Kathryn A. Frazier
Your Story. Your voice. the best it can be.
Tag: writing
3 Pro Tips to Up Your Writing Game
Are you ready to up your fiction writing game today? Here’s some easy-peasy, but super effective tricks of the trade. I’m sure you’ll be able to do these.
How Charlie Chaplin can Improve Your Writing
Watch any silent movies lately? If you’re a writer, you should. Using extremely limited narration and dialogue, silent films communicate story, motivations, and emotions. The defined visuals, expressions, action, and reactions show the audience only the essentials of the story. And no one did it more brilliantly than Charlie Chaplin….
Hidden Passive Verbs
There is a simple way to tell if a verb is passive or active: Find the subject of your sentence. Does the subject do the action of the verb? If so, the verb and the sentence is active. But if the subject receives the action, the verb and sentence is passive.
Easy-peasy lemon squeezy!
The N-word: Is it ever OK to say? Plus NaNoWriMo editing update
Hola, Writer Peeps! What do you think? Can I say the N-word and other “bad” words in a historical context? Or are some words just not acceptable ever? As an example of non-acceptance, my husband Frazierhead and I went to a family’s home for… Continue Reading “The N-word: Is it ever OK to say? Plus NaNoWriMo editing update”
My week in review: Isolated with infectious disease
Have you ever been referred to an infectious disease specialist? I just got home from the hospital where I’ve been fighting a gnarly antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection in my kidneys.
Mom & Dad’s Photos
My task is scanning and organizing their photos.
Since my parents’ deaths, we’re sifting through their belongings, deciding what to keep, what to donate, and what to sell. It feels wrong, as if they’ll come home any minute and catch us robbing them. But we know for sure that we all want copies of the family photos.
Mom and Dad kept all their photos loosely tossed in large cardboard boxes, along with…
Self-driving Cars and Avocado Toast: Welcome to AP Stylebook 2017
These are the days that we grammar freaks live for!* The Associated Press Stylebook 2017 is shaking things up with 200 changes, some of them major changes. The internet (lowercase i) is buzzing with venom as traditional grammarists duke it out with progressive grammarists, using well-written and carefully punctuated insults, while trolls stoke the fire with deliberate misspellings. It’s a maaaaaad house!
Why did it take nine years to get serious about my own writing?
My son, always looking for ways to earn a few extra dollars to fund his science projects, emerged from his (laboratory) bedroom as I emerged from my Writing Zone. We met at the (writing fuel) coffee pot, and he began his proposal.
“I see you’re making money,” he started.
“I’m not making money,” I answered.
A sound caught in his throat, as if this unexpected answer…
When and When Not to Hyphenate
Do you know why high-heeled shoes get a hyphen, but running shoes do not? Why the president-elect gets a hyphen, but the vice president elect does not? What if I told you that the white-and-gold dress was also blue and black? Some people think hyphenating is random, that whatever looks right is right. Sorry, but no. We have rules. We can’t just let people hyphenate all over the place, willy-nilly. But I’ve got your back. I’ll walk you through this.
Avoiding Bias when Writing Descriptors
One of the biggest changes to American English in recent years is an emphasis on persons first. That is, we no longer define human beings by their descriptors. I’m not talking about Political Correctness. I’m talking about grammar.
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Kathryn A. Frazier 