21 fortunes for writers

I’ve always thought it would be fun to write the fortunes found in fortune cookies. I’m not nearly clever enough to come up with, “The fortune you seek is in another cookie,” or, “It would be best to maintain a low profile for now,” but see what you think of these: Leo Tolstoy handwrote War and Peace by candlelight. Use the singular “they.” Go on. Try it. Hypergraphia: A compulsion to write, sometimes uncontrollably. Every time you misuse an exclamation mark, a puppy dies. Clarity begins at home. Read what makes you happy. It’s all fun and games until...

7 quick rules for commas

There is probably no more controversial punctuation mark than the comma. Give three editors the same paragraph, tell them to add commas, and you will end up with three paragraphs in which the commas are all used differently. The Chicago Manual of Style sums up the issue quite nicely: “Effective use of the comma involves good judgment, with ease of reading the end in view.” Keeping this in mind, here are seven general guidelines for using comma. 1. Use a comma after opening dependent clauses or long adverbial phrases. Here’s an example: “If our click-through rate...

35 commonplace words that PR pros misspe...

This week, I set out to answer a simple question: What are the most difficult words to spell in the English language? I quickly discovered that I should re-frame the question: What are the most difficult, commonly used words in the English language? There are plenty of obscure, impossible-to-spell words. These are words used at national spelling bees, such as stichomythia or succedaneum. However, when was the last time you used “succedaneum” in a press release? Below is a collection of commonplace words that people misspell the most, based on a consensus from online...

Rhetoric lessons from “Star Trek&#...

Figures of speech, when used correctly, add depth to our content and help us paint a descriptive picture. When they are used incorrectly, the results can be silly and confusing—such as mangled metaphors and colorful turns of phrases. “Star Trek’s” Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy might be a poster boy for incorrect usage. Whether he uttered them in the original series, the classic films or the newer movies, the chief medical officer of the Enterprise peppers his language with clichés, mixed metaphors and other linguistic head-shakers. Here are a few examples (quotes...

8 activities to jump-start your creativi...

“Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: It’s always you versus a blank sheet of paper [or a blank screen], and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.”—Neil Gaiman We’ve all been there. Unable to call up the right words, we stare blankly at our screens and grow increasingly frustrated. What would happen if we let the blank screen win? Instead, we can work on other tasks related to our assignment, but not the writing itself. Would we have more success when we returned to the writing later on? Let’s find out. Here are eight related tasks to try: 1....