Does your writing feel cluttered?
Over winter, you fell into the habit of drafting dense paragraphs that feel stuffy and humid, like a cramped apartment with a wheezing, determined radiator. Or your structure fell into madness, like a closet seething with mysterious solvents, loathsome sporting gear, and drawers of mismatched screws.
Now’s the time to dust off your style, haul out the verbiage, and ready your next project for sunshine and daffodils.
One of the most miraculous aspects of J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world is that it’s just so darn big. If you’re an aspiring author, you may wonder just how Rowling managed to crank out so many books, use so much imagination, and keep the ideas flowing.
Here’s a secret: she didn’t just wave a magic wand. She wrote every single one of the 1,084,170 words in the Harry Potter series (and lots more in her other books, plays, and movies).
Image from LoadingArtist.com
Almost anyone who cares about language and knows about or uses the Internet has been guilty at one time or another of demonizing the world wide web for its effects on the English language. “The Internet makes it easy for people, including professional writers, to publish writing publicly without editing.” “The Internet encourages casual writing and doesn’t reinforce proper writing skills.” “Students would write better if they weren’t on Facebook all the time.” It’s easy to blame the Internet and say that if it didn’t exist, written English would be on solid ground.
You hire a fashion consultant to help you redesign your wardrobe. He tells you to get rid of your most recently acquired shoes. You gasp in surprise because you bought the shoes only a couple of days ago. All the celebrities are wearing them. How can they not be fashionable? You may ask the same thing about helping verbs. Aren’t they always in fashion? The short answer is no. New words are always emerging.
Some words have multiple correct spellings. You probably already know this is true for certain verbs (e.g., spell vs. spelt) and several nouns (e.g., color, favor, neighbor); prepositions aren’t immune to it either.
Commas may be placed after the closing parenthesis but not before either the opening or the closing parenthesis. If the sentence would not require any commas if the parentheses were removed, the sentence should not have any commas when the parentheses are present.
You’ve likely seen writers use parentheses to set apart information from the main sentence. But do you know how to use them correctly?
Your co-worker just sent you a message on Slack:
Bossy McBosserpants
I need the report as soon as possible
What runs through your head? Along with potential anxiety about a looming deadline (looks like you’re eating lunch at your desk again) you may feel annoyance. After all, that demand sounded pretty darn pushy.
via GIPHY
Requests that include “as soon as possible” (or the ubiquitous acronym ASAP) can come across as rude.
