On the heels of my post about when to use “who” vs. “that,” today I thought I’d address an equally thorny differentiation: “that” vs. “which.” Mind you, somehow I managed to receive a degree in English without learning the difference between “that” and “which,” so don’t feel bad if you have no clue. It wasn’t […]
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I keep reading (and hearing) authors use the pronoun “that” when they should be using the pronoun “who,” so I thought I’d do a refresher post on the difference between the two. WHO refers to people: I am the one who is writing this blog post. You are the one who is reading the blog post. THAT refers […]
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Lately I’ve heard so many people confuse “went” with “gone” that I decided it was worth a blog post on the topic. “Went” and “gone” are both variations of the verb “to go” but are used in different tenses. Here’s an explanation of the difference: WENT is the simple past tense of TO GO: […]
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If you’re not familiar with the term “gerund,” it’s a noun that is created by adding “ing” to a verb. For example: Noun: To be Gerund: Being Noun: To write Gerund: Writing While gerunds are easy to use as simple subjects (Writing is important to me) or as objects (I love writing), they can be a […]
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A lot of people out there are afraid to use the pronoun “me.” I think the aversion must start in elementary school, when you proudly declare “Me and Gloria are best friends!” and your mom shakes her head and says, “Gloria and I are best friends.” Mom is right because in that instance “I” is a […]
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I’m always looking for ideas for this blog (as well as a good book to read), so I spend a chunk of my day keeping tabs on the publishing industry. Often when I stumble across an article about a new author, especially a new indie author, I head to Amazon to check out the book […]
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Many people, authors included, tend to capitalize words that shouldn’t be capitalized, probably because they aren’t aware of the rules. Here’s a quick refresher course regarding mistakes I see all the time: Job titles Job titles are capitalized only when they come directly before the person’s name. For example: Correct: Luca Maestri is the chief […]
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Are you confused about the difference between she/her and he/him? Here’s a quick lesson: She and he are subject pronouns. That means they are the subjects of a sentence, i.e., they represent a person doing something. For example: John wrote a book becomes he wrote a book Maria wrote a book becomes she wrote a book John and Maria […]
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Imagine you’re at a cocktail party and someone tells a brief story about his friend Buddy. Chances are the storyteller will name Buddy just once and use “he” from there on because everyone listening to the story knows he’s talking about Buddy. If the storyteller were to say, “Buddy did this, and then Buddy did […]
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I recently read two indie books that shared the following problem: they were both infested with run-on sentences. I don’t throw around the word “infested” very often, but I’m using it here to make a point. The run-on sentences ruined the reading experience for me. I was so distracted by the errors that I couldn’t […]
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