Remember “dangling participles” from back in grade-school English class? Probably not, but chances are you create them every day. They’re a major grammatical error, and once you know how to spot them, you’ll find these little nasties everywhere… probably even in your own writing …
Read MoreIf you’re an author writing your first book, you’ve probably heard the terms “stylebook” or ‘The Chicago Manual of Style’ and wondered what people were talking about. ‘The Chicago Manual of Style’ is to book editors and publishers what the Bible is to preachers. More about that formidable tome in a moment, but first let’s talk about stylebooks in general …
Read MoreIf you’re writing your first novel, and if you’ve read a lot of modern fiction, you may have the impression that your novel needs a Prologue. But does it? Many novels come across my desk with a Prologue included that doesn’t belong, that actually lowers the quality of the manuscript. A Prologue is inappropriate when …
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