Writer Tip - 3 Ways to Use Dashes

LAST WEEK, I talked about sentences that go on and on. Like the energizer bunny, these guys can make a reader tired, confused, and ready to run screaming into the night.

Too melodramatic? You're probably right. And it's only 10:15, so I can't go claiming sleepiness as the blame for my random jaunts. I think I'll blame my dog. :) For more about the hound, see my article from YESTERDAY.

Run-on sentences, especially the comma-splice kind, are such easy ruts

Writing Tip - It's Gotta End SOMETIME!

You would think, as a novelist, that I'm talking about a book ending. It's a logical assumption, and I hope to get to the end of the one I'm working on with due brevity. But such is not the topic for today.

See, I'm also a writing teacher, blessed with the challenge of learning enough to stay ahead of some of the sharpest young writers I've ever come across.

And yet, they suffer from a dire conspiracy that, I've noticed, even professionals experience from

time to time.

That of the run-on sentence.

It's not uncommon for writers to utilize fragments. They can introduce subjects, like mine just did (My "sentence" doesn't have a verb. Did you notice?) or define a situation with just a word or phrase. Sometimes, their choppiness can paint a mood across the writing.

Not so much with run-ons which tend to make the reader hold her breath until she reaches the end of the sentence it can really pinch a section as well the reader will have to go back and separate the sentences on her own since the author didn't bother to do it for her that halts the story line completely.

Sorry, I couldn't resist! :) Annoying wasn't it?

With the demands for juicy sentences and in depth explanations, along with parameters for paragraphs, I found my students stringing together up to three separate sentences. Sometimes they added commas to try to throw me off, or a series of semi-colons, looking like jewelry all through the essay. So I think I'm correct in my assessment that sometimes even the basest of grammar rules can need a little reminder.

A sentence is a complete thought that includes both a subject and a predicate. (Noun and verb) Basically, it tells who-did-what.

(Unless the sentence is the passive who-is-what, which doesn't actually make sense, because who, by it's very essence is who, and what is likewise what, so to say that who-is-what would be ... Would you repeat the question?)

(Yes, I know shades of "Who's on First." I think I'm in a loopier mood than normal.)

Feel free to skip the parentheticals. I think it's my drowsiness talking ... uh ... writing.

The problem comes when the sentence includes who-did-what, who-did-where, and who-else-was-there. I actually use "who-did-what" while I'm analyzing my students' papers.

A simple sentence is made up of the simple subject and the simple predicate. ~ When I looked across the road, I saw a funny looking man with a baseball bat.

Those parts are collectively called the simple sentence, made up of a simple subject and a simple predicate. (I was thinking of saying that they all lived together in a simple little house, but I think we've followed enough rabbit trails.) Very SIMPLY, if I find another simple sentence before the ending punctuation, "Off with his head!"

Oh, hold on. That was last week's post. This week it's just an evil laugh. *wrings hands* Bwhahahahahaha!

So here are some examples that I've actually seen before. See if you can separate the Run-ons from the complete sentences. For a double challenge, can you correct the mistakes or find the simple sentences in the correct ones?

1. In keeping with the mood of the music, the dancers work together with the choreographer their dance, composed as a team, offers the expertise of many instead of one.
2. Although the tiger cub could not survive in the cruel wilderness without the assistance of humans, he maintained his freedom, finding instead an accommodating cheetah.
3. Mercury, Chrysler, and Dodge vehicles are all very well-known, their family cars are among the best in America.
4. Whenever a nation learns of it's governments duplicity, it struggles to ascertain the importance of the deception was it slight or monumental.
5. While Captain America provided an excellent example of a hero, linking strength with courage and conviction and enduring personal sacrifice to promote the good of the country, Thor proved a more entertaining character because he began in a flawed state and progressed to the point of realizing his faults and seeking to rectify them.

For the next several Wednesdays, I'm going to talk about stopping sentences, or how to avoid energizer bunny writing. (Going on and on and on ...) There are a few tricks to it. For today, just be encouraged, as you revise or edit, to identify the main noun, the simple subject, along with the main verb, the simple predicate, in each sentence and make doubly sure you didn't do any doubling on them!

What's the hardest grammar rule you've ever encountered. For me, it was semi-colons. (I had to get tutoring to figure out how to put the dot on top of the comma!)

Writing Tip - Pre-Writing

I've been reading a lot about outlining this week. First, in an email course I got, and then from a question I had from a student.

I've said it before, I'm not a "pantser", a seat-of-the-pants writer who is so stinking creative that everything just flows out in perfect order. I know some of them, am in awe of their abilities (and their memories), but I could never hope to be one.

Because I have a lousy memory and because the

I Promised!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My writing students were all head-up about getting extra credit points and how they could earn them. I don't know why. Well, maybe it had to do with that pop quiz I gave on the first day. You think that scared them a little? Or it could have been the three-page syllabus that only covered the first 10 days of class?

Yeah, I guest that could have been it.

So anyway. I told them that they could get some extra credit points by visiting here and commenting when they saw an article about writing. I know, I'm a big ole softy, but HELLO!!!! This is the one for this week!!!!!

And I'm speaking of exclamation points.

To anyone with a third-grade education, an exclamation point expresses excitement. I hear the intro music to Schoolhouse Rock right now.

(Oh, oops, I'm showing my age. For those of you who didn't grow up in the 70s and 80s, SR played little educational tunes with dancing cartoon characters between commercials during Saturday morning kid's programming. They taught me what a Bill was, all about conjunctions and adverbs, and I still use the "Little Twelve-toes" song to remember the 12 multiplication table.)

The exclamation point was highlighted in the Interjections video. "For excitement or emotion, they're generally set apart from a sentence by an exclamation point, or by a comma when the feeling's not as strong."

Only I'm learning that those cool looking little punctuation marks that I used to dot with a heart aren't to be used in professional writing. Oh my gosh! I mean ... Oh my gosh.

From what I understand, those marks put a broad neon sign on my manuscript that blinks saying, "Novice, beginner, amateur." I'm so glad I learned that before I did much in the way of shopping my manuscript! Oops.

I can only guess that the mark became so woefully overused by freshman writers (No, not ya'll, I'm talking about newbies on the publishing scene at this point, like me.) that they detracted from the writing rather than adding to it.


I can live with that. I scaled my novel down from its several hundred points to only about 125. Okay, make it 75. Can I keep in about 30? But I really like that one!

Yes, I sacrificed every single one of those cute little dots on the pyres of writing professionalism. Rest in peace.

By the way, I can't think of any circumstance where an exclamation point could possibly be appropriate for expository writing. Hint. Hint.

Is there an acceptable time to use the exclamation point in fiction or non-fiction writing? I'd love to hear your opinion! Oops, did it again.