Sneak peek at Writing Rules! by Charles Gulotta

Jul 19, 2010 by Kay Elizabeth

Charles Gulotta, Author of Writing Rules! helps teach youngsters the rules of writing in a humorous, memorable way. For anyone who ever thought the subject had to be a stuffy and boring read, pick up a copy and watch your mind change. I’ll be doing a full review soon. Here are some snippets to whet your appetite in the meantime.

“Almost no one will be as impressed with your writing as you are. Sorry, but it’s true. And if you’re smart, you’ll use that little insight to drive you toward better work. Fix the punctuation. Get rid of that run-on sentence. Delete those extra words. People with good writing skills are an endangered species. Don’t go down with the rest of the pack.”

Sometimes the problem is too many nouns. If you’re going to use a pronoun to refer to one of them, be clear. This sentence is confusing :“Karl’s pet monkey died while he was on vacation in Denmark.”

“The clock is ticking, and you barely stop to think before starting to write. You remember that your grandfather — the one you never met — lost his life in a stampede while hunting blue wildebeest in Botswana. You know very little about hunting, aren’t sure if blue wildebeest are really blue, and have no idea where Botswana is. But it’s a real-life experience, so off you go.”

“Use that when you’re talking about a lamp or a skateboard or a beef burrito. For people, use who.”

The word than is used for comparisons. “A school bus is larger than a pineapple.”

Then refers to a sequence in time. “What did you do then, Dad, after you got hit by the lightning?”

Here are a few more examples of gerunds correctly modified by possessives:

“I must object to your yelling out insults during the funeral.”

“She grew tired of Ted’s dressing up in circus costumes at home.”

Charles Gulotta has worked as a freelance writer since 1980, and has self-published five educational books through his company, Mostly Bright Ideas. He also wrote a book on women in politics, published by Grolier, Inc., in 1998. A native New Yorker, Gulotta currently lives in Prince Edward Island, Canada, with his wife and their three children. His blog is at http://mostlybrightideas.wordpress.com.