For many, writing a short story is difficult because it’s short and needs to have a theme. The space doesn’t leave a lot of room for rabbit trails. If you’re trying to write better short stories and want to improve your writing, you can. Continue reading for some suggestions about ways to improve your writing by making it stronger, more realistic and more interesting.

Tips on Character Development

When you begin writing a short story, one of the first things you need to do is identify your main characters, namely the protagonist and the antagonist. Identify what the protagonist wants and how the antagonist is trying to stop the antagonist from achieving his or her goals.

When you develop the characters, get to know everything about them. What’s his most embarrassing moment? What’s her relationship like with her parents? How did he meet his significant other? What do your characters look like? Saying that she’s “beautiful” or he’s “ugly” isn’t enough. Instead, find specific ways to describe them. Write down the things that make the person attractive or unattractive, including personality traits. For instance:

• Hair color
• Eye color
• The green sheen on his teeth
• The dirt under her nails
• The way she bites her lip when she’s nervous
• The way he bosses people around

Tips on Plot

A good short story has a beginning, a middle and an end. Before you begin writing, think about what your protagonist wants and how you can turn it into a story. How can you introduce the problem? Will he or she achieve this goal or not? And, whether it ends well for your character or not, how do you get from the problem to the end?

Consider creating a story arc, marking important events along your character’s timeline. Include conflict, tension into the story line. How do the events of your story change your character? How does getting a new job influence change? What about moving? Getting married? Having a baby? To create a good story, your character needs to change by facing his or her fears, whether or not she succeeds. How does your character change?. Maybe your character:

• Realizes she’s better off without her boyfriend
• Decides to join the military, after all
• Moves in with her parents to save money
• Chooses to do something for himself

Other Tips

Decide who’s telling the story. Is it your main character? First person or third? Is a narrator? Can the narrorator see into everyone’s perspective?

Decide how to end the story. You know what happens, but how much are you going to tell to the reader? Consider an open-ended ending that allows your readers to decide what happened. For instance, “Ali nodded at the police officer, but ignored him, staring out the window at the crashing waves”

You can also have a clear-cut outcome that explicitly states what happened. “Karen loaded up the car, ignoring her husband’s pleas.” Dialogue is another common way to end a story.

A business letter is meant to convey any number of non-personal business transactions, including negotiations, contract agreements, and questions regarding services or to arrange meetings. You may also need to write a business letter to promote your business, share updated information or communicate with vendors. Creating a business letter is a rather simple process, provided you follow a few simple tips. Remember that business letters are more formal than a personal letter and that certain rules should be followed.

Most importantly, learn the basic format of a business letter. Once you learn the basic format, preparing the letter is easier. Generally, business letters are printed on letterhead, a pre printed paper with the senders address and name or company name.

The letter begins at the top center of the page with the sender’s name and address, followed by a formal greeting for the recipient. This will set a business-like professional tone for the letter. Always place the date the letter was written a few lines under the senders name and address on the letterhead. Dates of communication can become quite important in business transactions, so don’t leave out the date.

Skip two lines and add your salutation. It’s important to use the recipient’s formal name, and refer to them as Ms., Mrs., or Mr., not just by their first name alone. Using a first name in a personal letter is fine, but in business, it’s best to be formal. Follow the greeting with a comma, although many people use a colon, which is fine as well.

The main body of your letter is next. Skip two lines after the salutation and begin your letter. Use an indent at the beginning of each paragraph. The body of your letter is meant to communicate clearly the matter at hand. Keep the discussion short and to the point. Try to be as clear as possible when asking questions or sharing information. Throughout the body of the letter, remember to keep a formal, business-like tone.

The letter is ended by using a complimentary close, a friendly and sincere closing greeting. Skip two lines after writing the body of the letter and write your close. In a business letter, the more common closings include ‘sincerely yours’, or “regards’. Format your signature by skipping 4-6 lines and signing by hand. Many people today sign letters in blue ink to differentiate between a copy of a letter and an original. Be sure to address the envelope properly as well, using either the recipients name or company name.

Adjectives:

Adjectives are words that describe nouns or pronouns. Generally an adjective that comes before a noun will be written right next to the noun. In the sentence “The black cat ran,” cat is the noun and the adjective black comes directly before it. An adjective that comes after the noun will also usually follow a verb, as it does in the sentence “The cat is black.”

There are two types of adjectives. These are “fact” adjectives and “opinion” adjectives. A fact adjective states something that can not be changed. In the sentence “The sky is blue,” the adjective “blue” is factual because the sky is always blue. Colors, sizes, shapes, and other similar types of description tend to be fact adjectives. An opinion adjective shows the personal preference of the speaker. In the sentence “That car is hideous,” the adjective “hideous” is an opinion — to a different speaker the car may be “perfect”, “beautiful”, or simply “okay”.

More than one adjective can be used to describe a noun. You can do this by simply placing the adjectives next to each other if they come before a noun. “The small black cat ran,” is an example of this. If the two adjectives come after the noun you should insert the word “and” between the adjectives: “The cat is small and black.”

Finally, the words “this, that, these, and those,” can work as either adjectives or as pronouns. These words are adjectives when they come directly in front of the noun. Going back to the sentence, “That car is hideous,” the word “That” is an adjective that tells which particular car the speaker is talking about.

Adverbs:

Adverbs are words that can modify or describe adjectives, verbs, and adverbs. They may come before or after the modifier. Adverbs will answer the questions How? Where? and When? Remember also that adverbs will often end with an “ly.”

In the sentence, “The cat walks slowly,” the word “slowly” is an adverb describing how the cat walks. It is also an example of how an adverb modifies a verb.

In the sentence, “The food is grown locally,” the word “locally” is an adverb describing where food is grown.

“When” can be answered by an adverb either as a specific time period, a frequency of times something is done, or the duration of time it takes to do something. In, “She bought it today,” the word “today” describes the specific time period an item was bought. In, “She always laughs,” the word “always” is an adverb that shows how frequently she laughs. In, “The cat is perpetually moody,” the adverb “perpetually” shows the duration of the cats moodiness. Because “moody” is an adjective describing cat, this is also an example of how an adverb modifies an adjective.

The word “very” is an adverb often used to modify another adverb. In this case, the adverb will come directly before the other, as in “The cat walks very slowly.”

If you’re learning to speak English in the British form, you may have noticed that there are differences in the way that Americans speak the language. You’d notice the same thing if you were learning American English and listened to a conversation between two British people. Although it’s the same language, there are differences in terms of vocabulary, use of nouns and verbs, and spelling. In this article, you’ll learn how to spot some of these differences.

Vocabulary

Some of the differences in vocabulary between the two forms of English can be confusing. Even native English speakers may not understand words used in the opposite form of the language that they speak. For example, what Americans would refer to as an “elevator”, the British would call a “lift”. Both groups of people are referring to the same object, but a different word is being used by each group to describe that object.

You may want to become familiar with some of the more common words that are used in everyday language. In American English, the place for storing your bread is called a bread box. The British call this object a bread bin. What’s called a bus in American English is called a coach in British English. Another American English term is pants, while the British version is trousers.

Nouns and Verbs

Collective nouns are used differently in each form of the language. An example of a collective noun would be “team” or “committee”. In British English, collective nouns can be used with singular or plural verb forms. An example of the singular form might be, “The team was in agreement.” The plural form could be, “The team were always arguing with each other.”

In American English, collective nouns usually use a singular verb form. An example could be, “The band was terrific last night.” Plural pronouns can be used also – “The band played their best show last night.”

Spelling

If you’ve ever read something written by an American author, you may have noticed that certain words are spelled differently by British authors. Words that end in the letters “or” in American English are spelled with “our” in British English. An example would be the word “color”, used by Americans. The same word spelled by a British person would be “colour”. Another difference is in American words that end with the letters “ze”. The same words in British English use the letters “se”. An example would be “analyze” (American) and “analyse” (British).

These are just some of the differences between American and British English. If you’re having trouble understanding these differences, there are tools available online to help translate one form of English to the other. Hopefully this article gives you a start in understanding some of the basic differences between American and British English.

The press release is often the most direct and cost-effective way to present your service, product, event, or business in general to any relevant audience. Though many variations exist, the basic pattern is both elegant and easy to compose. And for our purposes, the simplest way to organize your statement will involve answering a set of questions.

How can you name the service quickly? This will be your headline, and it will flow forward into the body of your brief presentation. If you are describing an art exhibit, for instance, name the artist, venue, and time, and follow it up with a relevant comment regarding what your audience will find. Is there a special value, or sale? Does the product represent a new technology or forum?

Remember to keep it short, generally less than a page. Imagine that your audience has only seconds to spare for your flyer, and never forget what you want the reader to do with the information you will have provided. Do you want a large crowd at the demonstration for your new microchip, or do you need for people to switch from cable to satellite TV? This is precisely where the foundations of good journalism will serve you best. Give the what, where, when, how, and why.

And make it funny, if you dare. Humor can be very disarming, for example, and since you’ve certainly spent a great deal of effort or time to create your service, you can use details from that process to enhance its appeal. Did you work for years on the software, and what precisely required the lion’s share of that time? The answer to this one might lead you to write that your technology came after a so-called “Aha” moment, complete with comic strip bubble and accompanying light bulb.

Short, sweet, and to the point, and with the delicate addition of attractive framing, this is the royal road to making your work’s result stand out. Inform, but also tease. If the Fall Line is your best yet, then a reference to being “blinded” by beauty is not at all out of the question. You want your target customer to feel that urge to attend/purchase/switch, and as most of us know from reading advertising copy, there are certain emotional benefits we get when we actually do what the sentences suggest. Take what a new smartphone might offer, for example, such as the sense of having distant family members right there in your home for a visit. Imagine these boons, write them down as goals, and find a concise way to make the connection with your reader quickly.

Last but not least for your consideration is the contact information. You are creating a brief but urgent thought in someone’s mind, after all? There should be additional questions. Where can tickets be purchased? Who is the contact person for bids?

Bringing it all together, as you can see, is as easy as answering a list of short questions!

The importance of subject and verb agreement cannot be overstated. Having the subject and the verb agree is a fundamental aspect of English-based languages including UK English, American English, English spoken down under, and other variances of English spoken around the world.

Let’s start with an example that will provide the contrast for us before we discuss actual rules.
Ben and Isabella is the best of friends. Ben like Isabella because she is cute, friendly, and smart. Ben treat Isabella like he is her best friend. Isabella think Ben understands her. They appreciates each other and believes the best of each other.

Right about now, my grammar checker is screaming red at me because all five of my subject and verb combinations do not agree. Now I will correct the previous paragraph so that the subjects and the verbs agree.

Ben and Isabella are the best of friends. Ben likes Isabella because she is cute, friendly, and smart. Ben treats Isabella like he is her best friend. Isabella thinks Ben understands her. They appreciate each other and believe the best of each other.

Hopefully the second paragraph sounds much better to you than the first one does. What do you notice that is different between the first and second paragraphs? What do you observe differently in the verbs? Why does the second paragraph sound better to you than the first one? Take a moment to answer these questions before we move on. I am confident that you will be able to decipher the rules of agreement by simple observation.

Okay, let’s break down the paragraph with the proper subject and verb agreement. ‘Ben and Isabella’ is a compound subject, meaning that there is more than one subject. Ben and Isabella are plural. Later in the paragraph, the pronoun ‘they’ is used to speak of Ben and Isabella. The word ‘they’ is also plural. When the subject is plural you need the verb to match the subject and so the verb needs to be reflected as plural as well. Therefore, ‘are’ is the proper verb for ‘Ben and Isabella’. For the verb ‘to be’ you will need to memorize the conjugations.

‘Ben’ is a single subject and requires a single tense verb. The same is true of ‘Isabella’. You can see that the proper agreement is that ‘Ben likes’ and ‘Isabella thinks’ and ‘Ben treats’. An ‘s’ is added to the basic form of the verb in both instances.

In the incorrect first paragraph, the verbs ‘like’, ‘think’, and ‘treat’ are listed as plural. That is why it sounds funny because you have a single subject acting like a plural verb. If you have one subject, the verb must reflect the action of one subject. A plural subject requires a verb that agrees in number as well.

Proper subject and verb agreement is essential to good grammar but not complicated. The best way to master this topic is to read a lot, taking notice of proper usage of subjects and verbs.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Tagged Grammar, Subject, Subject and Verb Agreement, Verb, Writing

To understand when to use “that” or “which,” you will first need to understand what a clause is. A clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a verb.

There are two kinds of clauses: independent and dependent. An independent clause can stand alone as a sentence.

For example:

I would love to see a movie.

A dependent clause cannot stand alone; thus it depends on the addition of an independent clause for it to make sense.

For example:

That interests me. (Dependent clause)

I would love to see a movie that interests me. (Join dependent clause to an independent clause.)

“That” and “which” are relative pronouns that introduce relative (or adjective) dependent clauses.

“That” is a relative pronoun used to begin restrictive (essential) clauses that are necessary to the meaning of a sentence.

In the example above, the dependent clause is necessary to the meaning of the sentence because I don’t want to see just any movie; I want to see a movie that interests me. For clauses beginning with “that,” do not use a comma in front of them because commas are not used around essential clauses.

“Which” is a relative pronoun used to begin nonessential relative clauses. In other words, these clauses are not necessary to the meaning of the sentence. Use commas around nonessential elements in a sentence.

For example:

The ancient oak tree, which shaded the west side of my house, was felled by the hurricane.

The independent clause can stand by itself:

The ancient oak tree was felled by the hurricane.

The dependent clause (which shaded the west side of my house) has commas around it because it is not necessary to the meaning of the sentence.

Sometimes the nonessential clause comes at the end of the sentence. In this case only one comma is needed.

For example:

For a healthy glow, use our Illuminating Face Mask, which removes impurities and the appearance of fine lines.

The main point of the sentence is the first part of it:

For a healthy glow, use our Illuminating Face Mask. This can stand alone.

The last part of the sentence (which removes impurities and the appearance of fine lines) is not necessary to the main point of the sentence, so it has commas around it.

To review, “that” is used to begin a dependent clause that cannot be removed from the sentence without changing its meaning. “Which” is used to begin a dependent clause that can be removed without changing the main point of the sentence.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Tagged Dependent Clause, Grammar, Independent Clause, Writing

In written English, the way we generally express possession is by adding an apostrophe and an “s” to a noun. Thus, the bicycle that belongs to Rico would be “Rico’s bicycle.” If Tammy has a new boyfriend named Mitch, then Mitch would be “Tammy’s boyfriend.” Possession is to be understood broadly, not limited to physical […]

When you speak in English, one way to make some words get more attention than other words is to change the way you say them: Speeding up or slowing down Pausing Increasing or decreasing volume Emphasizing one syllable or word more than another Communicating by writing in English is much different. There is no volume […]

English can be quite a confusing language at times, as there are many words that are commonly mistaken for other words. If you are just learning English or if you would like to improve your writing, it would be wise to remember some of these commonly confused words. The difference between the words accept, “to […]

The press release is often the most direct and cost-effective way to present your service, product, event, or business in general to any relevant audience. Though many variations exist, the basic pattern is both elegant and easy to compose. And for our purposes, the simplest way to organize your statement will involve answering a set […]

The importance of subject and verb agreement cannot be overstated. Having the subject and the verb agree is a fundamental aspect of English-based languages including UK English, American English, English spoken down under, and other variances of English spoken around the world. Let’s start with an example that will provide the contrast for us before […]

Active voice makes it clear who is doing what. In an active sentence, the person that is acting is the subject. Passive sentences obscure or omit the sentence subject.Use passive voice when the sentence object is more important than the subject. The active voice is generally easier to read.

Examples (subject, object)

Before: Our results will be discussed.

After: We will discuss our results.

Before: Wolverine was made to be a weapon.

After: The government made Wolverine. Wolverine is a weapon.