Rick Taubold's Blog, page 3

Rules of capitalization

From Rick: Things have been busy this past week, and as a result I’ll be taking a break from the blog next week. For this week I thought I’d provide a couple of useful resources on capitalization. Capitalization has a lot of rules, and unfortunately, different style guides do not always agree. The second edition […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...

Word fun

From Rick: This week, I have some interesting and informational tidbits found on Merriam-Webster’s site, some possibly amusing. You might also want to try some of their word quizzes to test your knowledge, build your vocabulary, and increase your understanding of words whose meanings you thought you knew well. SOMETIME VS. SOME TIME, ANYTIME VS. […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...

Grammar and style tips for authors: Part 2c—Final installment on prepositions

From Rick: I’m finishing up this short series on prepositions before moving on to other topics. At the end, I’m going to highlight a common mistake of writing “use to” in place of “used to” as in “I used to take long walks whenever I needed to think.” FORBID to (v) (formal) —“I forbid you […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...

Grammar and style tips for authors: Part 2b—More problem prepositions + “different from/than”

From Rick: I’m running a little late this week, but here’s the second part in the series on prepositions attached to various words. CENTER on, upon (not “around”) (v): [a primary issue] —The discussion centered on the critical issue of financial resources. —Center the logo on the page. If you think about it, saying a […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...

Grammar and style tips for authors: Part 2a—Problem prepositions

From Rick: In this part of the Grammar and Style Tips series, I’m going to cover a list of words and associated prepositions that often give problems. The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) has a two-page section called “List of words and the prepositions construed with them.” What do we mean by this? An example […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...

Grammar and style tips for authors: Part 1—recent changes

From Rick: Being an editor, it’s important that I keep up to date on the latest grammar and style changes in the language, particularly since it seems to be changing very rapidly. There are two authoritative references that all writers should be following. The first is the Merriam-Webster dictionary. It’s free online, and you can […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...

Promote yourself on our blog: an offer for our blog readers

From Rick: Writing a weekly blog can be time consuming, especially when it’s an informational and educational one. I often spend two hours or more on some posts. This blog has grown over the years in terms of readers, and I hope we have a good stable of readers. In order to give back to […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...

A balancing act: keeping the reader informed and interested

From Rick: Consider the following story opening: ========== TWO DAYS AGO: Tonight he’d do it. Severin had watched the place every night for the past week. His long, dark hair gelled back, his face black-smudged, and wearing black slacks and a black turtleneck to blend into the pleasant June night, he leaned on a railing […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...

Formatting your novel with Styles—Part 4: using your new template

From Rick: It occurred to me after doing Part 3 that I didn’t show you how to use your new template. It’s pretty easy, actually, but there are a couple of cautions to be aware of. This will be a very short post. You won’t have any problems if you start with a new document […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...

Formatting your novel with Styles—Part 3: adding more styles

From Rick: With this post I will finish up this series. So far, we have set up our NORMAL style and SCENE BREAK style. A typical novel normally won’t need more than a half-dozen styles. You’ll probably want ones for chapters, chapter titles (if you use them), timeline (which I’ll explain in a moment), book […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...