CREATIVE WRITING
Better writing NOW
Author James McCreet runs through the most common errors made by apprentice writers so they can be solved at a stroke
James McCreet
I’ve been writing the Under the Microscope pieces for around ten years now and I’ve noticed certain patterns. Apprentice writers always struggle with the same things – sometimes for years. But imagine if you could solve all of those problems in one go.
You’d be a better writer almost instantly and save years of workshopping or rejections from agents and publishers.
This is not a fanciful notion. Most of the reasons for ineffective prose are simply addressed – often in a matter of minutes. The difficulty is twofold. One: accepting that one has a problem. Two: identifying exactly what the problems are and how to address them. The first is up to you. The second is my aim in this article.
Punctuation
I’ll be quite honest: I don’t think I’ve ever seen a piece of work from an apprentice writer who understood the rules of punctuation. That’s a sweeping statement and it’s true. The problem is that most writers believe they know the rules without ever learning them. Grammar works this way – we learn structures intuitively without formally knowing the rules – but it’s different with punctuation.
Most apprentice writers punctuate according to ‘feeling’. A comma to signify a pause or a breath. A semi-colon because, well, it’s something between a comma and a full stop, right? No. There’s very rarely a cause to use a semi-colon. Its usage is highly concrete and yet also quite subtle. If you’re using more than one on a page, it’s likely you’re using them incorrectly. And if you can’t quote the rules (very simple, actually) you are certainly using them incorrectly.
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June 2021
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