that often.
An excellent way to improve your vocabulary and your writing is to read, read, and read some more. That way you'll learn new words and you will also see how certain things look in print; this is particularly good for writing dialogue and punctuation.
Choose things that interest you. If you don't like fiction, read nonfiction. If books take too much time, pick up a magazine or follow a blog dealing with a topic you really like. Or listen to a book on audio on your iPod or on CD in your car.
Don't turn it into homework, but do find a way to incorporate new words into your daily or weekly routine.
Learn more about word usage in my third book, Be Your Own Editor. When should you use between or among, further and farther, or complement and compliment? Find out in BYOE, available on Amazon.com in print and now a bestseller on Kindle.

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Lynne Truss said it best with the title of her blockbuster hit Eats, Shoots & Leaves. That sentence can have two meanings depending on where we place the comma. If we omit the comma after the word Eats, we may think that someone eats bamboo shoots and takes off. But if we keep the comma, we know that a person ate, shot something and left. (Sarah Palin targeting moose in Alaska?)

Likewise with the following example: my aunt believed the babysitter and John and I were unfairly punished. What happens if I change the comma to this: My aunt believed the babysitter, and John and I were unfairly punished.
The first sentence could mean that the aunt thought that three people were unfairly punished -- the babysitter, John and the writer of the sentence. But it could also mean that the aunt believed a story that the babysitter relayed, thus, the aunt thought John and the writer were unfairly punished. The first sentence is ambiguous. If the writer wants to say that he and John were wrongly accused and reprimanded, the best way to write that would be: “My aunt believed the babysitter, and John and I were unfairly punished.”

Read more about punctuation in my third book, Be Your Own Editor -  get 20% off the regular price by writing directly to me at sigridmac at rogers.com.

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Be your Own Editor - Sigrid Macdonald

When should you use the word contrary and when should you use contradiction?

Contrary means argumentative. “You say yes, I say no. You say stop and I say go, go, go, oh no. You say goodbye and I say hello, hello, hello.” Hard to imagine someone being contrary to the Beatles, but there you go. When people are contrary, they disagree.

When people are contradictory, they may say one thing but do another. Their actions or words are inconsistent or incongruous. John Lennon was a man of contradictions; he advocated peace in his music, but wreaked havoc in his personal life, particularly in his first marriage. Contradictory is the adjective and contradiction is a noun. A contradiction is something that we find difficult to understand, like when Rev. Jesse Jackson ministered to Bill Clinton after Clinton confessed to having an affair, yet later the public discovered that Jackson, a married man, was the father of a love child (I promised I would give equal time to teasing Democrats in today's writing tip).

Learn more about word usage in my third book, Be Your Own Editor. When should you use between or among, further and farther, or complement and compliment? Find out in BYOE, available on Amazon.com in print and on Kindle. http://tinyurl.com/4v249th

Sigrid Macdonald is a book coach, the author of three books, and a manuscript editor.

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Oftentimes as an editor, I see people confuse the word infamous with famous, but they mean entirely different things.

Fame brings celebrity. It means that someone is well-known, and the connotation is generally, although not always, positive. Natalie Portman is a famous actress.

Infamous means that someone is well-known for an unsavory, contentious or salacious reason. It's synonymous with notorious -- no one has solved the mystery of the murder of the infamous Biggie Smalls.

Some people are famous and infamous -- Madonna, Alec Baldwin, Eminem, Mel Gibson… There is a long list of people who are easily recognizable, but also push other people's buttons because they’ve said or done something controversial. So, it's possible to be both famous and infamous, or just famous, or just infamous. (The Arizona shooter and the Unlimber are simply infamous. Not many people admire them, and they gained fame by doing something heinous.)

Learn more about word usage in my third book, Be Your Own Editor, a manual for students and writers of all ages and stages. Available on Amazon in print and in the Amazon Kindle store [http://tinyurl.com/4v249th].

Sigrid's Writing Tips

Be Your Own Editor

Ah, commas. How can something so small and seemingly benign make a grown man cry? Seriously, commas can be confusing, but there are some rules of thumb that can be useful.


The Chicago Manual of Style recommends using a comma after every coordinating conjunction (words like and, but, or), but not everyone agrees. Standard Deviants’ Grammar Pitfalls suggests using a comma in a sentence that has more than two conjunctions. Here's an example --

Chicago version: I wonder if anyone is reading my writing tips, and I sometimes feel like swearing like a truck driver to test my theory, but I have faith in my readership.

Deviants' version: I wonder if anyone is reading my writing tips and I sometimes feel like swearing like a truck driver to test my theory, but I have faith in my readership.

Unless you're writing for a newspaper, you can choose the comma style that you like best. The only important thing to remember is consistency. Don't insert commas randomly; make sure that you have a system and stick with it.

Sigrid Macdonald is the author of Be Your Own Editor, available on Amazon.com in print and on Kindle (http://tinyurl.com/4v249th).
 
 
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Have a happy holiday. That's an easy sentence to conjugate. We all know that the article to use before the word happy is “a.” It would be unusual to see someone write, "have an happy holiday" and your spell-check is likely to pick that up.


What becomes complicated is when we talk about words like historical or Hispanic. Some people use “an” before historical – “It was an historical occasion” -- and other people don't. What's the deal? According to The Chicago Manual of Style, if your word begins with a silent “h,” you should use the article “an.” If the word begins with a hard ‘h,” use “a.”

Consequently, an historical occasion is only correct if you don't pronounce the “h” in historical. This seems easier to work out verbally because some of us say “herb” and others say “erb.” But to be on the safe side, have a system or use a style guide. I use the Chicago rule even though I know that some people will prefer “an historical holiday” to “a historical holiday.”

To learn how this differs for Americans and Brits, or for people of different age groups, read Tina Blue’s “article on articles” at http://grammartips.homestead.com/historical.html.

Sigrid Macdonald is the author of three books including Be Your Own Editor, available in print on Amazon or as an e-book on Smashwords.com.