Blog

Did you know that some punctuation rules are optional? Now, I’m not talking about bending the rules in your experimental fiction class or leaving out punctuation in your texts. I’m talking about punctuation that can go either way, depending on your preference. An obvious choice that comes to mind is the Oxford (serial) comma, particularly in simple horizontal lists. But that's an editorial minefield, so I'll leave it for another post. Today, I'll be covering the use of commas

Grammar apps like Grammarly, Hemingway and ProWritingAid are in everyone's workflow these days (well, if you're someone who tinkers with...

Are you a KISS fan? (And no, I don't mean the band!) For those who don’t know, KISS is short for 'keep it simple, stupid' (yes, there's a...

Two things come to mind when I hear the word ‘splice’. The pine-lime popsicle I used to eat as a kid. And splicing tape in a sound...

Have you ever looked at your writing – and I mean really looked – and thought there was room for improvement? Maybe you’ve got fallback phrases you use a lot, like ‘what’s more’, ‘in fact’ and ‘let’s face it’. Or maybe you confuse contractions like ‘its’ and ‘it's’. You could even be a speedy touch-typist who sometimes misses letters, like writing ‘poo’ instead of ‘pool’ or ‘chorine’ instead of ‘chlorine’. (Can you tell I’ve been writing for the pool industry lately?) That do

Here's what I've discovered after working with dozens of business clients and self-publishing authors: few know the difference between...