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Another little acorn

edited June 2006 in - Writing Tales

Comments

  • I've just received the latest Newsletter from the charity OCD Action and they've used a 'personal experience' piece I submitted to them some months ago.  Quite honestly I think they're desperate for contributions, but then again, when I sent it in I was told the editor would work on it with me, prior to its being used.  He didn't and it's appeared word for word as I wrote it, which is a compliment, I guess.  One thing I have noticed is my overuse of exclamation marks in the piece, which makes me cringe.  That's something to knock on the head right now.  I don't do it generally in my fiction, but I know my emails and postings on here are littered with them and it's a bad habit.
  • Well done Hippo!
  • Congratulations, Hippo.
  • Brilliant Hippo! (oops sorry another exclamation!):) I'm sure they are 'desperate for contributions' but not so desperate they're going to print rubbish. Your writing obviously sparkled and caught their eye - don't put yourself down.
  • Good luck Hippo :O) well done :O)

    Gary.
  • Congratulations, Hippo! I tend to use the word 'just' every other sentence.
  • Excellent, Hippo!
  • Yep, 'just' is one I have to avoid, too - also 'really'.

    Well done, Hippo.
  • Well done Hippo!
  • I also do exclamation marks to death.  Also the words just, all, and that.  Well done on your article.
  • Gosh - I hope I never compare my writing with my emails.
    My emails are awful - full of typos, emoticons, bad grammer, dashes, bad punctuation and with poor grammar.
    To me email, text and chat rooms are very very different to writing. Almost anything goes in the electronic forums.
    As for loads of exclamation marks - so what? If they work for you and convey a meaning then why not!  :-)

    ...of course you do get those individuals that are very very picky about grammar in books and such. I recently had a local education authority refuse to carry my first novel in their school libraries as I had includes an apostrophe in possessive its. Having pinged a number of intelligent colleagues, like me most were not even aware that this was incorrect. (and I am 90% sure I was taught that way in school).

    My advice - ignore these saddos and go with what you feel and if you make the odd error there is always time to adjust things at a later date  :-)

    Taff
  • Well done Hippo!!!!!!!!!!!
  • Interesting stuff.  Good to know everyone's got - and knows - their weaknesses.  I've got a list of 'danger' words which I know I overuse, too, and do a 'Find' on them in short stories to try to eradicate too many appearances.  I don't fancy doing that at the end of my novel, though - best to try to keep them out in the first place or I'll go grey(er) during the editing process.

    Look, a whole posting without an exclamation mark (though I could really feel one struggling to get itself on screen at the end of that sentence - and this one for that matter).
  • Well done, Hippo.  I must admit that I am guilty of countless Screamers and I'm sure I am not the only writer to think back to the great days when all magazines had subbing editors.
  • Hippo, no screamers - well done. I had the urge to include at least one in this reply but have resisted the temptation.
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