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I hope everyone has had a great month so far. It's been a while since we had a Grammar Rodeo from Cia, but it's back! Thank you, Cia for providing us with another great writing tip! The Structure of a Sentence Okay, so maybe this seems intuitive. After all, we all write sentences every day, right? But sometimes the visual we’re trying to get across doesn’t work because of the way the sentence has been written. A lot of the time, this can be chalked up to dangling modifiers. What are dangling modifiers? I bet you’ll realize you intuitively know what I mean once we get to the examples, even if you didn’t know you knew! So, dangling modifiers are words or phrases, usually offset by commas, that are supposed to explain more/better describe the subject of the sentence but don’t because the sentence structure either places the subject in the wrong place to work with the modifier or doesn’t have a subject at all. These can be dangling participles or gerunds, but that’s a little more exact than I want to go in for this lesson. We’ll come back to that though! Let’s try a few examples to show just how modifiers work, how they can go wrong, and how easily they can be fixed. Example: Having come to the same conclusion, the project temporarily halted. Having come to the same conclusion is our modifier, but the subject of this sentence is ‘the project’. Can the project come to the same conclusion? No. So the modifier is dangling because the true subject is missing from the sentence. Rephrased: Having come to the same conclusion, the contractor temporarily halted the project. The contractor can come to the same conclusion, so he can halt the project. Example: Without knowing what his job was, it was hard to pick the right outfit. “It” didn’t know his job? That doesn’t make sense. In this case, the surrounding information might make it clear who/what ‘it’ refers to, but that doesn’t prevent this sentence from having a dangling modifier. Rephrased: Without knowing what his job was, Jacob found it hard to pick the right outfit. Jacob didn’t know what his job was, so he could find it hard to pick the outfit. ​Example: Long and boring, the author must revise their manuscript. Is the author long and boring? No. In this case, the subject of the modifier is a ‘misplaced modifier’ because the manuscript is what is long and boring, not the author. Rephrased: Long and boring, the manuscript must be revised by the author. This phrase properly describes what is long and boring, which could not be the author as a person (we don’t usually call a person long, lol). So, basically when you have a modifier in the sentence, you want to make sure it takes place in the sentence close to the subject. If you’re unsure if you’ve structured the sentence properly to avoid a dangling or misplaced modifier, ask yourself, “Was the (subject) (dangling modifier)”? If you have it wrong, the question will usually show how your sentence doesn’t make sense. Was the project coming to the same conclusion? Was it not knowing what his job was? Was the author long and boring?

It's been a while since we had a Grammar Rodeo from Cia, but this month that feature has returned. Let's see what Cia has to say about.... NUMBERS! Let’s talk numbers! 01 001 1 100 0... no that’s not what I mean. LOL One of the subtle details that refines writing is how an author addresses numbers. Let’s face it, you can’t write anything at length without running into this issue because our lives are dictated by things like time and money. Numbers in Fiction Numbers at the beginning of a sentence. Basically a no no. Write these out instead of using the numerals, but if that doesn’t work, rephrase. You really don’t want to start a sentence with a numeral. Zero through One hundred. You’ll notice I spelled those out. That’s the rule! Zero through one hundred is written out. 101 and more, you can write the numerals. But what if I’m talking about hundreds, or thousands? Well, if it’s an odd number like 4759 you write it out with numerals, but if it’s a whole number like forty-seven thousand or five hundred, you’d spell those out. Dates. Years: Write these as numerals, though you could use twenty-twenty instead of 2020 if you really wanted to, but odd years, like 1999 would be awkward spelled out so numerals are just fine. Abbreviated years: You need a single apostrophe that is a ‘closed’ quote (the quote that comes at the end of closed’ because it’s taking the place of the missing numerals) such as ’99. Decades: 90s is plural for the years involved, folks, so no apostrophe needed! Months and days: Spell the month and write the day as a numeral when they are placed together, like December 21. If you are just using the date without the month, you spell it out like, “We’re going on vacation on the twenty-first.” Time: Not too complicated. If you’re doing a general timeframe, “Meet me at five thirty” you write it out. Same thing for “Meet me at a quarter to five” or any other variation of quarter of, half past, etc... and if you use o’clock you always spell out the time instead of using numerals. Where this does get a little tricky: The rule is if the time is emphasized, you can write it out as numerals. “Meet me at the airport on December 21 at 5:55 p.m.” but that’s more of a judgement call than a do or don’t rule. Noon and midnight. Always spell these out instead of using 12:00 a.m or p.m.. Money. Oh, so complicated this seems! Not really, though. Follow the zero through one hundred spelling rule and write out any money that can be written out like ninety-nine cents or five hundred dollars. If you are writing out a dollar and cents number, you can use numbers such as $500.95. If you have a number like 4759, you can write it out as $4,759 but don’t include the decimal and cents numerals unless you have other numbers that include them, like: “She charged me $500.95 to $4,759.00 for grammar lessons” for example. Addresses. There are three main components of this, and it’s not too hard. Specific addresses: Building numbers always precede the street name when you’re giving an address. Like: I live at 1234 Fifth Avenue. (Ha! I’m not really giving out my address!) If you’re naming a location, you would spell it out, like “One Police Plaza”. So those are the most common number usages I’ve seen in fiction. What about you? Anything you don’t think I covered and still need to know?

Ever wonder what the correct word to use is? Cia has written a blog entry to help show which word should be used in different instances. It's been a while since we had a Grammar Rodeo, but I find these posts to be rather informative and we hope you do too. Commonly Misused Words When writing, most authors know there are homophones to watch out for, and we all know the big ones like your/you’re/yore and there/their/they’re. But there are a lot of words that are harder to figure out because they’re not as common. Affect/Effect I know I’ve written this one up before, but I see it misused a lot. An affect is a verb and an effect is a noun. The way I remember it is affect = action word. If something is affecting something else, an action is occurring. Effect is the result of an action. Examples: I want this scene to affect my readers in a meaningful way. The effect of the scene was devastating. Me vs I Using I or me can be confusing for some, usually when used with another noun (usually another person). The difference in use is whether or not the pronoun is being used as the subject or object of the verb. I could explain the difference if you don’t automatically know the difference between subjects and objects in a sentence… or I could just remind you of the easy cheat: Take the other noun out of the sentence. Examples: Chase and me went to the store vs Chase and I went to the store. Take out ‘Chase and’ Me went to the store vs I went to the store. Easier to figure out. Can you send the files to Patrick and I? vs Can you send the files to Patrick and me? Can you send the files to I? vs Can you send the files to me? Peak vs Peek vs Pique Most people know peak vs peek, but I often see them used equally as often instead of pique because authors don’t know that’s a whole other spelling. Peak means a pointy point, like a mountain, peek means to take a quick look, and pique means to stimulate or be irritated. Examples: We climbed to the peak. She took a peek at the cake before the party. She left the party in a fit of pique, upset at the gossip circulating among the guests. Lose vs Loose Really, these words aren’t anywhere close to each other in meaning, but you see authors not knowing the difference all the time. Lose means to fail to keep/maintain or cease to have while loose means not tight, not in possession, lacking in restraint, ect…. These sentences are almost exactly the same but mean totally different things. Examples: Lose the ball means to get rid of it/not be able to find the ball. Loose the ball means to let the ball go, like if you threw it. Then vs Than I have a simple trick to help remember which should be used and when. First, what do they mean? Then indicates time and than compares items. Memory Trick Then = Time such as We went to the store then the park. Than = Compare such as The kids liked the trip to the park better than the store. Compliment vs Complement Another example where the words sound the same and are spelled very close… yet the meaning is completely different. You can use the letters to help remember here too. Complement means to complete or enhance something. Compliment means an expression of praise or the action of praising someone. Examples: Her scarf complemented her dress. He complimented her choice of scarf. Farther vs Further Yet again, similar but not the same. Both farther and further are often used as if they’re interchangeable, but in reality, there is a difference in the shades of meaning in the words that both mean ‘a great distance’. Unfortunately, I don’t have any tricks for this one, you just have to remember. Farther is used to indicate a physical distance and further is used to indicate a figurative distance. Examples: We went farther than any other team in the race. Nothing he said could further from the truth. What other words do you commonly see misused?