Tag: Pen to Paper

Pen to Paper: Comma Rules

Posted on by bryon

By the time I finished collecting diplomas for completing high school, my bachelor’s degree, and my master’s degree and spending 15 years editing daily newspapers, I thought I understood the comma pretty well.

When I started editing non-fiction book manuscripts, I realized that I didn’t know much of anything about the comma. The people I was working for did know all about the comma, and I had to improve my game quickly.

I was on my way to a bad case of tennis elbow by constantly reaching for the heavy Chicago Manual of Style to look up comma rules. It was also tedious and time-consuming. So I made a cheat sheet, condensing most of Chicago’s picky comma rules onto a single sheet of paper, which I posted in plain sight. (It was not the only cheat sheet I made to save myself time and heavy lifting. Why there should be different styles for endnotes and bibliography remains a mystery.)

Below is my aide-mémoire for exacting comma use, offered for your use. Again, this is taken from the Chicago Manual of Style, 5th ed. If you’re writing or editing for a publication or company, you’ll need to use whatever stylebook you’re told to. Such books are often at odds with each other. Don’t take any of it personally; just do the job the way the people writing the checks want it done and be happy.

* * *

Comma rules

* Use commas to separate words, phrases, or clauses in a series.

The flag was red, white, and blue. I came, I saw, I conquered. They walked, ran, and rode to their destinations.

* Use commas to list adjectives in a series if they are of equal importance.

(If you could say the word “and” between each adjective, use a comma. If not, don’t.)

They live in a large, modern two-story home.

* Use commas before coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, yet, for, so) to join two independent clauses.

(This means having two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction to create a compound sentence.)

He had no proper breeding, and he lacked spirit.

* Use commas to set off introductory elements.

Adverb: First, I need to go to the bank.

Prepositional phrase: After dinner, let’s watch a movie.

Appositive (a noun cluster that specifies another noun in the sentence): A lazy dog, Norman had no interest in chasing cars.

Participial phrase (a verb form that modifies a noun or pronoun): Unmoved by his coworkers’ pleas, the boss’ son decided to rat them out.

Infinitive phrase (to followed by a verb): To be honest, I can’t stand the sight of him.

Dependent clause: If you’re going to town, I am going with you.

* Use commas to set off strong pauses in the middle or at the end of a sentence.

Appositive: Janet, the mother of six, changed lots of diapers.

Conjunctive adverb (an adverb that modifies the whole sentence): The robber, nevertheless, took the things of sentimental value.

Prepositional phrase: That barber is, without a doubt, the handiest with a razor.

Participial phrase: The dog, hidden by the trees, watched the duck.

Direct address: When you go, Fred, take that with you.

Parenthetical clause: I prefer red, of course, but blue will be fine.

Nonrestrictive clause (a clause not necessary to understand the meaning of the sentence): The cat, which had never before seen a mouse, leaped to the hunt.

* Use commas to set off complete quotations.

* Use a comma whenever doing so will prevent confusion.

Pen to Paper: The Business of Writing Fiction

Posted on by bryon

Most people, when they start writing, don’t think of it as a business. They’re focused on their art and their craft, which makes perfect sense. It may be a stereotype, but I’ve found a lot of truth in the observation that creative people are stymied by numbers and the more mundane, practical activities in life. We do better when we’re in our own heads, creating our own worlds and our own visions.

But as Kameron Hurley shows us, if you want to be a professional or semi-pro or even part-time writer for money, you’ve got to think of yourself as a business owner. If you want to share your writing for free, as I’ve done here at Catsignal, then you can skip this. Otherwise, take good note of what Hurley has learned from hard experience so you won’t also have to learn the business end of writing the hard way.

Pen to Paper: An Appreciation of a Paragraph

Posted on by bryon

This short article is perfectly straightforward: Benjamin Dreyer, copy chief at Random House, explains his fondness for the first paragraph of Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House. He makes a pretty good case for it.

This is what writers who want to be better writers do. When we find something so perfect, we dissect it to see what makes it work, so we can then do similar things. This is good practice whether it’s a sentence, a paragraph, a plot, or a character. And unlike dissecting, say, a frog, knowing how the literary thing works doesn’t kill it. Indeed, it may be more alive than before.

So enjoy Dreyer’s examination of Jackson’s paragraph. But before I go, let me share something else of Shirley Jackson’s with you. It’s the entire text of her reply to someone who wrote to savage one of her stories: “If you don’t like my peaches, don’t shake my tree.” Simple, pithy, and, one presumes, effective.

Pen to Paper: The Peril at the Inkwell

Posted on by bryon

Today’s meditation is about the dangers of being a creative person in a time of political turmoil. Naturally, this applies equally well to most other walks of life, but we focus on writing here.

Chuck Wendig is a successful novelist. You can see his credits at his site, Terrible Minds. You’ll note some Star Wars titles among his own original novels. He blogs at his site, discussing the writing life and doling out wonderful free advice. He’s collected this advice into a few books, too, and he truly knows his art and craft. He also gets political on his site and on his Twitter account. He pulls absolutely no punches when opinionating; anyone the tiniest bit interested can easily know where they stand vis-á-vis Wendig’s politics. There should be no surprises.

But Wendig was surprised last Friday. The responses to his political stands drew more attention than Marvel Comics was willing to put up with. He told the story on Twitter and collected the tweets into readable form at his blog.

Before we go further into the morass, there are some players you need to be aware of. First, the Gamergate morons. Briefly: Gamergate is a war over who is truly a nerd. Women and minorities need not apply, those with liberal political philosophies are banned as are men who support women and minorities, and the tactics used against anyone the gaters hate include threats of rape and murder, and swatting. Second, the chairman of Marvel Entertainment is a Trump fan and was one of the men listed as running the Department of Veterans Affairs from outside the government. There are credible reports that he is homophobic, racist, and misogynistic. Exactly as one would expect of a friend of Trump.

I could all too easily broaden the scope and mention many more who have hurt and been hurt in creative industries, but I’m going to stay focused on Wendig. Even so, let us not forget the many others whose careers have been harmed and whose lives have been made a hellscape because of horrible people. Wendig notes some of them in his blog post.

Chuck Wendig is a successful white man in a white man’s America. But he doesn’t wear Trump’s red cap or the Klan’s white hood (interchangeable, of course), and he believes that everyone should be treated fairly, so he still ends up being targeted by people with room-temperature IQs and negative empathy scores. It took some time, but they finally scored a hit against him.

What does this mean for us? Two things, I think.

1) It’s not safe to play in someone else’s sandbox. There’s no inalienable right to write Star Wars books and comics. That’s a privately owned universe, and the owners get to pick and choose who gets to have fun telling those stories. Also, the nutjobs among the fans will punish you for stepping outside what they consider the lines of their fandom. A writer is better off in the long run to create his own characters and build a fortress from his backlist. Then, if you like, cross your moat to see about other people’s characters.

2) It is crucial that we all get out and vote Democratic, retaking as much of the Congress and as many governors mansions and state legislatures as possible. The so-called Blue Wave is primarily about voting, but the purpose of voting is to try to push the haters back under their rocks. To make racism and sexism and all the other hate-isms shameful again so that people can’t run about proudly declaring their hate. To rebuild an American society that looks less like Nazi Germany’s than ours presently does. (N.B.: I’ve read a lot of history, and I do not consider that I am being either melodramatic or hyperbolic.)

Nothing in Wendig’s sad tale urges us to give up or to make no waves. We have to be fearless with everything we write. Art is political. Use your art to everyone’s best advantage.

Pen to Paper: #Cockygate

Posted on by bryon

Writers and other creative folks will want to keep an eye on a trademark controversy that exploded recently.

Romance author Feelina Hopkins has trademarked the word “cocky” and is telling other romance writers who have that word in the titles of their books to change their titles – even if those titles predate her own. Needless to say, this has caused an uproar in the romance world, and it’s going to be a cautionary tale for everyone else no matter how it shakes out.

Romance author and retired attorney Kevin Kneupper (Twitter) has filed a challenge (Dropbox) to Hopkins’ trademark with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. He says it could take up to 18 months for the issue to be settled.

Pen to Paper: Literary Estate

Posted on by bryon

Let’s start the new year by talking about our wills.

Now, now. Don’t give me that look. I am reliably informed that we’ve all got to go sometime. And we’re all leaving a lot of detritus behind us that we owe the courtesy of helping to clean up. In the last few years, I’ve seen firsthand what happens when one does and when one doesn’t leave a will. You’re being unkind to your next of kin if you don’t.

But whatever you decide to do about Great Aunt Nellie’s smoked-glass candy dish, let’s focus on what we creative types might do with our intellectual property rights. It is my understanding (lawyers, jump in and correct me if necessary) that IP rights don’t automatically accompany an estate. So all those poems and songs you wrote? The novel you self-published? The twenty years worth of plays you wrote for the local theater? If you don’t specify in your will who gets the rights to those, no one gets them.

Copyright law, at present (until The Mouse gets it extended yet again), says a creative work is copyrighted at the moment of creation and for seventy years after the creator’s death (longer in some cases). For seventy years, no one has the right to use or republish your work. How well-remembered do you expect to be after seven decades?

People who earned their daily bread and fed their families with their creative works have not given thought to this dilemma. Back in October 2006, Neil Gaiman wrote with a heavy heart about his friend John M. Ford, an author of no small note, who had died without making final arrangements for his literary estate. And another writer whose not-quite-ex-wife ended up with his copyrights, to everyone’s detriment. Gaiman and a lawyer friend offer a short and sweet solution in that post, so go check it out.

I’m a little past a half century. I’m hoping for another thirty years or so, but I’m working on documenting things like I’ve got until late next week. Just to be polite. It’s pretty easy, really, except for what to do with my little literary estate, most of which can be found on this site. It isn’t much, but I’m fairly proud of what I have done. I had once thought of just releasing the copyrights upon my death, but I’m not so sure about that now. On the off chance that something I’ve done could, in fact, become popular, why should some schmuck I never knew get comfortably well off from it? But I doubt that any of my relatives would want to fuss with my writing. So I’m a bit stuck at the moment.

So, to the comments! What provisions have you made for your literary estate?

Pen to Paper: Love and Torture

Posted on by bryon

No, that is not a Frank Sinatra song used as the theme for a popular sitcom.

I have been thinking about this for quite a while now. There are words whose definitions we exaggerate to the point of hyperbole in an effort to convey strong feelings. E.g.:

“I love this new book.”

“Watching that movie was torture.”

I’m calling time-out to consider whether these are appropriate uses.

Continue reading “Pen to Paper: Love and Torture” →

Author’s Note: More Changes Around Here

Posted on by bryon

Okay, I said – was it really just two weeks ago? – that the Pen to Paper feature was going to be a little slipshod for a while. On second thought, it’s just going to disappear until I’ve got time to do something useful with it. That brings us down to a haiku on Tuesdays, a Quoteable on Wednesdays, and a new piece of short fiction on Thursdays – when I can manage it.

If I see something worth sharing at someone else’s site, I’ll do so in an Author’s Note, but that’ll be scattershot, not scheduled (although I’ll do it scattershot on a Monday if I’ve got something). When I a) get accustomed to everything on my plate, or b) clear something off my plate, then I’ll get back to writing the Pen to Paper essays.

Thank you for your understanding.

Pen to Paper: Scooby-Doo and the Search for the Truth

Posted on by bryon

Chris Sims has given more thought to Scooby-Doo than ever I and fifty of my closest friends combined have done. And he has discovered some things about the cartoon that have been sitting in plain sight but haven’t previously been noticed much.

I started with Scooby-Doo when Scooby-Doo started in 1969; the show was part of my regular Saturday morning cartoonfest (back when I voluntarily woke up before noon). It didn’t take me long to understand that Daphne would get the gang deeper into trouble, that Shaggy and Scooby would alternate between making a comic stand in the face of danger and running full-tilt from that danger, and that Fred and Velma would put their heads together and think their way to solving the mystery. There was always a con-man behind the curtain who would have gotten away with his nefarious schemes had it not been for those meddling kids. Sims tells us why this works and explores its larger implications.

There’s plenty for writers to think about here. Enjoy.

Pen to Paper: Starting the Year on the Lighter Side

Posted on by bryon

Welcome back to another year of Catsignal.

This is shaping up to be a busy year for me as I add teaching duties to my usual freelance work. Consequently, the Pen to Paper feature may become more of a weekly link or linkfest rather than deep, well-considered insight from me. But there are lots of writers with valuable things to say to us, and I’ll be pleased to help spread their words. (What the new schedule might mean for fiction on Thursdays remains to be seen. I haven’t written anything for this week yet…)

As proof, we’re going to start things off with a funny, yet perceptive, look at projects we have effectively abandoned: Twelve Ways to tell if Your Novel is Dead. I’ve got a couple of these that I might just as well admit are as finished as they’re going to get … but I don’t think I will.