Details are wonderful. They enliven your story, create characters that seem uncannily real, and generally make your fictional world go ’round. You can never have too many details … right? Continue reading
Have you ever finished writing a story and realized that your antagonist’s limpid brown eyes have inexplicably morphed into sparkling sapphire orbs halfway through, or learned that somewhere along the line, you have replaced that delightful but doddery old Mrs. Johnson with her equally sweet and unsteady doppelganger, Mrs. Jonston? Continue reading
English spelling conventions are generally bizarre. Homonyms in particular exemplify this inherent wackiness and can be divided into two groups: homographs and homophones. Continue reading
As a child, I learned the rules of grammar and spelling, or at least I gained a significant intuitive understanding of them; as an adult, I was able to use this strong intuition to produce a lot of very clear, forceful, and persuasive essays during both my undergraduate and graduate studies. Clearly, I was quite adept at using the language effectively. What more did I need to know? Continue reading
I’m an editor. It is my job to help others choose their words carefully. I make sure those words aren’t too many or too few in number, suggest new words to achieve a desired effect, and verify that all words in the final draft are spelled correctly and arranged in a grammatically appropriate order. This, of course, isn’t the same as actually writing. Continue reading
Quills and Queries Editing 