Lay/Lie

Sadly I still come across the misuse of lay/lie.

Here, once again, are the declensions of lay and lie.

Present Tense

I lie (down) right now.

He/She/It lies down right now.

We lie down right now.

You lie down right now.

They lie down right now.

Other forms:

am lying, is lying, are lying

e.g. I am lying on the bed.

Past Tense

I lay down yesterday.

He/She/It lay down yesterday.

We lay down yesterday .

You lay down yesterday.

They lay down yesterday.

Other forms:

have/has lain

e.g. I have lain on the bed long enough.

Here comes the tricky part. When the subject of the sentence is setting something down, the present and past tenses go like this:

Present Tense

I lay (the parcel on the bed) right now.

He/She/It lays (the parcel on the bed) right now.

We lay (the parcel on the bed) right now.

You lay (the parcel on the bed) right now.

They lay (the parcel on the bed) right now.

Other forms:

am/are laying

e.g. I am laying the paper on the chair.

Past Tense

I laid (the parcel on the bed) yesterday.

He/She/It laid (the parcel on the bed) yesterday.

We laid (the parcel on the bed) yesterday.

You laid (the parcel on the bed) yesterday.

They laid (the parcel on the bed) yesterday.

Other forms:

was/were laying

e.g. The hens were laying an egg a day.

have/has laid

e.g. They have laid enough eggs to feed the whole family.

And lastly, there is the verb to lie when it means to tell an untruth.

Present Tense

I lie

He/She/It lies.

We lie.

You lie.

They lie.

Other forms:

am/are lying

Past tense:

I lied.

He/She/It lied.

We lied.

You lied.

They lied.

Other forms:

were lying, have lied, had lied

This reminds me of a story. A little boy of about six or seven told what his mother suspected was a lie. His mother had no way of knowing for sure so she said, “Okay. Stick out your tongue. If you’re lying I’ll know because your tongue will be black.” The boy refused to stick out his tongue and she knew he had been lying to her.

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Here Come the Relatives

 

When do you put a hyphen in the words for relatives? When do you use a capital letter?

I still struggle with the hyphenation. The capitalization is easier.

It works a bit like mom and dad. If you use the word as the proper noun (like a person’s name), it’s capitalized.

e.g. Did you bake a pie today, Grandma? Did Mom help you?

but

My grandma baked a pie. My mom helped her.

Same goes for aunt and uncle.

e.g.

Are your aunt and uncle in town?

Yes, Aunt Mary and Uncle John are visiting us.

And now for hyphenation.

All the “grands” are one word:

grandmother, grandma (not gramma), grandfather, grandpa (not grampa), grandson, granddaughter (yes, it has two d’s), grandchildren.

If you put “great” in front of these words, put a hyphen after “great.”

great-grandmother, great-grandma, great-grandfather, great-grandpa, great-grandson, great-granddaughter, great-grandchildren.

If you need to add another “great,” add another hyphen.

great-great-grandmother.

The in-laws get hyphens; the outlaws don’t.

brother-in-law, sister-in-law, mother-in-law, father-in-law, parents-in-law.

The blended family gets special treatment.

half sister, half brother (no hyphen, separate words)

stepsister, stepbrother, stepmother, stepfather, stepparents  (no hyphen, ONE word)

but

step-granddaughter, step-great-grandson

 

This would give me a headache, so I make a quick list where I can look them up. If you want you can just print this page.

 

 

 

Headache Words

Even people who are comfortable in their native language run into word usage problems. English is especially difficult when it comes to word choice. In any kind of writing that you plan to publish or that others will read in a formal setting, proper word usage matters.

Here are some more troublesome words to add to your list.

gibe; jibe

A gibe is a taunt meant to hurt someone’s feelings – an insult.

Jibe means to fit. If something doesn’t jibe, it doesn’t go well with something. If people have opposing political views, for example, their ideas don’t jibe.

alright; all right

The correct form is all right. Avoid alright.

altogether; all together

When speaking of something as a whole, use altogether.

When a group is in one place, they are all together.

pastime

This is a combination of pass and time. It’s a way to pass the time, so it is a pastime. Note that there is only one “s” and one “t.”

Having said that, here are two other examples of similar words that are often used in the wrong way.

The time has passed us by.

It is past the time for talking.

Subtle differences, aren’t they?

pore; pour

Pour me some juice, please, while I pore over this sheet of instructions.

aid; aide

I can aid you in your work. That will be an aid to you. Then, if you like, I can be your aide.

grisly; grizzly

Something horrible can be described as grisly, if it is especially gruesome.

A grizzly is a very large bear. An attack by a grizzly can be very grisly.

Photo courtesy of Ken Johnstone.

Let’s try to use words correctly. I can’t bear it when I see them misused.

 

Getting to Know Characters

It would be easy to describe Edgar, the log salvage man, in a routine description, telling what he wore and how he talked, how he smelled, or how he behaved. But after a few sentences, would my readers still be with me, especially since Edgar was a secondary character? Why would a reader want to bother?

There are many ways to introduce characters and let the reader get to know them. Here is one method I used in my novel, The Wind Weeps. Edgar is important to the story, but he is a secondary character. Andrea, my main character, has a new job as a wharfinger’s assistant. She greets Edgar as he pulls in to dock at the wharf with his salvage boat and she goes to help him tie up.

Excerpt from “The Wind Weeps”

Edgar’s beat up log salvage boat, Prowler, sidled up to an empty dock space, the engine roaring and spewing blue smoke. Below the waterline, the exhaust sputtered and rumbled. A rainbow film of gasoline crept over the surface of the water. The floating wreck couldn’t have seen a coat of paint in years. Specks of white—all that was left of the original paint—stuck to dented, scarred aluminum. I assumed the jagged metal teeth attached to the bow like pieces of a huge, big-toothed saw, were for pushing logs. The open boat had a canopy over the bridge where the skipper and a deckhand might sit somewhat protected from the weather. But, exposed to the elements, the back was littered with coils of rope, peevee poles, power saws, axes, and piles of chains. Ugly, loud, and stinking of gas and oil, the Prowler’s arrival could not be ignored.

One of the older boat owners and a permanent resident of Lund, Edgar was probably in his seventies, but he hopped out onto the float with the spryness of a much younger man. He was shadowed by an invisible pong of oil and garbage. I wrinkled my nose and reached for the stern line to help him tie up.

“Hi, Edgar. I’m surprised to see you here. Don’t you usually tie up at the floats at Finn Bay?” I knew Bert wouldn’t be pleased to have him tie up here.

“Hey there, Andrea. Yah, that’s right. I won’t be long. Just have to run up to the general store to get some more tobacco. I run out in the middle of the job and it makes me right owly to be without it.”

“Course it does,” I said. He had the sallow, wrinkled skin of a seasoned smoker.

His grimy hand reached for the line I was about to tie. “Here, I’ll do that. These lines is kinda dirty and I don’t want ya gittin’ yer hands fulla grease ’n’ stuff.” I gladly gave the line over to him.

*****

Available at amazon. com and amazon.ca for Kindle and paperbacks.

For other e-readers, go to smashwords.com.

If you enjoy reading The Wind Weeps, please check out the sequel, Reckoning Tide.

Natural Selection – My Review

It is my pleasure to host author Jacqui Murray on my blogs today. If you came here first, please also visit wordsfromanneli.wordpress.com for more about Jacqui’s latest fabulous novel, Natural Selection.

Book information:

 

Title and author: Natural Selection by Jacqui Murray

Series: Book 3 in the Dawn of Humanity series

Genre: Prehistoric fiction

Editor: Anneli Purchase

Available print or digital) at: http://a-fwd.com/asin=B0B9KPM5BW

 

My Review

Lucy lives in a world without any technology or modern conveniences. No stores to buy anything. No life-saving antibiotics or vaccinations. Nothing but nature in a world that is still forming, 1.8 million years ago. Imagine having to defend against wild animals, survive the harshest weather, and endure countless injuries, while you try to find the basic necessities of life: food, water, and shelter. Most of us would soon die in these natural circumstances, but Lucy and her small group of travelers work together to survive. They have one advantage over the animal species of their time. They can think and learn and plan.

Lucy’s kind of early man made tools of stone, and are referred to as Man-who-makes-tools, but another group of more advanced of her time has learned to use a spear and is more likely to kill and take slaves from Lucy’s more primitive group.  It is Lucy’s mission to save the members of her group who have been enslaved by the more advanced group.

She guides her group through natural disasters, threats from huge and dangerous animals, and the danger of being killed by other traveling uprights, Man-who-preys.

Each danger is an adventure of its own, and I marveled at the skills and bravery of Lucy’s group while they suffered the fiercest weather conditions and natural disasters without any clothing to help protect them.

Lucy’s kind heart accepts others who are in need. She brings into her group a large dog who would otherwise be considered a fierce enemy, but because she adopted him when he was in need, he is her loyal defender and friend. A Tree-man, reminiscent of our modern ape, also abandoned, adopts her group, as does a cat who will become very large when it grows up. These, and a handful of people like Lucy, including one young man who is nearly blind, and two more advanced uprights, travel together to try to rescue Lucy’s former group from the Man-who-preys group who are holding them captive.

Lucy faces onslaughts of volcanic eruptions, impassable rifts in the land, injuries from poisonous snakes and marauding animals, most of whom are larger and more powerful than she is. But Lucy’s spirit, her courage, and her knowledge of healing plants, keep the group going.

I admire Jacqui Murray, the author of Natural Selection, the third in the Dawn of Humanity series, not only for the huge amount of research she must have done to put this series together, but for weaving the information into the adventures and the group dynamics that are part of Lucy’s story, all in an entertaining and informative way.

I couldn’t put this book down. One threat led to another and I couldn’t help imagining what I would do if I were in Lucy’s situation. She had to be so tough, so brave, and so determined to finally find her former group members and attempt to rescue them.

I was sorry the book ended, and I hope Ms Murray is already working on another series like this one. I can’t wait to read more of her work.

About the Author:

Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular prehistoric fiction saga, Man vs. Nature which explores seminal events in man’s evolution one trilogy at a time. She is also author of the Rowe-Delamagente thrillers and Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. Her non-fiction writing includes over a hundred books on integrating tech into education, and reviews as an Amazon Vine Voice. She is a columnist for NEA Today, and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics.

 

Social Media contacts:

 

Amazon Author Page:        https://www.amazon.com/Jacqui-Murray/e/B002E78CQQ/

Blog:                                       https://worddreams.wordpress.com

Instagram:                             https://www.instagram.com/jacquimurraywriter/

Pinterest:                                http://pinterest.com/askatechteacher

Twitter:                                   http://twitter.com/worddreams

Website:                                 https://jacquimurray.net

 

Dialect in Writing

 

Dialect 

If one or more of your characters have a dialect or accent that you feel is important to note in your novel, I would suggest that unless you are very familiar with those regional speech patterns or accents, use them sparsely so they  don’t distract from the story. The safer way to do it would be to choose a few instances of the dialect and use them in dialogue. Try as much as possible to have the rest of the writing in plain English.

Falling out of character by messing up the dialect is going to do damage to your credibility as a writer and to the credibility of the character.

I’d like to give you some examples of how I have used dialect of a character in my novels.

One of my secondary characters in The Wind Weeps is Monique, a French-Canadian girl. I wanted to show that she spoke with a French-Canadian accent, but I didn’t want the phonetic spelling of every word of her speech become a chore for the reader. My solution was to limit Monique’s dialect and accent to a few of the most obvious speech habits that were typical of French speakers of English.

Saying the soft sound of “th” (as in “they”) is often difficult for speakers of French origin,  so, for example, instead of saying “there,” Monique would say “dere.”  For the hard sound of “th,” she might say “somet’ing” instead of “something.”

In French the sound of “h” is not used, so in English, Monique would have a habit of dropping the sound of the letter “h.” I showed this by placing an apostrophe in its place.  If she were saying, “It’s time to have something to eat,” she would say, “It is time to ’ave somet’ing to eat.”

That reminds me of the last clue to Monique’s speech being different; she would not use contractions. Instead of “can’t,” she would say “cannot,”  or she would say “it is” instead of “it’s, and “I ’ave” instead of “I’ve.”

By using these three changes in the dialogue, the reader could instantly identify that it was Monique who was speaking.  Just to be sure, I gave Monique two more habits of her own. I added the odd case of her swearing by having her say, “Tabernac,” once in a while. I also had her use an expression that was all her own by having her conflate two common phrases she had heard used in English. When she wanted to say “For sure” or “Sure thing,” as she had heard others say, she ended up saying, “For sure t’ing.”  Whenever this came up in the book, we would always know it was Monique speaking.

If you’d like to check it out yourself, you can find The Wind Weeps and its sequel, Reckoning Tide, at all amazon   (click on amazon) outlets and at smashwords.com (Click on smashwords.com).

My books are all marked down to 99 cents US so you can load your e-reader with bargain reading.

You can find a review of The Wind Weeps, by clicking on this blog post by Diana Wallace Peach,

P.S. For those who follow both my blogs, I have copied this post for both this one time. I don’t intend to make that a habit.

 

 

Knowing Your Characters – Part Three

For readers to enjoy your book, it is most important that your characters and their behaviours are believable. I remember in my early efforts at writing, I created good characters who did everything right, and bad characters who did everything wrong. It was really hard for me to give my good characters any flaws, or to give the bad guy credit for doing anything right or having any redeeming qualities.

It took a lot of rewriting to shape believable characters for my first novel. But trust me, it gets easier. Think of any person you know and like a lot. Are they really perfect? Just because we easily forgive their shortcomings, doesn’t mean they are perfect and have no flaws. We just like to bury those flaws. Look hard and you will find a flaw that your character might have which the reader will forgive, but which also makes the character more human.

The same goes for someone we may not like. If we took the time to get to know them, we would have to admit that they’re not ALL bad. Give your antagonist some redeeming quality. You’ll be surprised how the reader will then care about what happens to him, or at least feel some empathy for his situation.

Using these flaws effectively can help enrich your novel and make it easier for your readers to believe what your characters do, and it enhances our emotional involvement with those characters. If we don’t care about the characters, why bother to read the book?

So we have to know our characters if we are to tell their story. We need to know their long-term goals and their short-term goals. We don’t want the reader to wonder, “Why would he do a thing like that?”

In building the background for the character’s motivation, we might work in some family background, some incidental things that help the reader understand why the character would react the way he does as the story develops. Short flashbacks can lay the groundwork for what has shaped the character’s emotional growth, his attitudes, and his ways of dealing with situations that will come up in your plot.

How else do readers learn about the characters?

1. The author can simply tell about the character. This is probably the easiest way but not necessarily the most convincing.
2. Have the character tell about himself.
3. Have another character tell about him. (This way is more believable.)
4. Show what the character is like by his actions.

All of these methods can be used, but the last one is probably the most effective and the most believable.

Body Language

If you take the time to find stronger verbs when the character is doing anything, you can often come up with something that more precisely describes how the character behaves. Does he stand or does he slouch? Does he limp? If so, why? Does he move erratically or are his movements smooth? Find the verb that accurately describes this.

For every action the character does, consider whether the verb you use is the best one to describe his particular way of doing things.

Emotions

You can show the character’s emotions using physical descriptions (sweat beading on his forehead, slumped shoulders, furrows in the forehead).

Another way is to show some action that tells how he might be feeling. Is he drumming is fingers, sighing heavily, flexing his jaw muscles, squinting or rolling his eyes, waggling his head, lifting his chin, biting his lower lip?

Dialogue

What a person says and how he says it can tell you a lot about how they are feeling and about what kind of person they are. This is a huge topic and I would like to deal with that in a separate post.

*****

Meanwhile, study the people around you and make a note of their flaws and their redeeming qualities. You’ll be surprised how useful these can be when you incorporate them in your writing.

Word Surprises

Did you know that impostor is spelled with “or” and not “er”?

Did you know that guttural is spelled with “ur” and not “er”?

In the word for a big fuss, which letters are doubled? Here it is – hullabaloo.

 

Gimme a gimmick any day,

To tell me a word is spelled which way.

Stationary and stationery are two words that are often confused. One means to stay in one place, and the other refers to letter-writing material.

The difference in the spellings is in the ending (ary or ery).

The “a”  in ary is like the “a” in place. I remained stationary (in one place).

The “e” in ery is like the “e” in letter. I wrote a letter on fine stationery.

EASY!

 

Easily Overlooked

You’ve written your first draft and you’ve read it over, perhaps focusing on some particular aspects of writing (like using your pet words too much, or checking for “ly” words), and after rereading your manuscript until you think you could recite it from memory, you feel ready to publish.

Not so fast! First, let’s check for some common mistakes. In a novel I recently read, I was reminded of two kinds of errors that are easily overlooked.

One involves words left out, and the other, words left in.

Here are some examples.

Sometimes, as you re-read, you realize that you’ve used a character’s name too many times within a few sentences, or you might have used too many pronouns when you should have used a name once in a while. So you make some changes. Let’s say you’ve used the name too often, so you put in “her” instead of “Miss X,” but you don’t take out “Miss X” until you’ve had a chance to reread the whole section, checking for a good balance of names and pronouns.

You get into your self-editing and several pages later, you remember that you should read it all over. This is when the brain and the eyes start fighting. You’re already getting tired and as you read, your brain tells you, “I know what this is supposed to say. I wrote the thing. I know what it says.”

Your eyes tell your brain, “Yes, that’s what it says. I know because I’ve read it so many times already. It’s fine.”

But is it?

“Miss X” is mentioned several times in the chapter, but now, one of the sentences has “Miss X” AND “her” as well.

The road was rough and the driver reached over to check her Miss X’s seatbelt.

See how easily that slipped in there?

Very often, mistakes like this are added to the text with the purpose of fixing a problem, but it ends up causing a different one.

*****

Correcting sentences where words have been left out is even harder to do. Again, our brains tell us what we know the text to be, and the eyes go along with it in agreement. But as we read work over too quickly, we think that all the necessary words are in there. That is how many small words are left out (words like: to, at, in, an, it). A good way to catch these omissions is to read your work out loud.

A similar error occurs when we type “and” for “an” or “it” for “if” or “in,”

*****

A word of advice:

Don’t work at your self-editing for too long in one session. Take breaks. I have often noticed that when I find mistakes in the writing, they occur close together within a page or two. This tells me that the writer was probably getting tired at that point.

*****

 

 

Words like Gold Nuggets

I was reading “Fortune’s Rocks” by Anita Shreve and had a mixture of reactions throughout the experience.

First, I was dismayed at the use of such stuffy language, but I soon realized that it suited the 1899 New England setting perfectly. This was the way people in the wealthier class spoke and thought in those days.

In a short time I stopped noticing the stuffiness of the language, and felt immersed in that time and lifestyle.

So it was, that I scoffed only mildly when the mother who was hosting guests at her summer home did not want her photo taken. One of the guests had taken up photography and the hostess was not a fan of these new contraptions called cameras. The reaction of the hostess was not out of character, but had me chuckling about her overly sensitive personality.

When I read on, I was absolutely thrilled with Anita Shreve’s description of the photography session that followed.

This quote from the book tells how it played out as the other guests, one by one, sat to have their photos taken.

Even Olympia’s mother, in the end, relents and allows herself to be photographed, albeit behind a veil with eyes lowered, flinching each time she hears the shutter click, as though she might be shot.

This description had me laughing out loud, as I imagined the scene. It was then that I realized that much of the writing was so precisely worded that I was able to picture it clearly in my mind. Reading this book became like watching a movie.

I kept chuckling over the above quote for some time and finally decided I would write a short note to the author to tell her how much I was enjoying her book. I Googled her name to get a webpage contact, but immediately the search told me that Anita Shreve had died on March 29, 2018 at the young age of 71.  My happy mood was dashed and I felt shocked and saddened to find out this bad news.

Still, Anita has left a legacy of many fine books for us to enjoy.

Now I am wondering if you readers out there have had similar discoveries of passages that are nuggets of entertainment.

If you have, why not share them in your comments. Book title, author, and quote. We’d love to see what you’ve found.