10 Sure-Fire Ways to Stop Making Writing So Hard

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Why Do We Make It Harder Than It Needs to Be?

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It’s amazing how often we undercut our own progress, cause a power failure, make things hard on ourselves. We set up roadblocks and wonder why the path is hard to travel. We take the long way home, because we fear the easy way. We shoot ourselves in the foot, and we don’t know that we’re doing it.

In training writers, I’ve seen people talk themselves out of writing in so many ways. Most of the ways are easy to stop if you know that you’re doing them. If you think you might be making things harder than they need to be. Hang on. I’ve got the list for you. Read more

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PH2: Less and Fewer — Don’t Learn to Write by TV

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TV Has It Wrong

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Language is a changing thing. The changes first happen in conversation and eventually they become accepted in written language as well. That’s what happened with that old rule Don’t finish a sentence with a preposition.

Power Hits prove that not everything you see in print, hear in a song, or watch on TV are correct.

In this case, two words the mass media can’t seem to get right are less and fewer. So let’s settle that matter once and for all. Read more

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Content or Copy: Ignore the Difference at Your Own Risk

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The Pigeons and the Preacher?

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When we were first married, my husband I were walking through a city park. The lawn was filled with pigeons. He voiced the most unusual thought. “Why are pigeons always the same size?” he said. “What if they are all baby pigeons and a great mother pigeon lives up on the roof of one of those buildings?”

Shortly thereafter we passed a young man in scruffy clothes who told us that the world was ending. He asked us to change the way we were living. He offered us the reasons and joys of how living his way would make our lives wonderful and give us peace forever. I wondered whether he’d heard the conversation about the pigeons.

If the two messages had been written as text–one would be content; the other would be copy.

Do know see the difference? I don’t mean to hold you hostage. But ignore the difference at your own risk. Read more

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PWH 1: I Versus Me

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In this Corner

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The two contenders — I and me — are ready to come out fighting. I’d better referee.

It’s a problem.

When do I put me into a sentence?

There is a solution.

It works like this.

    1. I and me are pronouns.

    2. They’re called first person pronouns because they name the person who is speaking or writing — I am speaking about me.

    3. When the pronoun is the subject or the doer of the action, use I.
    I like you.
    Ann and I need links.
    I want you to send money.
    Test the sentence that uses “Ann and I” by taking out the other person.
    I need links.

    4. When the pronoun is the object or receiver of the action, use me.
    You like me.
    The project team applauded Cat and me.
    You gave me the money I needed.

    5. When the pronoun comes after a preposition, use the object form.
    to me
    for Cat and me
    with Ann and me
    Test the sentence that uses “Cat and me” by taking out the other person.
    for me
    with me

    6. When the verb is a form of “to be,” such is, are, or was use the subject form on both sides.
    It is I.
    I am woe.
    The winners are Cat and I.
    The leads are Ann and I.
    Where was I?
    This is the one that makes everyone get all of the other ones wrong. If you know this is the exception, you’re fine.

    7. The rules work the same for he and him; she and her; they and them.

I will now be leaving the ring. Match settled without a punch between I and me.

Any questions?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you think Liz can help you with your writing, check out the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

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Bad Boys: Every Kid Knows When to Use a Comma

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What I Remember

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I’ve been hearing a lot about a bad boy who’s been hanging around lately. Bad boys of writing are tapes in our head that tell us things that undercut our productivity. This particular bad boy is more of a nuisance than most because he thinks we should remember every detail about writing we learned in school.

The Every Kid Bad Boy says “What’s wrong with you? Every kid knows when to use a comma. Why don’t you?”

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