Month: February 2019

How are hyphens used?

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A hyphen has two main uses…but is often used for the wrong reason—as a dash. We’ll cover how to properly use Dashes later. For now, we’re going to go over the two reasons to use a hyphen: connect words into a larger chunk or show where a word is broken across a line.

Multiple Modifiers

Modifiers are used to tell what kind a thing is, and sometimes it takes more than one word. What kind of candy? Rock hard. So it’s ‘rock-hard candy’. What kind of boy? A quick witted one, so we have ‘a quick-witted boy’. What kind of hotel? A dog friendly one, so it’s a ‘dog-friendly hotel’. What kind of singer? One that is well known, so we have a ‘well-known singer’.

Without hyphens, sometimes a modifier is unclear. Let’s say that you got a new job, and in the work schedule, it says that you are going to work “twenty four hour shifts”. Does that mean you have a bunch of short shifts or one long one? There is a big difference between “twenty four-hour shifts” and “twenty-four hour shifts”. The first are a bunch of short works periods—the second a long time to be at work.

Compound Words

There are some words that we always keep together, for example: Mother-in-law, Master-at-arms, Editor-in-chief. And there are some words that used to be hyphenated but aren’t anymore. Did you know that ‘online’ originated as two words? From the mid-1800s until the mid-1960s, it was ‘on line’ with a space. Then the hyphenated form took over until 1980, when the single-word version became popular, and that’s how we use it today. (If you haven’t had a chance to play with the Ngram Viewer on Google Books, it’s really interesting.)

Broken Words

Allowing your words to be hyphenated will help keep your lines of text fairly even. That way if a word is close to the end of the line, it can be broken onto the next line. It is especially important if you have narrow columns (such as in a newspaper).

The option to turn on hyphenation is on the Page Layout Tab, in the Page Setup Group. To see how your document will look with hyphenation, just turn it on to automatic. If you don’t like the way it looks, you can just undo it (ctrl-Z) and do it manually. Opening the Hyphenation Options dialogue box will allow you to tweak the settings until you get it just the way you want.

Using a half-visible Optional Hyphen in certain words allows you to use the hyphenation process with more control. Those words will only break where you want them broken…if they need to be.

How big is my book?

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The biggest reason to worry about the size of your book is printing costs. It costs more to print a 500 page book than it does a 200 page one. Yes, it’s possible to decrease the number of pages by printing on a larger page—a 250 page book with 100,000 words will fit into fewer than 120 pages if you use 8 ½ x 11 paper instead of the standard 6×9…but then your book won’t fit on the shelf with all the others in the same genre. You do want to stand out, but not for that reason.

The book needs to be long enough to tell the whole story, but short enough to keep the reader’s attention. The actual length will depend on what genre you’re writing in. (If you can’t identify your genre, then your writing is too loose—keep the focus!) Certain genres tend to run longer than others do (history), and some run shorter (mystery), so check out what a common length is for the one you’re writing.

If you’re too long

When you’ve written more than is needed, the first thing to consider is if you put things in the reader doesn’t need to know…or should already know from a previous section—don’t explain too much. Let the reader figure things out for himself. Info dumps give the reader an opportunity to set the book down—and not pick it up again. Either the reader already knows the historical background of all the characters…or it isn’t necessary for the particular story you’re telling.

Another problem is giving too much detail when you shift scenes. We don’t need to see each and every character get up, walk across the room, and exit…only to enter the next scene the same way. Just end each scene with a quick cut and start the next with a short intro of who, where, and what.

I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.—Truman Capote

A rather irksome tendency of some writers is “As You Know, Bob”. AYKB is where characters discuss things they already know…just so the reader can hear about it. How many times do you stand on the corner watching cars drive by and comment on how interesting it is that they all have four wheels? Not very exciting…either for you or the reader. Leave it out.

If you’re short

This isn’t going to be a problem for most writers, but if you find yourself in this situation, look for sections with little dialogue or action…places where you are telling the story instead of showing it. Expand that exposition into a full scene. Consider adding in a subplot in Act 2…pull in a secondary character and give him something to do.

Some books end too abruptly…almost as if the author gave up and just quit. Make certain you tie up all the loose ends (or imply that they will be taken care of in the next book!).

More Essential Keyboard Shortcuts

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In our first posting about Essential Keyboard Shortcuts, we went over some really basic ones. This time we’re going to go over a few more that everyone should know and use daily. (The more you use them, the better you’ll get at using them.) As before, where there is more than one possible keystroke, I underline the one I like, but you’re welcome to use any that work.

File, rather than content:

  • Create new document – Ctrl-N
  • Open existing document – Ctrl-O or Ctrl-F12
  • Save document – Ctrl-S or Shift-F12 or Alt-Shift-F2 (Save often, to avoid losing your work)
  • Save document as new file name – Alt-F, A or F12 (use a timestamp, to keep track of version)
  • Close document – Ctrl-W
  • Print document – Ctrl-P or Ctrl-F2 or Ctrl-Shift-F12

Window instead of content:

  • Switch windows – Alt-Tab (to get to other programs)
  • Maximize the document window – Alt-Space, X or Ctrl-F10 (so you only see this one)
  • Restore window down from maximize – Alt-Space, R or Alt-F5 (so you can see multiple windows)
  • Minimize window – Alt-Space, N (hide it for a while, when you’re working on something else)
  • Close single document – Ctrl-F4 (if you’re done with just this one)
  • Quit program, close all docs and window – Alt-F4 (if you’re done with all open documents)
  • Expand or collapse the ribbon – Ctrl-F1 (gives you more room to see the important part)
  • Go to the next document window – Ctrl-F6 (if you have multiple documents open)
  • Go to the previous document window – Ctrl-Shift-F6
  • Go to the next pane or frame – F6 (access other parts of the screen)
  • Go to the previous pane or frame – Shift-F6

Undo and Redo:

  • Undo the last action Ctrl-Z
  • Redo the last action Ctrl-Y or F4

Help and Cancel:

  • Open help – F1
  • Cancel – Esc (“I keep hitting escape, but I’m still here.”)

Informational:

  • Word Count – Ctrl-Shift-G (you need to know that you’re progressing)
  • Start spellcheck and grammar check – F7 (useful, but not always right)
  • Go to next spelling or grammatical error – Alt-F7
  • Open thesaurus – Shift-F7 (handy if you keep using the same words over and over)

That’s about it for now. We’ll hit a few more useful ones in a later post.

What is this POV thing?

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How your reader sees your story depends on both the camera and who the main character (MC) is at any given time. Just as in a movie, the camera could be a character…only seeing what that character sees, First Person, using “I”. Usually the camera is close to the action, watching the MC as well as all the others, so we get to see what the MC is doing, Third Person, “he, she, they”—further broken down by how far the camera is from the action. Yes, there is a Second Person, but it’s rather rare, using “you” to tell the reader what to do.

POV Examples

  • First Person
    • I woke up earlier than normal and watched the sun slowly creep over the edge of my window. I threw my legs out of the bed and strode over to the window. Squinting to see the city through the fog, I wondered what I was going to encounter this time.
  • Second Person
    • You wake up and notice the sun hasn’t fully risen. Climbing out of bed, you step over to the window. The slowly rising sun glares in your eyes, so you raise a hand to block the light. Gazing at the city, trying to see through the fog, you nod your head slowly, realising that yet another day is upon you.
  • Third Person
    • He woke up suddenly as the room slowly brightened from the rising sun. He stood up and stumbled over to the window, shading his eyes with a hand as he stared out at the foggy city. He scrunched up his forehead as he contemplated the day.

All of those show the same scene but from different POVs. You can see how getting closer or farther from the MC changes how you feel about him and his situation. Also, notice that the fact that he is a ‘him’ is only obvious in Third Person, so you could hide his gender until later in the story…startling your reader with a revelation!

Third Person Depth

In Third Person, the camera could be at the top of a building, watching the action of a whole city, knowing everyone’s thoughts, personalities, backstories, being Omniscient. Or the camera could zoom in to be a fly on the wall, Limited to reporting only what can be seen…no internal dialogue or thoughts. We have to assume how characters feel by what we see them do (as in the example above). The third option is to have the camera so Close that it’s as if we are sitting on the character’s shoulder, close enough to catch what he’s thinking and feeling. We hear conversations he has with himself, so we know why he’s doing what he’s doing.

The problem in Close Third Person, is that we can hear only his thoughts…no one else’s. We have to depend on his interpretation of other folks. (And he might be unreliable in that aspect.) Head Hopping is a problem in Close Third Person when the author wants us to know someone else’s thoughts. You’ll find that most of your readers have only lived in one head their entire lives, so try to avoid bouncing around through your characters’ heads. If you need to tell what someone else is thinking, then you need a break…either a small scene break, a larger chapter break, or a huge section break. Yes, you can tell your story from multiple POVs…as long as you stick to one in each part.