Second Deadly Sin – Improper Use of Apostrophes
I cannot speak for anyone else, but I know that personally I get very annoyed when I see writers using the apostrophe where it does not belong. I can overlook this when reading chat messages from friends who have English as a second language, I can even overlook this when I find it while grading a 5th grader’s essay, but I think that it is inexcusable when an adult writer uses it. We should know better.
Basically, you use an apostrophe in two cases.
To show possession. For example:
Helen’s car broke down.
Grammar is everyone’s friend.
One has to choose one’s words carefully.
Here you are quite simply showing possession.
Bear in mind though, this does not indicate plural. The examples as shown above apply only to the singular form of a noun. If however, the noun is in its plural form, which likely will have the word ending in an s, use the apostrophe after the s.
For example:
We visited his sister’s house. (this indicates one sister)
We visited his sisters’ house. (whereas this indicates more than one sister)
Is this clear? I trust that it isn’t too confusing.
There are also exceptions to this rule, which may seem confusing. Nevertheless I will attempt to explain it as simply as possible.
This rule never applies to personal pronouns (words like I, you, she, he, we, they, it). These words indicate possession by becoming a whole new word, therefore they don’t require an apostrophe.
Here are some examples :
The teacher said the book was hers.
The dog shook its head.
The choir claimed it was theirs.
But really it was ours.
The other purpose of the apostrophe would be to mark omitted letters in contractions.
Some examples of contraction are:
Don’t – Do not
Aren’t – Are not
Can’t – Can not
They’ve – They have
I need to mention that it’s/its are two of the most commonly confused words, so be sure that you are using the correct form in the proper context.
It’s is a contraction for it is. It’s is NEVER a possessive.
Its is the possessive for it.
For example: It’s a brave cat that shakes its tail at a dog.
Enough said? I think so.
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Sherzahd
2 hours ago
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First Deadly Sin – Passive Voice
For the benefit of those of us who do not know the difference between active voice and passive voice, I will explain it in terms that are hopefully easy to understand.
I will start with active voice, as it is the simpler form of writing. In an active sentence, the subject is doing the action.
For example, “Jessica wrote the letter.”
“Jessica” is the subject of that sentence, and she is the one doing the action, or “acting upon the verb”, so this sentence is said to be in the active voice.
Thus it stands to reason that in passive voice the subject of your sentence receives an action.
For example, “The letter was written by Jessica.”
“The letter” now gets promoted to being the subject, yet isn’t “doing” anything in the sentence, instead it is being “acted upon”, so this sentence is said to be in passive voice.
Most editors advise that you avoid writing in passive voice if you are writing a creative piece. I am not saying that the use of passive voice is wrong, as there will be times when it is entirely acceptable, but generally when writing a story, it is best to avoid it. Passive voice comes across as unclear and oftentimes confusing or vague, whereas active voice tends to be more concise.
Classic examples of passive voice can be found when listening to politicians speak. Have you ever noticed how they can talk for hours without really saying anything at all? Or without taking any real responsibility for their actions? Lawyers use it as well, it helps them to intentionally hide intent and keep all references to the subject vague.
There are times when passive voice would be the more effective option though, for example when you are writing a mystery novel or any other piece that requires suspense and an element of ambiguity or vagueness.
For example, “The editor was murdered by a writer.” And “A writer murdered the editor.”
The first sentence is in passive form, which makes “The editor” your subject, whereas the second sentence is in the active form, which now promotes “The writer” into being the subject. While neither sentence is incorrect, the sentence in passive form would be best suited to a mystery novel, as it draws your focus to the crime that was committed, rather than to the perpetrator of the crime, which would be what you need in the initial stages of your story.
I feel like I will be drifting too far off my intended point if I continue, so I will rest here for now. I trust that this will help at least one person in writing more effectively.
For the benefit of those of us who do not know the difference between active voice and passive voice, I will explain it in terms that are hopefully easy to understand.
I will start with active voice, as it is the simpler form of writing. In an active sentence, the subject is doing the action.
For example, “Jessica wrote the letter.”
“Jessica” is the subject of that sentence, and she is the one doing the action, or “acting upon the verb”, so this sentence is said to be in the active voice.
Thus it stands to reason that in passive voice the subject of your sentence receives an action.
For example, “The letter was written by Jessica.”
“The letter” now gets promoted to being the subject, yet isn’t “doing” anything in the sentence, instead it is being “acted upon”, so this sentence is said to be in passive voice.
Most editors advise that you avoid writing in passive voice if you are writing a creative piece. I am not saying that the use of passive voice is wrong, as there will be times when it is entirely acceptable, but generally when writing a story, it is best to avoid it. Passive voice comes across as unclear and oftentimes confusing or vague, whereas active voice tends to be more concise.
Classic examples of passive voice can be found when listening to politicians speak. Have you ever noticed how they can talk for hours without really saying anything at all? Or without taking any real responsibility for their actions? Lawyers use it as well, it helps them to intentionally hide intent and keep all references to the subject vague.
There are times when passive voice would be the more effective option though, for example when you are writing a mystery novel or any other piece that requires suspense and an element of ambiguity or vagueness.
For example, “The editor was murdered by a writer.” And “A writer murdered the editor.”
The first sentence is in passive form, which makes “The editor” your subject, whereas the second sentence is in the active form, which now promotes “The writer” into being the subject. While neither sentence is incorrect, the sentence in passive form would be best suited to a mystery novel, as it draws your focus to the crime that was committed, rather than to the perpetrator of the crime, which would be what you need in the initial stages of your story.
I feel like I will be drifting too far off my intended point if I continue, so I will rest here for now. I trust that this will help at least one person in writing more effectively.
Administration
THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF WRITING (in my humble opinion)
At the risk of sounding pompous or arrogant; I’ve compiled a list of things that I have found to be the seven most common mistakes made by us amateur writers. I am in no way saying that I am a good writer; in fact I will be the first to admit that I myself am guilty of committing most of these sins, but I do feel that the first step to improving your writing is to know what to avoid doing.
I promise to try and be as brief as possible and to keep it relatively painless.
At the risk of sounding pompous or arrogant; I’ve compiled a list of things that I have found to be the seven most common mistakes made by us amateur writers. I am in no way saying that I am a good writer; in fact I will be the first to admit that I myself am guilty of committing most of these sins, but I do feel that the first step to improving your writing is to know what to avoid doing.
I promise to try and be as brief as possible and to keep it relatively painless.
Administration
Yes, book shepherds are quite useful if you are self-publishing. They are good at guiding you through the process and a lot cheaper than getting a publisher. In my opinion you only need them the first time, once you know the process you can do it by yourself. They have wonderful resources though.
Administration
It does depend on what the site's policy is. If the right to edit your work without your consent is in the fine print that most of us never read when signing up, then they have the right to do that. Although I feel that if someone feels a need to edit your work, then the least they can do is notify you.
Personally I would pull all of my work off a site like that, but that is just me. The views and the votes aren't that important to me, I wouldn't want to be on a site where the powers that be has so little integrity.
Personally I would pull all of my work off a site like that, but that is just me. The views and the votes aren't that important to me, I wouldn't want to be on a site where the powers that be has so little integrity.
Administration
Dear Lord... you know I never ask for much, but I really would appreciate 5 day weekends and longer days... an extra 6 hours will do (or if you can't do that, then make me need less sleep?).
And maybe just a tiny bit more self restraint so I spend less time chatting and more time writing.
Amen
And maybe just a tiny bit more self restraint so I spend less time chatting and more time writing.
Amen
Administration
1. Put an (x) after those you have read.
2. Put (#) those you plan on reading.
3. Put (~) next to those you didn't finish reading for whatever reason.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen [x]
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien [x]
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte [x]
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling [x]
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee [xxxxxxx] Too many times
6 The Bible [x]
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte [x]
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell []
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman [ ]
10 Great Expectation - Charles Dickens [x]
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott [x]
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy []
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller [x]
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare [x] Most of them several times
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier []
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien [x]
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk []
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger [x]
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger [x]
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot []
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell [x]
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald [x]
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens []
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [x]
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams [x]
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky []
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck [x]
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll [x]
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame [x]
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy []
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens [x]
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis [x]
34 Emma - Jane Austen [x]
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen []
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis[x]
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini []
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres [x]
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden [x]
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne [x]
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell [x]
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown [x]
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez []
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving []
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins []
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery [x]
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy [x]
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood []
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding [x]
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan [x]
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel []
52 Dune - Frank Herbert []
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons []
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen[x]
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth []
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon []
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens [x]
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley [x]
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon []
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez []
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck [x]
62 - Vladimir Nabokov [x]
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt []
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold [x]
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas [xxxxxx] Never tire of reading this
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac []
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy []
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie []
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville [x]
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens [x]
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker [x]
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett []
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson []
75 Ulysses - James Joyce [x]
76 The Inferno – Dante [x]
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome []
78 Germinal - Emile Zola []
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray []
80 Possession - AS Byatt []
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens [x]
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell []
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker []
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro []
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert []
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry []
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White [x]
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom []
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [x]
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton []
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad []
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery []
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks [ ]
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams [x]
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole [ ]
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute [x]
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas [x]
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare [x]
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl [x]
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo [x]
2. Put (#) those you plan on reading.
3. Put (~) next to those you didn't finish reading for whatever reason.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen [x]
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien [x]
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte [x]
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling [x]
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee [xxxxxxx] Too many times
6 The Bible [x]
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte [x]
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell []
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman [ ]
10 Great Expectation - Charles Dickens [x]
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott [x]
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy []
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller [x]
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare [x] Most of them several times
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier []
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien [x]
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk []
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger [x]
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger [x]
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot []
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell [x]
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald [x]
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens []
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [x]
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams [x]
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky []
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck [x]
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll [x]
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame [x]
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy []
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens [x]
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis [x]
34 Emma - Jane Austen [x]
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen []
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis[x]
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini []
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres [x]
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden [x]
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne [x]
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell [x]
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown [x]
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez []
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving []
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins []
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery [x]
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy [x]
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood []
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding [x]
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan [x]
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel []
52 Dune - Frank Herbert []
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons []
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen[x]
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth []
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon []
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens [x]
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley [x]
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon []
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez []
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck [x]
62 - Vladimir Nabokov [x]
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt []
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold [x]
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas [xxxxxx] Never tire of reading this
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac []
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy []
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie []
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville [x]
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens [x]
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker [x]
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett []
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson []
75 Ulysses - James Joyce [x]
76 The Inferno – Dante [x]
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome []
78 Germinal - Emile Zola []
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray []
80 Possession - AS Byatt []
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens [x]
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell []
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker []
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro []
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert []
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry []
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White [x]
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom []
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [x]
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton []
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad []
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery []
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks [ ]
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams [x]
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole [ ]
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute [x]
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas [x]
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare [x]
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl [x]
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo [x]