Keep a Journal

Many ideas come when you're least expecting them. Keep a journal or recorder with you at all times so when creativity strikes you are armed and ready. Later when you are at your writing place, go back to what you have recorded and see what ideas come from them.

People Watch

When you are sitting at an airport, restaurant or any place where there are plenty of people, sit and observe what they are doing. What are they saying to each other? What are they wearing? Where are they going? Make up your own stories and lives for the people passing you by. Why does the man who just walked in front of you look as if he's in a hurry? Is he late for something? Keep asking questions, which brings me to...

Why? How? When? Where?

If an idea strikes you, ask questions about everything that has to do with that idea. Even if you don't actually use the answers to some of these questions it's okay because it gets you started and it leads you to what may be more important for your story.

Write What You Know

What do you know about more than anything else? What do you want to inform people of? Did something amazing happen to you sometime in your life? Draw from experience, memory, maybe a book you read or a movie you saw. You can use these experiences as idea starters.

Read, Read, and Read Some More

When you read all sorts of different genres you get ideas from them that you can use towards your proposed genre. You see examples of great writing used in many different forms. Do you like the way one author describes scenes? How can you use that technique for the scene you are working on?

Many or all of these ideas may work for you, the idea is to keep writing. Even if you feel you have nothing worth writing one day take out a journal and start writing about your day, thoughts you had, how events made you feel. Sooner or later one of these remarks will spark an idea for your next piece.

In all seriousness, I've never really found a positive answer. I've googled the question countless times (pathetic I know) but I'm still not any wiser. I've heard vague talk from people making the point that "creative writing can"t really be taught' and "a degree won"t really increase a writer's desires to become published.' Fair enough, I thought, but I already knew that. The primary reason I went to University in the first place was to "find myself" and generally just get away from all the commotion going on back home. Maybe I should have thought about the job prospects of a writing degree a little more, but no point dwelling on them now. I had developed a passion for writing and I went with my instincts.

So I've recently graduated, and now I'm thinking "damn, what"s next?!' I emailed the careers centre and came up with this list of possible jobs:

• Newspaper journalist
• Editorial assistant
• Publishing for media, and performing arts
• Screen and radio writing
• Video game content writer
• Freelance writer with extra job to fund
• Proof reader
• PR officer
• Press sub editor
• Copywriter

I was also given this piece of advice:

Many English students write for student newspapers and magazines, get involved with student radio or film societies or volunteer in the community or local schools. For you as an English student doing a non-vocational course, the skills you develop outside your study are critical in developing a rounded CV. The combination of evidence of skills gained from work experience and extracurricular activities, as well as through your study, can help you in CV writing and job applications - and boost your employability.

During my studies, I had work experience as a football writer so I thought that would shift my CV up the employer's pile a little. As yet though, I haven't been able to find a job in the Leeds area that relates to Creative Writing.

I'm currently freelancing while working a "proper job" to keep a roof over my head, which seems to be the common thing with most writers and Creative Writing graduates I've spoken to.

So yeah, at this point of time I'm not really in the position to give advice to fellow writers on the subject of employment; I'm just looking to get a discussion going. I'm still learning, like many others, and would appreciate any words of encouragement.

Oh, and a final word: I don't regret my choice of degree by any means, and I still have a strong passion for writing despite the risky nature that comes with wanting to be a writer. As an Individual, I feel my experience through University has developed my technique and belief in my abilities, particularly seen as though all students were encouraged to share their work with a variety of audience.

On a personal level, this was definitely not a bad thing.

I argue that anybody can write if they really want to. That isn't being too facile because the "if" is a rather big one. It includes being prepared to supplement your talent by an enormous amount of hard work and a professional attitude towards the skills that you need to hone. It includes being able to cope with all the rejections and the moments of self-doubt. Even once you are published, it doesn't stop. You are open to critics and reviewers then as well as an exacting general public. It includes having the courage to go on and on. And you must be prepared to be poor - for a while at least. Many, many fall by the wayside.

The big cry is “Don't give up the day job.” Well, don't. Or maybe do if you're really brave - see Way Number One. But you may still call yourself a writer.

Number One

Aka the bloody-minded way. Get someone else to support you, and lock yourself away in a garret. I know someone who took two years' rental on a tiny flat, a subsistence allowance and a new computer as a divorce settlement. You earn very little and really depend on the generosity of others until you have written, sold and marketed your best-seller.

Hans Christian Anderson did this and so did Dickens to some extent.

Other versions of this might be the gap-year student, the housewife whose grown -up children have just flown the nest, or whose younger children have just started school. Or you could use that redundancy package.

But you just have to succeed. You owe other people too much to even think of failure.

Number Two

The saving your creative energy way.

Get a job which does not use up your creative resources. To be avoided at all costs is something like teaching - each lesson plan is like a chapter outline. You're engaging with your consumers day in and day out. You'll have little energy left for the Great Work.

Ideal jobs are working in a bar - you meet lots of people i.e. fodder for your stolen stories and you get a free social life. Not bad either is working as postie. It gets you up early, so there's plenty of the day left over for writing, again you meet plenty of people and you get a good deal of exercise thrown in.

Number Three

Redefine. Take a job that uses up your creative energies. Work in advertising. Write copy for a firm's newsletter. Definitely go for those sorts of jobs which use your skills as a writer. And you can still call yourself a writer.

Number Four

Become a jobbing writer. Spend all day every day writing but be a bold business person in the way you pursue opportunities. Take on each and every writing commission of which you're capable. Argue about royalties. Become a member of the Society of Authors and get your contracts checked. Have a marketing plan, but if you can afford to - and possibly you can if writing time is precious - get someone else to handle that. Initially it's as bold a step as Way One, but you soon start running yourself as a business. You might, in the process, have to ditch your dream project and find you have even less time for that than the hobby writer. Self-employed people often don't have time for hobbies - either because they really love their work and don't need them or because, more often, time is money.

Number Five

Academia. Go back to university. There are numerous undergraduate and postgraduate creative writing programmes, including with the Open University, and many others include distance learning opportunities. Look out also for low residency MFA programmes in the States. A university course doesn't guarantee publication. In fact, sometimes it can work against it as you may be encouraged to produce something which is excellent in it own way but not commercial. Except that - well, as what you're doing then becomes of interest to the academic community - you may have a chance of getting into print. But you probably won't make megabucks that way. It does anyway give you an excellent opportunity to look really closely at what you're doing and get some interesting insights into the writing process and often some useful feedback about your work. You're also likely to get some respect from family and friends.

Those are the choices and probably most people don't fit too exactly into any of those five categories. There is of course one absolute rule. In order to be a writer you must write. Every single day. To the best of your ability always. And be prepared for rejection, criticism, frustration and self-doubt, but also immense satisfaction and great joy. You can be a writer.

Most writers can't handle the novel length, which is normally 60,000 words to 90,000 words but can be an upwards of 120,000+. It's just too long and we end up being bored by the story, or things aren't going exactly as you thought it would. The characters are all sounding the same, the plot keeps going in circles or isn't consistent. You want to start over-no, instead, you want to start something entirely different, a fresh new idea. So you do, and a couple of months later, you're faced with the same problem.

Some writers don't even know what a novel is really supposed to be like. It sounds silly, but novels do have a structure and certain things in the plot and characters do have to come up that, by the end of the novel, are ultimately solved. I'm mainly talking about the beginning, middle, and end of a novel, as well as the conflict and sub-conflicts, all of which have to be resolved at or before (in terms of sub-conflicts) the end of the novel. Writers staring down at a blank screen are like that because they don't know much about the novel itself, never mind the actual writing.

Other writers just don't yet have the skills to tackle a novel. Too many beginner writers want to make it as great novelists and so start with their first novel idea and find, at the end of writing it, that the novel is far too autobiographical. This is common for beginner writers, who are usually young and therefore lack the experience and the necessary skills to write a thought-provoking and overall powerful novel. The best advice to these beginner novelists is to write short stories first, one finished short story a week. And if you don't like writing short stories, for whatever reason, write scenes, anything that comes to mind or that interests you that you wish to explore (even if you haven't explored it in your life personally-whatever, be creative). At the same time, read the latest and the best in the genre you're most interested in writing. Get used to the different styles, and the words and characters other writers have used so you can a) avoid them and start developing your own style and characters, and b) familiarize yourself with an actual finished product of what you ultimately want to do. Then, when you've done all that for about six months to a year, come back here and read the rest of this article.

Most of the difficulties of tackling a novel can be solved if you read more and write more. But there's still that problem that writing a novel is too much for you to handle. You get bored and you're having a difficult time keeping track of all the story's elements (plot, character, setting, conflict, etc.). You're constantly at arms against writer's block. The good news is there's something you can do about all of this. Below are several tips on how best to tackle a novel so you a) finish it, and b) finish it in such a way publishers will want to publish it.

Outlining

Have an outline of the entire novel. The outline should be simple and easy to follow. It should have your novel separated into scenes along with who the point of view character is going to be for that scene. By outlining your novel in scenes you get rid of doing too much narration and not enough exposition. Scenes make the novel. If you're not writing scenes, you're not writing fiction. Write articles or essays if you can't wrap your head around scenes.

There are writers who don't like to write up outlines and just go with the flow of writing. Sometimes this can work, but only with a writer who is truly devoted to what she's writing, who is used to doing things spontaneously, and who has a very good grasp of the story and characters she is writing about. In other words, they do have an outline, only it's all in their head and they stick to it. Most of us aren't like this, and the writer who tries to be like this ends up losing track of what she's doing and becomes frustrated. So, by all means, do an outline.

Then again, there are writers who just don't like to outline and think that outlining is problematic. Outlining is only bad when you over outline and plan every meticulous detail in the maps, setting and character histories, and family trees. Once everything is planned out the writer cannot seem to sit down and write the novel regardless of all this planning. The novel is there, it's staring at her in the face, but she cannot seem to write. It's as if, in all this outlining, she's already written it.

An outline should take no more than two weeks, tops. And it's a simple outline, one that does not include all the specifics-that'll come when you're actually writing. The purpose of the outline is only to provide you with an easy to follow guideline on the plot and characters so you know what's going to happen, what the characters are faced with, and how they overcome it. Spend about a week working out the characters, the conflict, and the setting, including history and maps. These should not be overly detailed. A little bit on each, perhaps a paragraph or two, and rudimentary drawn maps will suffice. Then spend about a week outlining all the scenes in a 3-5 sentence paragraph, more sentences if it's a particularly large and important scene and less if it's a small one.

The reason you don't want to overly plan is because your characters will change from what you've planned once you start writing the novel. It's weird, but you'll find your characters will end up writing themselves, taking on their own personalities, and interacting in the world you created the way they want to. This is where the “go with the flow” is acceptable, but, if you do feel you're getting sidetracked a little, you'll always have your simple outline to get you centred. You may even find you have to make a few changes in the outline to suit the characters. That's fine, too. The changes won't be anything too big. Your characters may not be exactly what you planned, but they won't change so drastically as to be unaccommodating.

Scripts to Scenes

An outline doesn't make writing a novel any easier. That's not the purpose of the outline. All the outline has to do is give you something to move forward with. It's a manual to your novel. You still have to contend with having to make a story out of all this planning. This can be overwhelming and you will find yourself staring at the blank screen wondering how best to start, rewriting the beginning over and over and over...

Now that you have your scenes written out in small 3-5 sentence paragraphs, the next step is to write scripts to these scenes. These scripts are rough, should be mostly comprised of dialogue, but should also tell you what you should be writing, what the characters are thinking about, what the characters are doing. It's simple. Think of it as a baby step towards the finished product.

These scripts are mostly dialogue but that doesn't mean your novel should be nothing but character chitchat. The reason dialogue takes up most of the script space is because the other information you'll be including in the script, like what the character's are doing or thinking at that time, should be nothing more than a simple sentence that you'll be able to understand. For example: “Main protagonist thinks about relationship with love interest,” or, “Main character has a fist fight with villain.” Nothing spectacular. It's just there to let you know what you have to write when you get to it. It's a baby step. Baby steps are easy, and so will writing your novel.

Spend a day or two writing the script for the scenes in one chapter and then spend the remaining five or six days writing the chapter. You'll be surprised how quickly your writing becomes. You no longer have to think about what you're writing. You've done all the thinking necessary. All you have to do is add in the details. You don't even have to worry about the dialogue. It's there. If you want to change it because you suddenly realize it'll sound better this way than the way you originally had it, change it. It's as if the script is the first draft of your novel and when you actually write the scene from the script, it comes off as the second draft.

You might be thinking that this takes too much time, that you'd much rather skip this step and just write what you have from your one or two week outline that you made. What you'll soon come to find, however, is a repeat of all those problems you were suffering from: boredom, getting sidetracked, writer's block, and having to continuously go back and rereading what you wrote, unsure of it. By doing scripts to scenes you'll be able to avoid these problems, or at the very least lessen them considerably. It doesn't take as much time as you think. Try it, and if you still think it takes too much time, think about all the time you waste in writer's block land.

Make sure you have all the relevant pieces of information to identify what you are reviewing. Mention them at the beginning e.g. if it is a play, you will need the name of the play, the playwright, the theatre where it is being performed, and the dates that it is on. (But sometimes some of this information is given at the foot of the review.)

If it is a television programme, you will need the title, the television channel it was shown on, and the date and time of transmission. Tailor this information to the conventions normally used by your target publication.

How to Write Your Review

Begin by mentioning what you are reviewing without making it sound like the introduction to a school presentation: “I am reviewing Coronation Street which was on ITV on Friday 29th February at 7.30 p.m.”

See what sort of techniques the usual reviewers use. Try to incorporate the information in an attention-grabbing hook.

Adopt a tone that's suited to the publication you are aiming for - serious, flippant, humorous, witty - and make your review a similar length to ones which the publication usually prints.

Make Your Review Readable

Give enough detail to give your reader a brief idea of the content, without reproducing the entire show/play/book/ exhibition.

Give the review an angle - let the reader see why you chose to review this particular thing. Is it because it was terrible, shocking, exciting, original, unforgettable or exceptionally good? Give as much of your own personal response as the publication normally allows.

Illustrate any claims you make with examples, but remember you are aiming to inform, entertain and be thought-provoking. This is not a school or university essay!

Use original, striking language, and avoid clichés. Don't “state the obvious” or you'll turn your readers off straight away.

Make sure your spelling, grammar, and presentation are immaculate.

Give it a Proper Ending

End with a sentence summarising your conclusion - was the subject of the review worth watching/visiting/buying? Did it have certain strengths, but fall short in some way? Try to end your piece with a memorable phrase.

 

An Example

Huddersfield

An acrostic poem by Gale Barker

Huddersfield, a
Uniquely dramatic setting,
Dyed in the wool of industry
Dotted with Mangelwurzel *
Eccentrics, in whose
Recently extended university
Studies
Flourish.
Idyll for
Exhilarating
Literary
Dreams.

* Jake Mangelwurzel is a well-known Huddersfield eccentric.

How to Write Your Own Acrostic Poem

To write an acrostic poem of your own, begin by choosing the word that you would like to write your poem about. Write it vertically at the left hand side of the page, top down, for example:

L
O
V
E

Then use these letters to begin each line.

How Much Freedom Do You Have?

Acrostic poems are a form of constrained poetry - by making yourself begin each line with a particular letter, you are constraining or forcing yourself to write in a certain way. Even though acrostic poems don't have to rhyme, you're not just writing freely. You've got a format you have to stick to.

But each line can be as long or as short as you like. The ends of lines can rhyme or not rhyme, if you want. So you still have quite a lot of freedom to be creative.

Match Your Content to Your Word

Try to make the content of your poem relate to the word you've chosen and express something about it.

For example, to write a poem on the theme of love, start by thinking of lots of words connected with it, for example, Valentine, sweetheart, adoration, swoon, honey, romance etc.

Choose the word you want to use as your starting point, and write it at the left-hand side of the page, top to bottom.

Then write your poem, using these letters as the beginning of your lines.

Here are some elements and sub-elements of fiction that can help you write the story that is bubbling in your subconscious.

Character

This means much more than one character acting on his/her desires. It includes a protagonist and antagonist. A protagonist wants something. An antagonist wants to stop or wants something entirely different than the antagonist. It is the conflict between the two desires that powers the plot. Here are a few elements you need to make a character come alive.

1. Description: What does the character look like? Where does the character live?
2. Internal: What is the character's inner life? Does s/he have an inner life?
3. External: What are the character's sports and/or hobbies? Does the character have a facial tic or other type of movement?
4. Past History: What was this character's past religious, political, etc. history? Did this character have a traumatic childhood?
5. Dialogue: How does this character speak? Dialogue can reveal much about what is important to the character whether s/he is a protagonist or antagonist

Plot

For some reason plot has been given a bad reputation the last few years. There are two types of plot: character-driven and plot-driven. A character-driven plot is one where the plot is derived by what a character might do. A plot-driven plot can be explained simply by saying genre-driven such as a mystery, romance, or fantasy.

An important element that keeps the plot from becoming stale is conflict. Conflict does not have to be major as in the character must do something or his mother will die. No, it can be something simple like a dog wetting a man's shoes just as he is going to meet his date. Conflict takes away from the character or even changes his/hers expectations.

Setting

A reader needs to know where the action is taking place. For instance, the character is on a train. S/he is thinking about the past. So where is s/he? In the train in New York, Japan, South Africa? If the reader is lost, s/he cannot enjoy your story. Dislocation is a nasty feeling. Anyway, give the reader some clues through description or titles. A few authors have put titles on the first paragraph of the chapters to let the reader know where they are such as 1989, South Africa.

Point of View

Who is talking? Who is thinking? Should you write in third or first person? There are many good reasons to write in third person (to show the reader things that the character doesn't know) or first person (to take the reader along the same path as the character). But, you should know what POV you are using for what reason. POV should be transparent to the reader. It is a very important part of the writing craft.

Style and Theme

In my opinion, style and theme although important to English Literature majors is not usually apparent to the writer. As the writer becomes better his/her voice is there. (style) And theme? If you spend your time trying to find metaphors, the theme becomes strained. Most writers don't realize the themes that they are writing about. Themes come through when the truth comes through.

Truth

Here is an element that you probably don't expect in fiction writing. But, it is very important when you are writing in any style. Tell the character's truth. The reader can hear it as they read your words. Don't force something that you know is against your character's type. I have heard the words that "we make up these characters so they should do what why say." I don't agree. We might make up these characters from our own lives and observations, but they still have their own truths.

So here are a few elements and sub-elements that I believe will make your fiction writing better. I use them in my own writing. If you are reading this, I wish you good writing. I hope to read your stories one day.

What are the key elements of good memoir writing?

A good memoir contains the same elements you find in good fiction: setting, description, dialogue, and character. The main difference between memoir and fiction besides the "it actually happened factor" is the element of musing.

So, what is musing? Musing is the journey that leads to an epiphany, the "aha" moment. It is not just a memoir about your grandmother, but how as a mature writer you realize that your grandmother was an ordinary person doing extraordinary things whether she was a suffragette or a mother. The epiphany catches you at the moment when you are gardening, rock collecting, or digging outhouses.

The epiphany answers the questions: Why do you do what you do? Did it come from your family or friends? Will you pass it on to your children?

Good subjects for memoir writing

Write a time line of your life. Pick a vivid moment and writing about it. Pull the strings and see where the writing will take you. This moment could be about your parents, your grandparents, or your siblings. It could be about your hobbies or the actions that bring you peace.

Write about it.

Memoirs are your gift to the world.

To tell your story in the first person is to write using “I” instead of “he” or “she” for the main character. You write: “I did this” instead of the third person narrative where your story is told by an outside observer - “They did that”.

Ignore Criticism of First Person Point of View

Don't be discouraged by writers and teachers who will tell you that the first person is a limiting point of view. That the narrator must tell only what he or she knows, experiences or thinks about. They will tell you there is no way of reporting, for example, the thoughts of others or something that is happening out of sight of the narrator.

Dismiss those who will tell you that in a first person narrative, you risk becoming autobiographical and therefore, trite. Or tell you that being accused of pushing your own agenda through the narrator.

And finally, ignore people who tell you that in the first person narrative, the end is known at the start. If the story involves danger, they will tell you, we know that the narrator must have survived since he is telling the story.

Here Are the Benefits

Instead gear up to create instant rapport and credibility with your readers by using the first person narrative. These are some of the reasons you will find writing in the first person exciting:

1. In the first person narrative, the reader must believe the story. The narrator is telling his own story. He knows all the details because he was there when it happened. Because he was a participant. It happened to him! My novel, The Surface Beneath, would probably never have been published if it wasn't written in the first person.
2. A great advantage of the first person narrative is the freedom to “disclose” the narrator's thoughts and observations. It creates warmth of feeling that only a writer of first person narrative can understand. In my first novel, Whispers - written in the third person point of view - I felt detached from my characters. I felt there were things that, as a writer, I could not reveal about my characters without sounding awkward and unbelievable. I guess this feeling is what at times leads to writers injecting their own thoughts and foreshadowing in the third person narratives: “My dear reader, pity this poor character for as you will learn, he will soon be in a great predicament”! This practice has thankfully become less frequent.
3. In the first person narrative, there in a natural bonding between the writer and his main character. Feelings and emotions tend to come out much more naturally.

A bonus

Creative writing teachers identify seven ingredients of a good story - an interesting, absorbing plot, characters that are likeable and true-to-life, natural sounding dialogue, emotion, suspense, reader identification and a satisfactory ending. A first person narrative writer is pleased to realize that he naturally covers most of them in his narrative.

1. Sprinkled Apostrophes

   There's a giant in the sky with a salt shaker full of apostrophes. He shakes, and where they land, they stay. If he misses an appropriate word, that one does without. His favorite target is public signs, but the second choice is websites. Writers need to be clear on plural versus possessive nouns and pronouns, and stop committing atrocities like, “There were two house's for sale on that block.” Babie's makes me crazy. Her's does, too. Let's not forget the unnecessary ones in abbreviations like CD's and DVD's (correct CDs, DVDs)
   

2. Confusing Which, Who, and That

   It is acceptable in English (though I disagree) to refer to your dog as a pet that likes people. It is not correct to refer to people as that: Instead of “The man that was in line in front of me,” making him an object, say, “The man who was in line.” The word which is often erroneously used in place of that. Use which when the meaning of the sentence would be incomplete without a following phrase. Otherwise, use that. “The house, which needed work, sold for much less than expected.” “The house that needed work sold for less than expected,” means that house as opposed to the other one that didn't need work.

3. Comma Splices

   A comma splice occurs when two complete sentences are strung together, connected by a comma without a conjunction. “We went to the store, we bought milk,” could be correctly written, “We went to the store. We bought milk,” or, “We went to the store, and we bought milk.” Comma splices of three or more sentences strung together make me as crazy as apostrophes tossed into plural nouns.

4. Misplaced Modifiers

   Our writers' group calls these "walking privies", because the first one noted by the group was, “Walking across the clearing, the privy appeared to be old but in good condition.” Of course, only in the fantasy genre do privies walk. The most common error I see is a gerund phrase like the walking privy that has no word it is intended to modify at all, let alone one following the gerund phrase. “Having said that falls short of what it should do.” Having said that cannot be a subject. In this case, the writer should have followed the gerund phrase with a subject. “Having said that, the measure falls short of what it should do.”.

5. Misplaced or Omitted Commas

   Looking for a massive dose of confusion? Try sorting out the changing use of commas. However, some rules remain firm. Always use a comma when directly addressing someone, as: “Hi, Ann.” Use a comma when combining two sentences into one with a conjunction. “We went to the store, but we didn't buy milk.” Do not use a comma when combining sentences with a conjunctive adverb, such as “however” or “nevertheless.” Instead, use a semi-colon. “We went to the store; nevertheless, we didn't buy milk.” That rule, however, doesn't apply in this sentence. The adverb conjunction “however” is not joining two complete sentences.

6. Tense Shifting

   Writers do intentionally shift forward and back in time, but we need to be sure the shift is intentional. When a piece is in the present tense, it is disconcerting to the reader when our subject suddenly does something in the past without a transition to the past. “The team huddles around the Quarterback, who was deciding the next play.” Conversely, “The quarterback intended to throw the ball to Joe, but then he changes his mind and throws it to Dan,” is equally incorrect.

7. Mismatching Plurals

   It may be a political correctness problem that requires re-writing, but it is still incorrect to say, “The clerk who did this needs to get their act together.” The clerk is one person. Their refers to more than one person. To compound the error, needs is a singular verb, and cannot refer to “their.” His or her act is clunky, but their act is just plain wrong, and appears everywhere.

8. Modified Adjectives

   You have to appreciate the humor in modifying a modifier, but we are developing a habit of saying something is very unique, a physical impossibility. Unique means one of a kind. How much more unique can you get than one of a kind? I will readily believe that an object is more unusual, or more rare, but I'm still waiting to see anything more unique. Or more complete. More perfect. More unanimous. Less absolute. Less fatal. For these terms was the word oxymoron invented.

9. Misplaced Adjectives

   Especially applicable to "ly" words, the misplaced adjective can confuse the entire meaning of a sentence. Consider, “Angela only wrote three poems for the anthology,” versus, “Angela wrote only three poems for the anthology.” In the first instance, is it possible that Angela wrote three poems and one essay? Or did she write nothing but poetry?

10. Fragment Sentences

    There is a category called stylistic fragments, incomplete sentences intentionally used for emphasis. These are effective tools for dramatization. Badly used, or used in a string that would sound the same if spoken aloud, fragments are merely incorrect. “He lives on the water. In a houseboat,” is meant to be read with a slightly different emphasis than, “He lives on the water in a houseboat.” “He lives on the water. In a houseboat. When he's home,” would be better written as a single compound sentence, since it is not intended to be pronounced with particular emphasis on one of the string.

English construction is often confusing, as are the plethora of words with different meanings spelled the same way, such as lie, meaning an untruth, or lie, meaning to lie down. But some English rules need to be observed for the sake of clarity-not to mention sanity. For a really good grammar website, visit the Guide to Grammar and Writing.