A comma splice is one of those errors where if you see one, you know what you’ve got. It’s when two independent thoughts collide without any connection between them. For example: “The archive was locked, Mara kept the key.” It seems like it should work. It sounds okay, until you realize that it doesn’t have […]

If you’ve been editing for more than a few minutes, chances are you’ve come across countless sentences where everything seem fine except for one little thing: something just doesn’t sound right. There’s no issue with the logic or even the rhythm, but something about how it sounds isn’t quite clicking. That’s typically an issue with […]

If one teacher has told you to remove interjections from your dialogue, it can seem like this: that your conversation is dead. Perhaps you’ve labored for weeks on conversations that sound real, only to get back a manuscript riddled with “wows” and “ohs,” circled in red. It’s not pretty. Too many burst make the prose […]

Coordinating conjunctions connects your ideas, and they allow your writing to have structure and flow. There is seven of these coordinating conjunctions, called FANBOYS. A coordinating conjunction connect two clauses and shows relationship between ideas. Too many will make your writing ramble; too few will make your writing sound abrupt. Find that happy medium with […]