FaithWriters.com-Christian Writers Forum

Well, I promised to do the homework, so here ya go. Sometime back on your old blog, you ran a contest to write a really short piece. Maybe 100 words or 50 words, but I remember it as 25 words. Unfortunately I didn’t keep a copy of it, so I am recreating a similar version from rough memory. I went fo...

Since you're the one who asked for it, you're obligated now to do it. :D Yes, ma'am! Use of "interrobangs" is one rule that I'm not ever willing to break or to see broken. Purely personal preference, but I edit them out every. Single. Time. I sure learned that the hard way. I personally t...

What, no homework?! writing is an art, not a science, and all of these rules can be broken by good writers . . . . once you’ve mastered the rules , feel free to break them! This is almost verbatim what I told legal writing students for 10 years (except I said, “writing is both an art and a science”)...

I think you’re definitely right about inconsistent verb tenses being the biggest problem in the Challenge. I hadn’t even thought about that. I do think that many people have conjugation problems in everyday life, though. Probably the most common is failure to use the past perfect, that is, using the...

Jan & Vonnie, I'm not sure which aspect of verb tenses is the problem--whether it's how to use various tenses or how to conjugate a particular verb or both. But here is a great website for conjugating verbs that includes all basic and all (?) less familiar tenses. It should be especially useful ...

For "Rain Drop," I should have said "debilitating grief AND guilt."

Jan, Your comments on both the pieces raise that age old question: who “controls” the meaning of a story, the writer or the reader? In Rain Drop, I did intend Jenny to be his wife and noted with interest the comment you mentioned in which one reader took Jenny as his child. And, yes, this is a man v...

Several times I’ve used some pretty dark characters for my antagonist. But other times, my dark character is the PROTAGONIST. And sometimes they are BOTH dark. Here are some of those plus a few other interesting antagonists (including in one case, God!). At least one of these has some glaring typos—...

I think you're right--there probably is a continuum. In the case of my piece, the 150 stories (plus those in other volumes) were designed to be read by students in college who might be struggling. The submitted stories were split into different categories by the editor. I think mine was in the secti...

I was interested in your comments about devotionals vs. first person narratives/inspirational writing. Ten years ago, I had a piece called “Yellowstone or Aramaic?” published in Ronald Allan Knott, ed., College Faith, vol. 2: 150 Christian Leaders and Educators Share Faith Stories from Their Student...

Well, I won't repeat it all again--one dose of lawyer per day is usually enough for most people. But if you compare what I wrote to what you wrote, you'll see that you left a few options out. (But I'm not sure you're last post was a serious one or just teasing .)

You always have to do SOMETHING to indicate a quotation. Although you don't see colons used to introduce a quotation in fiction much anymore, should you chose to do so, you would almost always use quotation marks. The only exception I can think of is if you had a character reading a long extract fro...

This has nothing to do with alliteration IN WRITING, but it is so timely, I couldn't resist sharing it. Yesterday the United States Supreme Court heard oral argument in a case about invocations at town council meetings. Per the transcript, Justice Scalia said this during the argument: If it was cons...

Lillian, I think this back-and-forth is a big part of what makes Jan’s lessons so valuable. My assessment was not based on WASTING one’s INHERITANCE. First, one can be prodigal with money no matter how acquired, so I did not expect your story to involve an inheritance. Also, I think “wasting” is too...

Hmm. I saw all that. And I agree that people will think of that. But to me none of that implicates being prodigal. Here's a fairly typical definition from Merriam-Webster.com: "characterized by profuse or wasteful EXPENDITURE" (emphasis added). In other words, the Prodigal son isn't called...