Writing for a Strong Middle

Your book or story has a powerful beginning. It engages the reader. It makes him want to read more. The main character has a big problem, and the reader wants to know how it will be solved. Pretty soon, though, the reader is yawning. She puts the book down and goes to do something more “interesting.” What happened?

You started strong, but your middle is weak.

Based on my experiences as an editor and as a book junkie, two problems create most weak middles: 1) Nothing is happening to increase the conflict; and 2) The writer doesn’t remind the reader about the conflict.

6 Guidelines for E-mail Etiquette

When I teach writing courses to business professionals, I often get asked questions about the “rules” for writing e-mails. These students want to communicate professionally, which is why they are in my classes, and this includes how they present themselves and deliver their content in e-mails. 

In response to the question about e-mail “rules,” I answer that I don’t know of any. What I do offer, however, are guidelines for business and personal letters, modified for the e-mail format. These guidelines follow two basic principles. 

1. Business e-mails and personal e-mails serve different purposes.
2. Business e-mails are formal correspondences. 

With these two principles in mind, here are 6 guidelines for writing e-mail. 

Taos is possessed-by bad punctuation!

Just in time for Halloween, that oddest of celebrations, I will share with you a story of diabolical possession. This is the story of how an entire town became possessed due to frighteningly terrible punctuation.

Nestled in the northern mountains of New Mexico is the town of Taos. Taos is a beautiful town known for the historical and still occupied Taos Indian Pueblo, its arts and crafts cultural influence on Southwest Arts, and its great skiing. Taos is a favorite tourist spot for visitors worldwide. It is a very nice town—at least it was until it was possessed!

Here’s how I learned the story of how Taos became possessed.

I was teaching a continuing education course on writing mechanics. The students and I were discussing the correct uses of apostrophes. “Apostrophes,” I told them, “are PC: they are for Possessives and Contractions.” This became our central concept for studying apostrophes.