What your characters say in fiction drives your story, but you have two ways to do it. You can use dialogue or reported speech. Active dialogue is the most common. “You never listen to me!” she shouted. However, you can also use reported speech to summarize a character’s words quickly. She told him he had…
When To Use Dialogue Or Reported Speech In Fiction Read More »
If you had asked me yesterday about this fixed expression, I would have said that when worse comes to worst is the correct form. However, when I stumbled upon a text that used the phrase when worst comes to worst, I wondered if my assumption was correct. The trouble with assumptions is that you can…
Fronting in writing and grammar is a simple but effective tool you can use to modify a sentence. Put simply, it moves parts like an object, adverb, or complement to the very beginning of a sentence. Instead of following the standard subject-verb-object structure, it moves the focus of a sentence to the most important part,…
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When you need to describe pain in writing, relying on adjective phrases alone often isn’t enough. Pain is complex because it is more than just a feeling. It’s a mixture of emotional and physical sensations that lie unseen below the surface. That’s why metaphors can be useful to make pain more real for readers. They…
One of the skills you need as a writer is to be able to change a sentence to add more variety to your writing. When you find too many simple subject-verb-object sentences, you have to find alternatives. Sentence transformation helps you avoid texts that readers might find a little bit boring because your sentence forms…
10 Simple Ways To Change A Sentence For More Variety Read More »
When someone says something was delivered in spades, they refer to an experience or service that exceeded expectations. It’s a phrase that suggests generosity or excellence far beyond the normal. But what are the origins of the expression? And how does it compare to other ways of describing excess or plenty? What does deliver in…
Delivered In Spades And Other Expressions Of Abundance Read More »
Free rein and free reign not only sound the same but seem to have similar figurative meanings related to freedom. Yes, the correct form of the phrase in writing is free rein, but there is more to the story. You often see free reign used in the same sense, and for good reason. Not because…
Free Rein And Free Reign – Which One Is Correct? Read More »
Your manuscript is ready, or almost ready. But before you publish your book in a hurry, here are a handful of free tools to help give your book a better chance of success. While self-publishing is easy, marketing, promoting, and selling a new book or ebook is much more challenging. To stand a chance, what you…
Before You Publish Use These 5 Helpful Free Tools Read More »
You might use this phrase only occasionally, but it’s easy to get it wrong in writing. One fell swoop is the correct form of the expression. When you hear people using the phrase to say that something happened suddenly, it usually sounds like one foul or fowl swoop. It’s rare to hear people pronounce it…
Is It One Fell Swoop, Foul Swoop, Or Fowl Swoop? Read More »
Writing and publishing content on different platforms and sites is a great idea, but do you interlink your articles? You might have a blog but also publish articles on LinkedIn, SubStack, Medium, or guest posts on other websites. However, you are missing a huge opportunity if you are not adding links between all these articles.…
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