Category: Thought of the Week

A once-a-week blog discussion of a timely topic, whether about writing, editing, publishing, local or world events, my personal or readers’ thoughts, or anything that needs discussion and has not been broached elsewhere

Make sure your train cars are connected with commas!

February 16, 2018

Now we’ve come to a little discussed comma usage that I bet you’ve rarely, if ever, thought about: using a comma to separate two coordinating adjectives that modify the same noun.

Now without using industry jargon, that simply means you use a comma to separate two descriptive words that are referring to the same thing. Think of it as train cars. All of the cars in the middle of the train – freight, passenger, whatever – come before the caboose and can be moved around in any order without affecting the train as a whole. But what happens if you move the caboose? Don’t do it! That could spell disaster! And those middle cars are linked, right? It’s the same with your coordinating adjectives: they are linked by commas.

Here’s an example:

Sam spent half the morning checking the connections between the many, old, rundown cars before the noon train left the station.

Many and old are the coordinating adjectives in this sentence. How can you tell? And why not rundown? There are two tests you can use to determine what adjectives are the coordinating adjectives.

First, if you can replace the comma with and, then you’ve found your coordinating conjunctions. Easy, right? Try the sentence written this way:

Sam spent half the morning checking the connections between the many and old rundown cars before the noon train left the station.

It still sounds the same right? Bam! You have coordinating adjectives and can use a comma. You don’t have to obviously, but it sure sounds better. Less is always more!

Second, try moving the adjectives around in a different order. If it still makes sense and still means the same thing, then you’ve found you’re coordinating adjectives. Too easy! Try this sentence:

Sam spent half the morning checking the connections between the old, many rundown cars before the noon train left the station.

While it’s not quite as graceful, we haven’t changed the meaning of the sentence at all. So again, there’s our coordinating adjectives. But just for fun, what happens if we put and between rundown and cars? Rundown is acting as an adjective in this case. So why is there no comma? Let’s try adding and:

Sam spent half the morning checking the connections between the old, many rundown and cars. 

Sounds pretty crazy! Now let’s move the adjectives around:

Sam spent half the morning checking the connections between the old, many cars rundown. 

What?!

Too much fun. This is why I love being an editor. Words are so much fun! With any luck, maybe these tests will help you remember that you need a comma to separate coordinating adjectives and where to put it.

Write on!

 

The Superhero Serial Comma

February 1, 2018

When editing any document for my clients, the one comma-usage error that I encounter more than any other is the lack of a serial comma. While saying serial comma makes me hungry because I always think of Cornflakes when I say it, I still say it – all…the…time. Nothing drives me crazier as an editor and writer than a document, however big or small, that does not use the serial comma, also known as the Oxford comma.

What’s the big deal? Confusion! Confusion is the deal people. Writing needs to be clear. If a piece of writing is not clear, the message gets lost because people will either be confused or they will stop reading. So how does one little mark clear things up?

The best example is the superhero meme. I know you’re familiar with it. It reads like an Oscar speech: “My heroes are my parents, Superman and Wonder Woman.” Do you see the problem here? When just one comma is used between parents and Superman, it suggests a pause for an explanation (this is another comma-use rule and will be addressed in my next post). This sense of expectation, this assumption that the reader is about to receive a more in-depth explanation of the word “parents,” sets up the comma-usage error. When the reader continues to read after the comma, the sentence tells them that the narrator’s parents are Superman and Wonder Woman. Really? Before Justice League, I’d no idea the two had procreated! But I suppose if the narrator that spoke that sentence really was Hunter Prince, then that would make the sentence correct.

But chances are it was just an ordinary human that spoke that sentence. So it needs to be fixed. If we insert the serial comma right before “and,” it reads the way it was intended to read: “My heroes are my parents, Superman, and Wonder Woman.” Ahhh, that’s better. What a relief! Now it reads as a list, a list of the narrator’s heroes that includes their parents, Superman, and Wonder Woman. Look! I just used the serial comma. It’s so easy! If you have a list of three or more items – please, please use a serial comma before the word “and.”

Unless of course you have the misfortune of writing for a newspaper, magazine, or organization that uses CP (Canadian Press) or AP (American Press) style as their guide. In that case, you poor, poor soul, you must not use the serial comma because they do not allow it’s usage. They argue that is for space reasons, and I get it, but I still argue against it. It makes that article mighty hard to read. Perhaps someday they will step into the twenty-first century. And I would love to meet Superman and Wonder Woman’s offspring!

Of course I know how to use a comma!

January 23, 2018

In the beginning…

I remember when my first piece was published. I was nine years old and from then on I felt like I could be a great writer. I even thought I knew the rules, better than others. Boy was I in for a surprise much later in life.

As a child I wrote stories every day. If I wasn’t writing stories I was reading stories. Then in high school I worked on the school newspaper. Wherever life lead me throughout adulthood, I kept writing my stories, though I never did do anything with them. I don’t think I finished any of them either. I wrote novels, short stories and poetry. While I had my favourite genres such as historical fiction, science fiction, and fantasy, I dabbled in others too. Romance, mystery, crime, self-help, memoir, nonfiction, magazine articles — I tried them all.

My parents like many I’m sure, told me repeatedly that writing would achieve nothing. It wouldn’t pay the bills, and it would take me nowhere. Looking back now, I realize that was the voice in my head that kept me from doing anything real with my writing. Until one day, when my world fell apart. I’d just assumed that perhaps I could write for real once I’d raised my children and had plenty of down time in my retirement, so when I was faced with having to make an abrupt, fast change of course in my life, I wondered if I could take this thing I loved to do, and actually do something with it. So in my mid-thirties, I went to university. And I studied professional writing.

So what is my point? Well, I thought I knew the rules better than most people. I could spell better than most, had a sufficient vocabulary, and a better imagination and I knew how to use punctuation better than most. Especially simple things like periods, commas and colons. Maybe I was a bit fuzzier on the semicolon but I thought I had a handle on it. I was a writer. Of course I know what the rules are.

Ha! Welcome to studying professional writing, including professional editing. It took just one class before it was ego-destroyingly clear that I had no idea what I did not know. And I had another four years to go!

The punctuation journey begins here.

Would you believe that one of the most difficult pieces of punctuation to master is the comma? I wouldn’t have guessed that either until I had to learn the rules. It’s generally the semicolon that gets the bad rap, that has such confusion surrounding it. But no, the comma has so many more rules attached to it. For this reason, I’m going to spend an entire month clarifying the correct ways to use a comma. For those that believe they have a pretty good handle on using a comma, try going back up to my story and picking out the comma mistakes. Hint: there are 13.

Let’s begin with the most important comma rule.

The most important function a comma has is also its most confusing. A comma is used to separate two complete thoughts, that is, two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction. The important part here is that each clause must be complete, meaning it must be able to stand on its own as a sentence should the other clause be destroyed by an enemy missile. These two clauses must also be connected by a demilitarized zone that holds them together. Each side exists fine by itself, but they can coexist with the help of the coordinating conjunction: the demilitarized zone.

Correct: Jack jumped in his dilapidated pickup to try and catch the best thing that had ever happened—ever would happen—to him as she sped away, but fate had other ideas.

Incorrect: Jack jumped in his dilapidated pickup to try and catch the best thing that had ever happened—ever would happen—to him as she sped away but fate had other ideas.

Incorrect: Jack jumped in his dilapidated pickup to try and catch the best thing that had ever happened—ever would happen—to him as she sped away, and slipped and fell in his haste.

Incorrect: Jack jumped in his dilapidated pickup to try and catch the best thing that had ever happened—ever would happen—to him as she sped away, she was just too fast for him.

There are a couple other ways to think of it. If math is your thing rather than words, think of it as an equation: A=B. “A” is a complete entity that can stand on its own, and “B” is a complete entity that can stand on its own, but the “=” is the coordinating conjunction in between that allows them to exist together equally.

Or, for a better picture and a little more fun, the comma is the wiener in the hot dog. Sure, you can eat the bun on one side of the wiener, and you can eat the bun on the opposite side of the wiener, but they’re still just a bun. Equal, but boring! Stick the wiener in, and you have something that joins each side — and makes it something better and more interesting!

The key here is check each side to see if there is something doing something. For example, let’s use a simplified version of the earlier example. On side one, Jack jumped in his truck, and on side two, fate had other ideas., The comma and the coordinating conjunction glue the two sides together.

Next week

The introductory clause…dun, dun, dun…

UPDATE: January 2018

January 23, 2018

It has come to my attention that while I am a professional writer and editor, I have been blogging about issues that matter to me rather than sharing my professional advice with people looking for the writing and editing answers that I can provide. It’s just one of many mistakes on the road to successfully running my own business, but the more mistakes I make, the more lessons I learn! Therefore, I am excited to say that after this update, I will give you all the answers you need, so watch for my new, weekly post on writing and editing topics. All other posts have been deleted. If you have a question, let me know! I’ll add it to my posts. But don’t worry, if you’re curious about what I have to say about the world, I’m working at building a new page for my blogs about my passions, experiences, opinions, and questions here. It’s a work in progress right now though, so bear with me!

Man experiencing writer's block

A Non-expert’s View on Writer’s Block

July 11, 2016

Damn that flashing cursor. That first, crisp-smelling, fresh sheet of paper in your journal and that sweet pen you just bought. You have the house to yourself or you’ve set yourself up in the nearest coffee shop with all its smells and sounds, and you’ve looked forward to this moment for weeks. You’ve planned it out and imagined how it would be: putting on your particular inspirational music, setting out your special writing tools, sipping your favourite hot beverage. And then you’d pick up your pen or your mouse and out the words would come — the next bestseller. Easy as pie right? I mean, you’re a writer! Always have been, so why would that ever change?

Until it does. You sit down and you’ve put yourself in that zone — and nothing. So you figure you’ll just imagine for a while. That usually helps. But then you can’t follow an idea to completion or fruition. Your thoughts just jump from one thought to another with no connection between them. There are chores to be done, phone calls to make, and memories to remember. So you surf the internet thinking a little research will provide that spark or give you that little piece of info you need to get started. The next thing you know, three hours later you’re staring at a picture of what your friend from kindergarten had for dinner last night. And have you written anything yet? Of course not!

So now you feel guilty. All this wasted time and what do you have to show for it? Squat is what! So you shove all those distractions aside thinking now you’ll really get down to work. Pulling from what you knew you meant to write, you attempt a couple sentences while reminding yourself that it’s just the first couple words that are the hardest. So you write a few bits of gibberish. And then you’re stuck again, so you go back and reread what you’ve read so you can remember where you were headed with this.

Crap. It’s all crap. A six year old could do better. So you erase or delete. You start again. You reread again. You delete again. And over and over for hours. What is going on? What’s the problem with you?

Nothing is wrong with you. You’ve been struck with writer’s block. It’s never happened before, and you can’t think of a good reason for why. Well that’s because there exist a million reasons why. A quick Google of writer’s block will bring up a quintillion hits on causes, solutions, and exercises. Anyone that’s ever experienced writer’s block will have read all the reasons and tried all the exercises. But do they work? And are all those causes really the real cause?

Experts tell you that lack of sleep, drinking alcohol, or anxiety will bring on writer’s block. So will stress, OCD, and perfectionism. Depression, analysis paralysis, and even laziness are supposed causes. Well who among us isn’t or doesn’t experience all of these at least some of the time? I know I’m lazy from time to time, and I certainly analyze the words I’m writing or am about to write. It’s all part of the process. And of course I’m stressed and anxious. Would I be human otherwise?

So you try the exercises. You do the free writing, you pull a card from your deck of writer’s block tips, you change your surroundings. You take a break or grab a cup of coffee. Nothing. We’ve all been there at least once. Some move past the block in hours or days, others take months or years. Can writer’s block really last years? Oh, you bet your !@#$.

I watched an interview with Louise Penny once. She admitted to having writer’s block for years once she was presented with the opportunity to actually write full time — writing what she actually wanted to write rather than what she was expected to write. So why did she have such difficulties? A bright, well-educated, creative woman who would go on to become an international bestselling author?

For anyone who has experienced it and fought to get past it, and for anyone still dealing with it and digging through all the research, I think there is one common thread. Yes, experts say this and experts say that and I’m no expert. But if you take away all the other purported causes and take away all the personal window dressings — family, income level, friends, experiences, location, health, surroundings, and absolutely everything else — leaving just the  blockage itself, I think you find the underlying cause.

Confidence. I think that is both the problem and the key. I mean, truly, we spend so much of our time worrying about what people think of us: what we’re wearing, what we say, what we own, who we associate with, the opinions we hold. As writers that worry is multiplied tenfold. Now we have to worry about how our thoughts and feelings and ideas and the way we put them together are received. We put all of ourselves on that paper, and how scary is that? Because writing isn’t actually writing if you’re not digging deep within yourself and sharing it all.

Remember how easy writing was when you were a kid? That’s when you knew you were a writer, that you had to be a writer. There were so many things to write about! And the scribblers you filled with those stories and poems? Did you go back and reread and analyze those? Of course not! You just wrote for the sake of writing. You had ideas and characters in your head and you just wrote them down. You let the story go where it would. There was no asking yourself how other people would feel about this. You didn’t analyze the words you used or if you were including enough rhetorical tools. Who cared about grammar, proper punctuation, or spelling? And the message? What message? You didn’t write for those who would read it, you just wrote for you. You wrote because it was in you and if you didn’t write you would burst. The ideas and the words rolled and roiled around in your head, and the pictures and stories never stopped.

Is it possible to be that again? Can you put yourself in those child-size shoes while still maintaining your wisdom, experience, and maturity? Can you allow yourself to not worry about others’ expectations? Are you able to put others aside completely? It’s that expectation of how others will respond and what they’re expecting that kills the creative process. All your life you’ve wanted nothing more than to just write, to have that chance to spend all day doing what used to be the most natural thing in the world, to stay up late because your fingers and your brain and the ideas just keep coming, to get up in the morning feeling fulfilled, and feel that feeling burgeoning in your chest as the words come out and you’re completely lost in that world you’ve created. For you.

But now you’re faced the opportunity to do just that and you’re frozen. No ideas, just inner criticisms. No flowing thoughts, just analysis.  That is the effect society has had on you. So don’t tell anyone what you’re writing. Don’t expect each word or character to be perfect. Take yourself out of your current environment and remember what made you happiest as a child and recreate that. Don’t reread your words. Just let them out. They probably won’t be the words you planned to write, but let that happen. Don’t show anyone what you’ve written. Just keep writing it. Keep writing until you feel that feeling again, that freedom, that bursting of ideas. Once the story is writing itself, then you’re where you need to be. Never show anyone that first draft. That’s just yours. You can polish other drafts at a much later date, once you’ve remembered what it is to not care and to just write because that’s what you are and if you don’t write you will go crazy.

So what if you’d meant to write a magazine article on local recycling efforts and instead you wrote a poem? You’re writing again. That magazine article will come a lot easier if your inner gears are oiled and running again. Listen to that inner voice again, not those loud, demanding outer voices. Once you’ve found that voice, that thoughtful but uncritical voice, your writing will happen and it will be more real than anything else you’ve ever written. It will find an audience. There is always someone out there like you, so write for you. Who cares what others think or expect? Especially those closest to you. You don’t write for them. Chances are they don’t even understand the need or the mindset. Just send that voice out into the world and it will find an audience. And you won’t have writer’s block anymore because you’re finally being you. That is confidence.