The first draft of a short story, novel, or even an article or poem is only for you. Terry Pratchett once said, “The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.” It doesn’t matter if you are a plotter and work with an outline or a panster (a writer who flies by the seat…
For most writers, using conditional sentences is intuitive. You don’t need to think because they come naturally. While that’s perfectly okay, sometimes it’s worth investigating grammar points that you rarely think about. In this case, you might find that you can do more or add more variety to your writing. Do you know that there…
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Every day, you probably read about the difficulties of sites posting product reviews or informational article writing due to the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) search. Headlines and social media posts such as “SEO is dead” or “the days of blogging are over” are commonplace. While it’s true that changes to the way search engines…
If you are a new author, don’t decide on the price of your self-published book at the time of publishing. Book buyers are price-sensitive and have expectations of what an ebook or print book is worth. If you rush your decision, you could be pricing your book too low or too high. Another factor is…
Is it hunger pangs or hunger pains? The correct phrase is hunger pangs. While it certainly feels like a “pain,” the word pang specifically describes a sudden, sharp spasm or a brief feeling of distress. “Hunger pains” is a common mishearing that has become a widespread spelling error. The origins of hunger pangs The etymology…
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One of the most powerful tools a writer possesses is the ability to craft word order. Sure, you might think that grammar rules control most aspects, but this is not entirely true. Apart from some standard rules, such as subject-verb-object (SVO), as a writer, you have plenty of options to rearrange words to suit your…
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…
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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 in making pain more relatable for readers. They…
