Ali Hale Is there any difference between the words “nutritional” and “nutritious”? They’re both adjectives that refer to the nutrients in a food. Nutrients covers both “macronutrients” (normally defined as carbohydrates, fats, and proteins) and “micronutrients” (vitamins and minerals). You’ll quite often see “nutritional” and “nutritious” being used interchangeably, but there is a difference. Nutritional is an … Read more
For some writers, dialogue comes naturally. They find it easy to “hear” their character’s voices and they have the knack of crafting dialogue that sounds natural without trying to replicate all the “ums” and “ers” of actual speech. For many writers, though, dialogue can be a struggle. Maybe they don’t know how to get started, … Read more
Have you got an Amazon Echo? If so, you might well have enabled a bunch of different skills to extend Alexa’s capabilities. (Skills are like apps for Alexa.) Even if you’ve not got an Echo, you can still use Alexa on your smartphone – and you can enable skills there, too – so you might … Read more
Fifteen or twenty years ago, self-publishing was looked on as a last resort option for books that a publisher wouldn’t want to take on. It was also an expensive and time-consuming way to get a book out there. Self-publishers had to pay for a whole print run – maybe 1,000 or 2,000 copies – and … Read more
Two words that sometimes get confused are “disparate” and “desperate”. They have quite different meanings, but they can sound very similar in some accents, and if you’re using autocorrect, you might find that you get the wrong one. What Does “Disparate” Mean? Disparate is an adjective that refers to things that are separated in some … Read more
Whether you enjoy writing or not, there’s probably a fair amount of it that you have to do as a student. I don’t think essays are anyone’s favourite thing to write (and I say that as a former English Literature student!) … but by honing your writing process, you can get them over and done … Read more
When you’re writing a story, there’s always a point of view. You’re telling the story from a particular perspective – and that can have a huge impact on how the story comes across to the reader. At the most basic, you need to choose between telling a story in the first person (“I woke up … Read more
Sandi from Inspiration for Writers wrote to ask: “Can you do a segment on Past vs. Passed–if you haven’t already? Too many get these words mixed up.” Very happy to oblige, Sandi! Past – relates to location The word past locates something in time, and sometimes in space. It can be used as an adjective, … Read more
Summary: Among and amongst are interchangeable terms. Among is more common in modern writing. Americans tend to always use among, while in the UK both among and amongst are used. Although we’ve covered the difference between Among/Amongst in another post on Daily Writing Tips (spoiler alert: there isn’t one), you might still be wondering which … Read more
The colon can be a tricky punctuation mark. You’ve probably grasped periods, question marks, exclamation points, and commas – but the rules surrounding colons may seem a bit trickier. There are two main ways to use colons: To introduce an item or a series of items. To replace a semi-colon between two independent clauses: the … Read more
Have you created character profiles for the main cast of your novel? While not all authors use character profiles, many find them a very handy tool for keeping track of their characters – and for developing and fleshing out those characters in the first place. Done well, a character profile can help you harness your … Read more
I wrote about MasterClass a couple of months ago in my review of James Patterson’s course on Writing – and this month, I’ve been enjoying Margaret Atwood’s course on Creative Writing. In case you don’t want to head back to that post, I’ll quickly recap the basics of MasterClass itself here: What’s MasterClass? MasterClass is … Read more