  Short Stories
This week: Wat? Oh, hai! LOL! Edited by: Legerdemain  
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The purpose of this newsletter is to help the Writing.com short story author hone their craft and improve their skills. Along with that I would like to inform, advocate, and create new, fresh ideas for the short story author. Write to me if you have an idea you would like presented.
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Practicing Good Grammar
I'm old.  Okay, I'm not ancient but I'm working on it. So, when I say something like "in my day..." you'll have to forgive me. On top of that, I got D's in English and have bad grammar and punctuation skills. I'm working on that, too.
So, in my day, before email and cell phones, there were fewer ways to communicate with one another. For very important or urgent stuff, we used the phone. Of course, the phone weighed a couple pounds and hung on the wall or sat on a table somewhere. You certainly couldn't carry it around in your pocket. If I wanted to converse with a friend I met at the campground last weekend, I had to write a letter. The letters always addressed the person I was writing to - Dear _____, . Letter writing was an art. You had to make life sound interesting and ask the other person questions about themselves, then mail it off and wait for a reply.
Now there's email. I've gotten emails from people who barely know me and think they should call me Hon. Hon is okay if you know me well enough to know it amuses me, but not if you're asking about a job. If your emails are about something businesslike, keep the grammar and text businesslike. And use spell check. Anyone who doesn't use spell check is a goober. Browsers like Chrome do it automatically...so pay attention to those squiggly lines.
Let's talk about your portfolio and your stories. I'm sure nearly all the editors of newsletters have done articles on good grammar and punctuation in your stories. The point I would like to make (besides that) is try to write well in your every day communication. We all understand "LOL" and its accepted part of internet society, but keep those acronyms out of important missives like queries and emails with your publisher. This also applies to your reviews and forum communication on the site. Show people you can spell and communicate on a professional level. This gives a better first impression of yourself and will attract interest in your work.
Write on!
This month's question: Do you have any grammar horror stories to tell?
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Excerpt: It came from nowhere and blazed across the sky and crashed into the mountainside. Soon the area was filled with military vehicles, soldiers and scientists.
Excerpt: Today, all I wanted was a warm piece of buttered toast, and because that’s all I wanted, I wanted it to be the best warm buttered toast possible; made with only the finest toast making ingredients, and cooked in the finest toasting appliance ever made …so I went down to my local Gigantic Boxo-Mart Store and bought the best, most expensive stainless steel Oster® name brand toaster they had on the shelf. Then, leaving all the lesser toasters behind, I headed to the checkout counter.
Excerpt: Male voices echoed in the darkness and the man stepped into the hallway. Somewhere beneath the cloud of panic that rooted Haroon to the spot, he knew he shouldn’t really have let the guy out of the cellar. After all, the others down there might follow suit, like the line of blokes in identical overalls who then filed out of the doorway, a surging centipede of removal men.
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#1948842 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: On his head, such a silly hat. It looks to be three sizes too small. Resting at the back, when he leans over it's a miracle that is does not just slide off. It's clear that he is as bald as a babies bottom. Matter of fact other than his eyebrows, he has no hair anywhere on his face or head. Does he shave it? Or does it just refuse to grow? If he had it, hair, I'm sure that it would be grey or white. It's got to be quite stressful doing what he does? Driving a train at full speed that is.
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#1947213 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: “It’s unbecoming,” her father said. “If suitors see you riding, they will think of you as a child. I need you to be an adult for me. It’s time to grow up.”
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#1946451 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: “I am trying to see if he has a pulse!” stammered Shirley, unnerved by the angry expression on the nurse’s face.
“Of course he doesn’t have a pulse. None of them do.”
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This month's question: Do you have any grammar horror stories to tell?
Last month's question: What tips do you have for trimming adjectives from writing? ?
dragonwoman  replied: Read and re-read. Take out an adjective(s) and see how it sounds without by reading it aloud.
Dawn Embers  answered: With adverbs, I look at every one, in particular the -ly ones and ask myself if they are doing enough to make it worth the word count they use. Often times they take up more space than they are worth and it's easier to remove them.
zarkianmouse  responded: Try to find words that enhance the sentence. Too much makes that story seem like too much glam and not enough meat to the story while too little makes the story go by too fast and doesn't always let the reader imagine the actual scene. If you are going to find adjectives, also don't try to find ones that are simplistic so much as they look beautiful in the scene.
fran99 advised: A rule I learned so long ago that I don't recall where: "Never use the word 'very'." I believe it was about writing poetry, but it applies any where. Its main value is to force you to find a more specific or dramatic modifier.
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Short Stories: August 28, 2013 Issue [#5859]
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