Trademarks

The best thing is, we don't have to put the little TM symbol next to the trademark, but the trademark people say a writer needs to distinguish what a trademark is by capitalizing the first letter, putting it all in caps, italics or boldface type, or in quotes, then adding the product after the trademark. For example: Apple computers, ZIPLOC resealable bags, "Cheerios" cereal, or Parker (in italics or boldface type) pen. Trademarks should not be pluralized, and it's considered a proper adjective. They should not be used in the possessive form, or as a verb.

From Kay Parkin on TRADEMARKS (from an article found on using trademarks in writing)

Reasons Reading is Good

Reading doesn't cause a hangover, takes very little physical energy and affords few opportunities for public embarrassment.

By the hour, books are way cheaper than psychotherapy. When I'm bitter and alienated, I can turn to Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground and find solace in kindred suffering: "I am a sick man … I am a spiteful man. An unattractive man. I think that my liver hurts." It's a rollicking good tale about self-imposed agony.

Similarly, there's Whitman for joy and Neruda for love, or the more contemporary—Lorrie Moore for wit and ... wait—am I describing books as friends? As words that embody empathy and shared ideas? And is that pathetic or wonderful?

--Stacy J. Willis

I Need a Rest Badly

"I need a rest badly and I cannot rest until this is done and I sometimes think that when it is done it will feel as tired as I am and it will show."

--Raymond Chandler in a letter to Jamie Hamilton August 19, 1948

Style

A good many writers have insisted that style can be neither taught nor learned. Like tears or sweat, they say, it is something that springs from within. You either have the gift or you don't. This is probably true, but only to a point. The good stylists work at their craft. Consciously or unconsciously, they master the little dog tricks of euphony and cadence. The novelist searches for the significant details that will put flesh on the bones of a character. Little by little we learn what works for us--bare and bony sentences, or china dogs with pouting eyes, or perhaps no "style" at all.

From WRITER'S ART by James Kilpatrick

Character Description Made Easy

Characters are the heart of a great story. Without great characters and great character development, "The Great Gatsby" can be seen as just another weepy romance and Holden Caulfield as merely a maladjusted teen. Pushcart Prize-winning author Josip Novakovich lends us two exercises from his book "Fiction Writer's Workshop" that will help you develop your characters.

Objective: To learn how to look at evidence of character in the whole body, not just the face. The body expresses the mind.

Describe a character by the shape, posture and gait of his body. Don't describe his head and don't tell us that the character is lazy or happy. Show these traits through body language.

Check: Do we see enough of the body's shape and motion? For a nervous patient in a hospital, did you mention his feet wrapped around a chair's leg like the emblem of medicine?

Objective: To create heroes from people you admire. Admiration for others is a writer's best friend (unlike self-admiration). As you admire a person, you naturally select traits and details that present the person in a heroic light. So you already know how to make heroes! With this capability, you are ready to become a fiction writer.

Describe a remarkable person you admire--a teacher, minister, carpenter, doctor. What makes the person unique? Avoid sentiment statements (e.g. "I know Mother will always be there for me"). Can you make us see her? Hear her? >

Check: Have you given us the person? If not, go back and show us your character struggling with problem.

Learn more about "Fiction Writer's Workshop" ($15.99), at: http://www.writersdigest.com/store/booksdisplay.asp?id=48033

Harris Puts Life on the Page

In 1991, he [E. Lynn Harris] quit his job and moved to Atlanta to write a novel. No one would publish it, so he spent $13,000 to print 5,500 copies. Bookstores balked, so he'd leave a book in beauty parlors ("like a sample") with his name and phone number. Readers who liked what they read while waiting would call him, and he'd deliver a copy in person, $12.95 each.

Eventually the novel made its way into local bookstores and came to the attention of a sales rep for Doubleday who told editors in New York, "There's a book down here making a lot of noise."

In 1992, Doubleday signed him to a $90,000 threebook deal for Invisible Life (in its 44th printing), a sequel and an autobiography he's still trying to finish.

HARRIS PUTS LIFE ON THE PAGE by Bob Minzesheimer (USA Today July 29, 2002)

Verbs

One way to identify and remember being verbs is by categories:

* the be group: be, is, are, am, was, were, been

* the have group: have, has, had

* the do group: do, did, done (usually used for emphasis or to form questions)

* others: must, may/might, shall/should, can/could, will/would

Note, however, that the be, have, and do verbs can be helping or main verbs.
* Jerry is witty (main verb). Jerry is coming (helping verb) home.
* Leon had a pet snake (main). He had caught it in the woods (helping).
* Judy does a good job (main). She does work hard (helping).

Also, must has come into modern usage as a noun; for example, "Another must for Sandburg fans is the performance of his Rootabaga stories." (We won't get into a discussion of the word need.)

FROM Joy Bagley (WNC Writers Facilitator (bagley030@aol.com)ON VERBS