Adverbs are sometimes overused but are they essential? Some people say that adverbs are redundant and that they weaken the verbs impact. Some say adverbs lead to messy prose and indicate lazy and cluttered writing. Is this true? To a degree, it is, but adverbs still have their place in my opinion. What is an…
There’s always someone telling you how you should write, that you must follow these steps and this routine to succeed as a writer. Then you find other people who tell you that these rules are utter nonsense. It can be difficult to know who to believe. As with any creative pursuit, writing has lots of…
Part 3 Of Understanding Verbs In the first part we discussed verbs, what they are and the different kinds of verbs you might come across. In part 2 we covered the different tenses and forms of verbs., In this part we are going to cover the use of verbs within the sentence. Subject-verb agreement is…
Part 2 of Understanding Verbs Welcome back to understanding verbs. This is part two, where we will be covering irregular verbs, reflexive verbs, linking verbs and helping verbs. There are a lot of different kinds of verbs. So hopefully I can make this more straightforward to understand. Last time, we covered what verbs are, how…
Verb Tenses – Conjugation How to understand verb tenses and verb conjugation. I know, I know. The word ‘conjugation’ brings up memories from school, especially if you ever studied a language other than your native language. I remember memorising verb conjugations in French in high school. I don’t remember any of the verb conjugations from…
What is Mary Sue Syndrome? The term ‘Mary Sue’ is one that has been used to describe a character archetype that is too perfect. It originated in the Star Trek fandom in a parody fanfiction. It is an archetype that is especially common in fanfiction. Essentially it is a character, usually the primary protagonist, who…
Homonyms and Homophones What do I mean by this? Let’s get into it. Homonyms and homophones are words that are similar but have different meanings. Homonyms are a kind of catch all term for homographs, words that are spelled the same, or homophones, words that sounds the same (with different spelling) and have different meanings….
What is a cliché? You hear it a lot, especially when talking about writing or producing media. So what are they? Clichés are phrases or ideas that are so overused that they are now boring and unoriginal, so the phrase has lost meaning or become a stereotype. Unlike tropes, which are story elements commonly used…
What is the passive voice? It’s something most of us have seen at some point. Especially in the early days of MS Word’s grammar checker, it was something I remember seeing the passive voice a lot when writing essays and school assignments. I didn’t really understand what it meant at the time, although I do…
So, you’ve got your book idea and you’ve started writing it. You’ve produced an outline and set up your plot, you’ve gotten to know your characters and how they are going to develop throughout your story. Great. But for some reason, your characters have developed a mind of their own. What if they decide to…
