Tip Tuesday #120

Tip Tuesday features writers' tips on craft, research, querying, blogging, marketing, inspiration, and more. If you'd like to send in a tip, please e-mail me at agentspotlight(at)gmail(dot)com.

Today's tip was sent in by Dale S. Rogers. Dale writes young adult and middle grade fiction, as well as articles, poetry, and adult fiction. You can find her at her blog here where she's been sharing some fun life anecdotes. Please give her a visit after you read her first tip submission below!

My Tuesday Tip involves using a word search to find the best words and sentence structure for prose. We all have pet words and phrases--those pesky little things that show up too often in our manuscripts. I never real- ized how much I overuse certain words until I utilized Ctrl F. I press and hold Ctrl, then I hit F. When the finder pops up, I type in the suspect word or phrase, click "find next," and watch the page numbers to gauge how close together the terms are as I continue the process.

Although time consuming, this tool has helped me to not only eliminate problem words, but to improve sentence structure, since I've also discovered other weaknesses in my writing while doing this in-depth search. When I find a substitute word for the one I've targeted, or decide the word can just be left out, I feel I'm improving my writing in more than one way. It's better to go through a document a little at at time, sincethis method can be tiring.

In addition to said, asked, and little, which we know to watch out for, some words I find so often in my work are: there, that, some, after, before, when, looked, glanced, thought, wondered, later, nodded, smiled, finished, finally, reached, and of the. I leave the ones that really belong, but other- wise, I try to find a better way to express what's going on, especially if the duplicate words are too close together. I just wish I'd started this practice years ago!

-Dale S. Rogers

Tip Tuesday #142

Tip Tuesday features writers' tips on craft, research, querying, blogging, marketing, inspiration, and more. If you'd like to send in a tip, please e-mail me at agentspotlight(at)gmail(dot)com.

Today's tip was sent in by Dale S. Rogers who submitted her first tip back in March; #120 on finding overused words. I hope you enjoy her second tip on naming characters and take a moment to visit her blog! You can also find her on Twitter @DaleSRogers.

WHAT'S IN A NAME? 

Names are important, as we all know. Some of us wish we could change ours (especially our middle names), while others are madly in love with theirs. Character names in fiction are important too. They give us that special something we need to identify personalities. Can you imagine Philias Fogg or Fagan going by any other moniker? I usually like finding names for my characters, but occasionally I hit a blank. What resources can we use to find the very best names to express what our characters are about without going overboard? Example: Mr. Goodguy.

An endless source would be the phone book, but I've recently realized some people don't have phone books because they use cell phones. The same person who revealed this to me likes to use Facebook, although it's more limited. We can buy books of names, but those are usually more contemporary, and of course, we need to use names which suit the time periods in which our stories are set.

Sometimes it's interesting to use names that have some kind of hidden meaning that's right for a certain character. For instance, for fourteen years we had a Siamese cat named Coco, mostly because of his dark brown points. When I looked up "Coco" in the dictionary, I learned it's from a Portuguese word meaning "bogeyman," which suited our cat perfectly, since for awhile he looked like he wore a mask.

And then there's a resource we haven't always had: Google. Just type in "Names," and you should be given the option of several nationalities, as well as Biblical names, and I even checked on space names not long ago. www.behindthename.com is a good site which separates masculine and feminine names and gives their definitions. Another website is meaning-of-names.com, which has each name's etymology as well as rankings, comments, ratings, and other statistics.

 Lastly, none of the character names in a story should be similar, so the reader won't be confused, and it's a good idea to not have any of their first names start with the same letter. As you can see, there are several methods we can use for naming our characters. So whichever you choose, have fun!

~Dale S. Rogers

Tip Tuesday #158

Tip Tuesday features writers' tips on craft, research, querying, blogging, marketing, inspiration, and more. If you'd like to send in a tip, please e-mail me at agentspotlight(at)gmail(dot)com.

I just love this clever tip sent in by Dale S. Rogers. Visit Dale at her blog dalesittonrogers, and check out her past tips, including #120 and #142. Enjoy! 

Grammar Problem?  Fix it With Addition and Subtraction

Grammar is complex, and it takes years to learn it correctly. But what if someone has to make a split-second decision and there's no time to pull out grammar books for an in-depth study of the English language?  I know we're talking about grammar, but the answer is addition and subtraction.

My mother taught English for years, and she expected her children to use proper grammar. We learned little tricks that make it simple to add pronouns to sentences. There's no need to complicate or overcompensate. Simply think about how the sentence would be without the new pronoun. Just because one is added, that doesn't mean the first one changes. Below are examples of the most common mistakes.

"Henry and I."  "Henry and me."  Which is it?  It depends on the sentence.

Some people think it's always better to say "I" rather than "me," when there are two pronouns in a sentence, but that's not the case.  I've even heard people on television being admonished for saying, "Henry and me," when it's correct. The person is overcompensating while trying to avoid the slip-up, "That's for me and Henry."  No one says, "That's for I," so why would anyone say, "That's for Henry and I?"  Without getting into subjects and direct objects, let's simplify the process. Subtract "Henry" for a moment, and you have your answer: "me."  "That's for Henry and me."

"Henry and I want to go."  "Henry and me want to go."

It's pretty obvious that "I" is proper this time. You would say, "I want to go," rather than, "Me want to go."  In your mind, add what is understood.  "want to go."  Who wants to go?  "Henry and I."

"Him and I."  "Him and me."  "He and I."

You wouldn't say, "Him is going," or "Me is going."  It's "He is going," and "I am going."  Who is going?  "He is."  "I am."  By adding the portion of the sentence that's understood, you have your answer.  "He and I are going."  "He and I."

It's unusual, but I actually heard someone say, "Henry and I's tickets."  It's also not, "Mine and Henry's tickets."  You wouldn't say, "Mine tickets." It's simply, "Henry's and my tickets."  Subtract Henry or the personal pronoun, and you have your answer.

So the next time you're in doubt, add it in or leave it out.

~ Dale Rogers