Guest Post: Write or Wrong?


What's it like to be a writer? Read my thoughts about it at a recent guest post I did for Aside From Writing.

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Writing 101: Is Gotten Good Grammar?

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The word gotten just sounds wrong to me sometimes, yet it always comes out of me naturally. I noticed it earlier when I was writing an email to someone; I typed out that I had gotten something, then quickly backspaced and put in the more majestic received instead. Then I realized, I don't actually know if gotten is good grammar or not. It sounds like slang and somehow seems wrong when I see it on my screen, but it still has its place in the English language. In fact, I've quite recently learned all about it.  Have Got Gotten is a past tense form of the verb to get . Get just means have, hold, receive. It can also be used to mean to experience ("I got sick"). The past tense form of get is got; the past participle of got is gotten . A past participle is a word that's used with had, have or has.  Therefore, it's perfectly acceptable to use gotten if it's being used with its companion word. I have gotten sick before . ...Unless, of course, ...
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Writing 101: Off the Outline

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Every author should have some structure when they're writing. I'm a big fan of  plotting and planning and pre-researching, and I'll advocate writing an outline any time you give me a chance. But sometimes, writing the story takes us off the outline and outside the original plan. When that happens, there's only one thing to do: go with it.  On a Tangent Things don't always go the way we plan, and that's especially true for writers. When you sit down and outline a novel at the very beginning, it's still just a concept. But things might change as you begin to write.  Stories have a way of taking on a life of their own. As you write that book, you start to really get to know a character. You begin to think like them, see things the way they see them, and sometimes plot points that you planned no longer fit the person you've come to know on the page.  It's good to plan, but writers also have to know how to adjust to those changes. It'...
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Writing 101: Using Italics, Bold and In-Text Formatting

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