Category — Writing Aids

[Ed. Note - Sorry for not posting in forever. Clients get priority over blogging, obviously. I'm not going to fight being busy with projects, though!]

Speaking of writers learning about graphic design, here’s a nice resource for learning about typography – “Type 101″ on Fonts.com

I admit that I know enough about typography to be dangerous. However, as I get into it, I find it more and more fascinating. In the competitive world of freelance writing and design, it’s a valuable skill to acquire. As I discovered with search engine optimization, the more I learned, the more I realized I didn’t know. It’s humbling, but constantly learning new things is what makes writing fun.

Most of the time when you submit work for publication in some market, they don’t care one wit about what you think the font should be. They have their own standards, and you should follow them, of course. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered an instance where they didn’t require submissions to be in a generic font like Courier or Times New Roman. I know the former seems antiquated, but it’s the default for many story manuscript submissions.

If you are writing a brochure, web site, or something similar for a client, your suggestions often will be somewhere between useful and essential. If you do any amount of this kind of work, start learning.

Make sure you look under “About Fonts” and “Useful Links” (in the top menu bar at Fonts.com). You’ll find much more information worth reading. I don’t know a thing about the quality of their products and services, but I found the information they provide very helpful. So check it out!

This isn’t explicitly about writing, but I think this is a fascinating site. Obsolete Skills is compiling a wiki-style, master list of skills that used to be important in our society but no longer are.

A ’skill’ can be actual job skills (programming in BASIC), everyday actions people no longer perform (dialing a rotary phone), or skills that just aren’t useful anymore (like doing hexadecimal conversions in your head – which was questionably useful to begin with). Sadly, at one point I did all three of these. One caveat – some things in the list really are still used and remain useful – like understanding the Dewey Decimal System – so clearly this is a work in progress.

If you need a bit of writing inspiration, go there, pick a random ‘obsolete skill’, and write about a character who has that skill. Great cure for writer’s block!

Somewhere in your 30s, you become both tragically unhip and oblivious to the jargon that builds up in professions not your own. As a writer, though, if we are to communicate well with our readers, we have to try our best to keep up with how the world talks to each other. Whether it’s a marketing letter, a technical document, or two characters in dialogue, you need to know the language appropriate to your audience and your writing.

Here are a few sites I’ve used to do help me with this.

• Acronym Finder – It’s pretty much what it says it is.
• Abbreviations.com – This site is a nice compliment to Acronym Finder!
• The Free Dictionary – They cover jargon galore with their Medical Dictionary, Legal Dictionary, and Financial Dictionary.
• Urban Dictionary – Here’s a resource of slang for the woefully unhip. [salty language alert for those of you who care]
• Text Message Shorthand @ Netlingo – Personally, ‘IM speak’ drives me bat-crazy, but you may need to translate it…
• The Phrontistery – This site celebrates the incredible depth and breadth of the English language with whole lists of obscure words. Word-ophiles will love it. Go for the words but stay for the Compendium of Lost Words, lists of words that fell out of use long ago but ones you may need if you’re writing something like historical fiction.

Enjoy!

Bartleby.com has the full content of The Elements of Style (1918) by William Strunk, Jr. available electronically for free through its site. It also includes a search box and a Table of Contents to help you find specific topics.

I know there are newer versions of both The Elements of Style and other grammar and usage guides, but this is a timeless classic that still affects us almost a century later. It’s the cornerstone of every grammar and style guide that has come after it.

You can also find many other online works at Bartleby.com.

Sometimes a blog is so good that it requires little introduction. If you are someone obsessed with language geekery or the arcana of English, this blog is for you.

Go read the Language Log.

Here’s something to bookmark. YourDictionary.com has a list of the 100 words they think are the most commonly misspelled words in English.

I think a number of them are more usage problems than spelling issues (e.g., conscious vs. conscience or its vs. it’s), but it’s hard to argue with much on their list. Until is the strangest one.

Accommodate is the one that always gets me. Don’t ask me why.