Literary Cove
A PLACE FOR AUTHORS TO GROW
Purpose is the goal or aim of a piece of writing: to express oneself, to provide information, to persuade, or to create a literary work. ... When someone communicates ideas in writing, they usually do so to express themselves, inform their reader, to persuade a reader or to create a literary work.
Sensei's Hollow
Welcome to...
Greetings and salutations, young writers,
I am Malaena Medford, author of the Saga of Lycantis, a werewolf fantasy, and the Dagam Faer series, a cyberpunk science fiction series. I am mainly self-taught, but I gain inspiration from other authors, movies, and works. My passion is art, especially drawing in hyperrealism. I teach others art and English in a non-professional way, in that I am not a teacher, but I know the language well. I am still learning - we all are.
Among these pages, you shall find educational clips, pronunciation guides, grammar tutorials, and other such helpful media. I shall do my best to help you hone your writing skills, my students.
Punctuation
In my time spent reading the works of other authors, I have noticed punctuation is something not made clear. Even I had trouble with this aspect of authorship, when I shouldn't have. I did not learn this as well as I should have in school, and the way it was taught was confusing, so I completely understand when mistakes happen.
Follow the pictures to the left for books exclusively written for punctuation rules, grammar, style, and everything else you need for good writing skills.
To start, let's look at the comma. Widely overused, this mark can make an eyesore from an otherwise fantastic story. First and foremost: If a sentence is followed by another, separate one, but the second does not make sense on its own, that is an incomplete sentence and a comma or semicolon are necessary.
Comma splice - in text:
She stood transfixed, the man narrowed his eyes.
-instead
She stood transfixed. The man narrowed his eyes.
-or
She stood transfixed; the man narrowed his eyes.
In this sense, two separate clauses are bunched together and separated by a comma; this is unacceptable. Making them separate sentences is how you would fix this. On the other hand is a semicolon, which separates separate clauses that have to do with one another. In the above sentence, the man narrowed his eyes in response to the female being transfixed with whatever it is she's looking at, so they do fit together and a semicolon is completely acceptable. In my statement, "widely overused" begins the sentence, and the rest is the ending of the same clause, so the comma, in that case, is not an inappropriate usage and you can rest assured that you didn't do those ones incorrectly.
Comma splice - in dialogue:
"It is of little concern to me what you did, that is all in the past"
-instead
"It is of little concern to me what you did. That is all in the past."
-or
"It is of little concern to me what you did - that is all in the past"
Notice a semicolon was not expressed in this case. Semicolons and colons are not to be used in dialogue at all, and are replaced by an ellipsis or em dash, depending on style and context. This is held true in the Chicago Manual of Style and punctuation manuals regarding literary works where a character has dialogue. The rest of the break of a comma splice follows with regular text.
Comma in excess.
This is something many people have a hard time with, as it can add emphasis to a situation, but consider use of an ellipsis in place of a comma in some places to break apart the excessive use, or consider not pausing at all. Also consider making each seaparated portion into a new sentence with new descriptive sentences to enhance the current written text. In any case, reduce them. Sometimes less is more.
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先生
Commitment
Knowledge
Perseverance
If you need further help, Grammar Girl and Quick and Dirty Tips are an excellent source of literary assistance.
