J.B. Sommerset

I have talked about this subject before, and it's critical to good story telling. I don't know how many more times I will bring this up, but I will... So just be prepared for it.  This topic is going to come back like the blood everyone thought they totally got cleaned up, but under luminal and black light? Yep, it's still there. It will come back like the drunk guy all of us in the car know we hit but aren't sure is dead. Or that stalker that sneaks back into our house after we got the restraining order. The one that sits quietly in the dark waiting to talk in a distant and mysterious tone... you get the idea. The technique I am speaking of is, of course, the " show don't tell " technique. The "TLDR" is simple, it is a narrative technique that assumes the audience aren't morons and also that they can figure things out for themselves. Things like subtext, language usage, foreshadowing, use of senses, thoughts, feelings, (ad nauseum) the get t...

This post is all about writing with an apostrophe, and I don't mean the technical use of said punctuation mark- I mean the way we write with words like, won't, can't, couldn't, shouldn't, didn't (etc.).  I grew up in a world where the phrase " can not"  was an acceptable way to write. It was formal. It was preferred in certain circumstances. When I became a real writer, my editor asked me why the hell I " did not " use apostrophes...  Yeah, you thought this post was about something else. I tricked you. This post is about contractions! I resisted it for a long time because I was taught that they were informal writing in most cases. The truth is this; they are informal, and that is their value. A novel is informal writing, and one of the crucial things that makes a book readable is its flow. Contractions make that flow more enjoyable and easier to read. Humans don't speak in completely formal language.  I write novels, but for a long time ...