Many editors believe numerical comparisons should always use more than rather than over less than rather than under older than rather than over younger than rather than under Other editors...

Dialogue should not be entirely open and honest, because people rarely tell exactly how they feel or what they are thinking. We call this concealment the “subtext,” the message hidden...

How do you reward yourself for a writing job well done? You may have noticed how some dieters reward themselves for reaching a weight goal. They treat themselves with a...

We naturally relate to symmetrical patterns. This is true, not only in our visual, graphic world, but also in the way we structure sentences. What’s the difference between “bread and...

Several writer’s group members have expressed interest in Frank’s daily practice of taking a paragraph from a bestselling novel and striving to make it better. So maybe we should explain...

Copying another writer’s work is called plagiarism. Besides the practice being illegal, a violation of copyright law, it’s impractical, because it presents you as someone other than who you really...

If you’re watching a movie, pay attention to how the screen writer developed the scene, characters, and plot, and you can become a better writer. Identify the turning points, the...

Writer’s block comes from rejecting our thoughts as not good enough. We may think our minds are blank, but they really aren’t. What we’re doing is rejecting what’s there with...

After so many years of education, we’ve become so well trained to think inside the box, encouragement to think outside the box isn’t enough. Would you consider sliding down the...

To please our kindergarten teachers, we learned to color inside the lines. No longer could we have purple trees. To be the best, we knew we had to be like...