Rules for Writing Numbers

Let's face it, most of us didn't become writers because we're good with numbers. A lot of us are the same people who got straight A's in Literature classes, but struggled to pass Trigonometry. We're writers! We're good with words.

But in many contexts, numbers are words. If you write long enough, you'll have to deal with them eventually. When you do, you might find out--like I did--that you aren't sure how to handle them.

Like many rules, the main thing is to be consistent. Whatever you choose to do about writing numbers, make sure you stick to it.

The most widely accepted stance on writing numbers is that in non-technical writing, you should spell out the numerals. 1 becomes one. 43 becomes forty-three.

But what about 328,747?

When I first went looking for a rule on this subject, I read that you're supposed to write out any number under a hundred. But I found that didn't quite capture it, after all, I'd rather write "a million" than 1,000,000. So there shouldn't be some arbitrary point where you stop spelling out numbers and start writing numerals.

The rule I settled on is that I always write out any number that can be expressed in three words or fewer. 600 becomes six hundred. 47 becomes forty-seven.

That right there is enough to cover most situations, but there are a host of specific types of numbers that have their own rules; time, date, etc. And how do you punctuate numbers? Here is the best, most comprehensive list of number-related rules I can come up with.

• Write out all numbers that can be expressed in three words or fewer.
• Nine
• Twenty-three
• Eight hundred thousand
• Hyphenate compound numbers from twenty-one to ninety-nine, even when they are part of a larger number.
• Thirty-six
• Three hundred ninety-five (I wouldn't write this number out in fiction, but this example demonstrates the next rule
• DO NOT hyphenate orders of magnitude like hundred, thousand, or million.
• WRONG: Two-hundred fifty-two
• RIGHT: Two hundred fifty-two
• Using numerals and words combined is acceptable for orders of magnitude one million and higher.
• 34 million
• 5.7 billion
• However, if the number can be easily expressed without numerals, do so.
• Five billion
• Six trillion
• Hyphenate written-out fractions.
• Two-thirds
• Three-fifths
• Write out ordinal numbers, and hyphenate any between twenty-one and ninety-nine.
• First thing's first.
• For the thousandth time!
• Thirty-third place.
• Always use commas when writing numerals.
• 1,584,282
• 2,483
• But don't use commas when writing out large numbers.
• WRONG: Six thousand, forty-five
• RIGHT: Six thousand forty five
• Always use a zero before a decimal when using numerals. It helps readers catch the decimal point.
• WRONG: Voter turnout was only .5 percent.
• RIGHT: Voter turnout was only 0.5 percent.
• NEVER begin a sentence with a numeral.
• WRONG: 5,400 people were there.
• RIGHT: Five thousand four hundred people were there.
• RIGHT: Fifty-four hundred people were there. (Informal, but preferred, as it condenses the number to three words.)
• Currency
• Write out any amount that can be expressed in three words or fewer.
• Seven dollars
• Twenty thousand dollars
• Add a comma between dollars and cents (or between other currencies and their coinage):
• Nine dollars, twenty-two cents
• Five pounds, three pence
• ...unless you're writing it informally
• A dollar fifty
• Six and a quarter
• Do not add the name of the currency when using numerals, use the associated symbol.
• WRONG: $1,284 dollars
• RIGHT $1,284
• Time
• Write out times that are easily expressed in one word, unless you're being formal.
• Noon
• Midnight
• Nine
• Six in the morning
• Use numerals for all other times.
• 7:30 PM
• 1:25 AM
• It is acceptable to drop the :00 for the top of the hour (9 PM), but I don't do it because a) I usually just write out the number and skip the AM/PM, and b) I like the consistent look of having the colon in every time I write.
• Pick a spelling for AM and PM, and stick with it.
• AM and PM is the most preferred.
• A.M. and P.M. 
• a.m. and p.m. 
• and am and pm 
• are all acceptable
• Put a space between numerals and the AM/PM designation.
• WRONG: 7:30PM
• RIGHT: 7:30 PM
• Date
• Use numerals for dates when you're stating them formally.  Commas are required in this format.
• June 30, 2015
• The 30th of June, 2015
• Use words when stating them informally.
• The twentieth is a Friday.
• He was born March eleventh, right before me.
• Spell out decades.
• The sixties
• The late eighties
• Use numerals for centuries
• The 1900s
• The 2000s
• DO NOT use apostrophes to pluralize decades or centuries
• WRONG: The 80's
• WRONG: The early 1900's
• RIGHT: The '80s [Do use an apostrophe to stand in for omitted numbers, as I explain in my article on apostrophes]
• RIGHT: The early 1900s

Any awkward situations I missed? Any rules you disagree with? Drop me a comment!

Apostrophe Dos and Don'ts

One of my greatest fears is that one day the plural apostrophe ("Take off your hat's and coat's.") will become accepted standard usage. The error is so widespread on the internet and in the real world that I fear the sheer volume of uncorrected uses will eventually lead to a change in official position, as it did for the new definition of the word literally: "Used for emphasis or to express strong feeling while not being literally true" (Google). Language is fluid and occasionally arbitrary, and the rules seek to reflect genuine usage, so the plural apostrophe may have its day. If it does, we will no longer be able to tell plurals and possessives apart--which is why we invented apostrophes--and I will probably take my own life.

I bet Zappa has an opinion on this subject. And he's
probably right. I mean, look at that mustache.

Apostrophes confuse a lot of people. I'm one of them. The title of this page is a peculiar and confusing case in itself: most writers have an urge to put an apostrophe in the plural of "do" in order to avoid confusion, but the word "don't" already has an apostrophe in it. So should we write it do's and don't's? Or dos and don'ts? Or should we be inconsistent with apostrophe use, and write it do's and don'ts? Thankfully, the wise and oracular Grammar Girl has already weighed in on this subject. She's the final authority for me, and it's her recommended usage you see at the top of this page. When I read it, I can't help but think of an early text-based computer operating system, but hey, sometimes you just have to pick a rule and go with it.

In the spirit of keeping written English sane and sensible, I present the best list of apostrophe rules I could come up with. Keep in mind that some of these rules are not universally agreed upon. In fact, I'm not even consistent with which style guide I follow. I follow the rule that makes the most sense to me logically, and I respectfully submit them for your perusal.

Do

• Use apostrophes in contractions: Can't, won't, I'll. This is the reason we invented apostrophes: to stand in for omitted letters. Be careful though, not to overuse ugly, non-standard contractions in order to capture the rhythm of speech; "This's Bill." (which sounds identical to "This is Bill."), or "Bill'll get you fixed up." Phrases like this may make sense in speech, but they're horrid to look at on the page.
• Use apostrophes for omitted numbers as well: the '60s. Notice, however, that the apostrophe is not placed between the 0 and the s. The apostrophe stands in for the 1 and the 9, but putting it between the 0 and the s make the word possessive, which is not what you want,
• Use an apostrophe and and s for possessive nouns: Sally's car, the company's building, the constable's billy club. The other reason we invented apostrophes.
• If two people own something jointly, only the last one needs and apostrophe: "Bill and Joan's house is for sale."
• If each person has their own thing, both take apostrophes: "Bill's and Joan's cars are brand new." [While correct, I find this phrasing awkward. I would probably rephrase to simply say "Bill and Joan have new cars" or "Their cars are new."]
• If you substitute a pronoun for one person, it needs to be possessive: "My and Joan's son is going to Stanford" [Again, correct, but awkward, I'd prefer "Our son is going to Stanford."]
• Use an apostrophe and an s for possessive singular nouns, even if the word itself ends with an s: Marcus's favorite bar, Kansas's new statute. [William Strunk Jr. is with me on this one. Grammar Girl is not, although she does point out that it's simply a matter of which style guide you refer to. This is one of the few cases where I deviate from Grammar Girl, and here's why: using the extra s gives you an easy way to distinguish between nouns that happen to end in s, and plural nouns, as in the next rule.]
• Use an apostrophe without an s to indicate possession for plural nouns ending in s: My parents' house, the Jones' pool party, Ladies' night at the dance club.
• Use an apostrophe and an s to indicate possession for plural nouns that do not end in s: The children's table, the geese's habitat.
• Some phrases are tricky: For example, "For goodness' sake" takes an apostrophe. But think about it. In this case "goodness" is used like a possessive noun. Whose sake? Goodness' sake. Another sticky spot is the American holiday Veterans Day. The official, government mandated spelling does not have an apostrophe, even though it is a day to celebrate all veterans' sacrifice (notice the apostrophe following the plural s). If in doubt, check the official spelling.
• Use apostrophes to pluralize single letters: This only happens when you are referring to the letter itself: "This word has too many e's." "Dot the i's and cross the t's." This rule is especially important when writing about a's, i's and u's, because it helps avoid confusion with actual words.
• Use apostrophes to pluralize numbers: 1's and 2's. This is essentially the same rule as above, and feel free to use it when referring to the actual numerals. But in my writing I always write out any number, plural or singular, that can be written in four words or fewer. So I would write "ones and twos" instead of 1's and 2's. [For more on this, check out my article on numbers]
• Use apostrophes for quotes within quotes. "I heard him say 'Sherry got a nose job' over at the bar." This goes for scare quotes (sarcastic quote marks) within dialogue as well: "Yeah, I was upstairs 'doing my homework.' " [Technically, for quotes within quotes you're supposed to use a single quotation mark (according to Grammar Girl), which apparently is a thing, and is distinct from an apostrophe. But I've used dozens of keyboards in my life and I've never seen a single quotation mark on any of them--just a plain ol' apostrophe (that little mark under the tilde on the top left of your keyboard is not a single quote, it's a grave accent, and I have no idea what its for). Personally I don't use smart quotes in my writing, so there's no distinction between open quotes and end quotes, and the apostrophe is just a little straight line. So visually there's no difference. For a more detailed look at quotes within quotes, check out this article on Grammar Book.]
• Use apostrophes to form the past tense and participle of verbed acronyms: Occasionally, it is acceptable to form a verb out of an acronym, and if you need to use the past tense or participle form of such a verb, The Chicago Manual of Style recommends an apostrophe: "He's OD'ing!" (participle) "He OD'd" (past tense). This is especially helpful when writing jargon: "Have you MAC'd that widget?" One common abuse of this rule is to say someone "OK'd" something, but I personally find "OK" to be an abomination in fiction. The word is "okay", and "okayed" looks just fine to me. I'm not above writing "OK" when I'm texting my wife; after all brevity is the soul of the text message. But in fiction, I take a few more pains to use words correctly, and "okay" will always look better. And it's not like anyone is charging you by the letter, so there's no reason to omit the "ay".
• Use apostrophes in the official transliterations of foreign language: Apostrophes are often used to aid pronunciation in official anglicized versions of foreign words. The best example I know is "l'chaim", a Hebrew word for toasting and celebrating. In these cases, there is always an official position for the apostrophe, so it can be thought of more like a letter. "60's" is a punctuation error. "lchaim" is a spelling error.

Don't

• Don't use apostrophes to indicate plurals. I have actually rejected prospective editing clients based solely on this rule. I figure if they don't know this, there is probably a lot more they don't know, and I don't charge enough to teach them.
• WRONG: "We're going to look at a few house's today."
• RIGHT: "We're going to look at a few houses today."
• Don't use apostrophes for emphasis. I'm not sure where this error came from, but I'm guessing it's an over-extension of scare quotes. However it came to be, we need to take it out back and shoot it.
• WRONG: Who is that 'radiant' young woman?
• RIGHT: Who is that radiant young woman?
• Don't use apostrophes to pluralize acronyms. This is another gray area, and the correct usage depends on what style manual you prefer. In some manuals, the apostrophe is considered correct because it stands in for missing letters, just as it does in contractions; CD's is short for compact discs, and the apostrophe denotes those missing letters. I, however, prefer to skip the apostrophe in this case, because you can't put one in for every chunk of missing letters, and the rule of capitalizing acronyms makes it easy to distinguish between CDs (compact discs), and CDS (credit default swap), so the apostrophe does not serve the same purpose it does for single letters.
• WRONG: CD's, DVD's. 
• RIGHT: CDs, DVDs
• Don't use apostrophes to pluralize decades or centuries. Interestingly, Blogger's built-in spell check seems to disagree with this rule and the previous one. I'm getting a squiggly red underline as I type the correct words. This, if anything should indicate that these rules are not set in stone. That said, The Chicago Manual of Style backs me up on this one. The important thing is to pick whichever rule makes the most sense for the type of writing you're doing and be consistent.
• WRONG: 1960's, the early 1900's
• RIGHT: 1960s, the early 1900s
• [As I stated above, you should use an apostrophe to stand in for the missing numbers when you abbreviate decades, but it should not go between the 0 and the s. '60s is correct, although as I point out in my article on numbers, I prefer to write decades out: Sixties.]
• Don't use apostrophes in possessive pronouns. Pronouns have their own form to indicate possession; we write his, hers, and theirs instead of him's, her's, and they's (using words like that to capture dialect might be okay in moderation, but overuse will make you look stupid).
• The difference between its and it's is a confusing case for many. I myself struggled with it for years, and I still slip up on occasion. The possessive form of the pronoun it contains the same letters as the contraction for "it is", but remember, possessive pronouns never take apostrophes. Contractions always do.
• Lets and let's is another tough one for most people, including myself. Lets is a present-progressive verb: "He lets me sit up front." It indicates an ongoing state of allowance. Let's is a contraction of "let us": "Let's go to the store." Remember, contractions always take apostrophes. And present-tense verbs don't need them!

Maybe Sometimes

• Use apostrophes to capture dialect sparingly. "I's talkin' to him, but he ain't listen." Using this device too much makes your writing hard to read, and I generally frown upon phonetic spelling of dialect, but sometimes it works. If you're writing period fiction, it may even be necessary, as apostrophes were much more common before spelling was as standardized as it is today. Just be sure not to overdo it, or readers will have to work so hard to understand what you're saying they won't have any attention left for your story.

Any other odd apostrophe situations I didn't cover? Any rules you disagree with? Let me know in the comments below!

The Ten Commanments of Fiction Writing, Part Ten

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

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Commandment Ten: Thou shalt write what thou knowest, and know all thou mayest.

I think I might have gotten the "Olde English" wrong in the title. Wanna fight about it?

ANYWAY...

This last commandment is one you're sick of hearing: write what you know. It means you should share your experiences in your stories. It means you should create characters you understand. It also means that if you're a middle-class white guy like me, you don't try to write from the point of view of a poor black single mother during the civil rights movement. Wittgenstein put it best; "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent."

But there's another side to this old adage, and it's this: as a writer, it is your business to learn and experience everything you possibly can.

Direct experience is best. Every experience available to the human mind has its own secrets. People don't always talk about all the emotional subtleties, and as a writer you can make the experience more real for your readers by exposing them. But sometimes direct experience isn't a wise option. You shouldn't try heroin so you can write about being a junkie. You shouldn't murder someone so you can capture the mind of a killer more accurately.

In those cases, the best resource we have is other stories. Books, movies, and quality TV shows have a lot to share, and they have one additional advantage that direct experience doesn't: they're already structured into stories. Art imitates life, but it is not equal to life. Life is messy. Stories, in order to be comprehensible, should be much more orderly. So it behooves the writer to experience as many stories as he or she can.

But as long as you're living, you might as well try to have some life experiences too. They don't necessarily have to be the big, earth-shaking ones. Every day doesn't need to be a passion play. But the world is subtle and complex, despite its humdrum appearance. There is poetry all around you; from regional dialects, to the unique flavor of a particular coffee, to the unexpected struggles of your fellow humans.

If you've taken my advice about taking notes, you know what I'm talking about. Writers should be keen observers of everything around them, particularly human nature. Watch the people who come through your life. Listen to the way they talk. Study their body language. See the face they present to the world, and try to guess what's behind it.

Never turn down an opportunity to learn about something. Be curious about the things you don't see in your everyday life; from the secret pain of a depressed person, to the daily routine of your local garbage man.

Even the most menial things like the floors you walk on contain hundreds of things you never think about. You never know what might spark an idea. Open yourself to the physical world around you. Pay close attention to all five of your senses, and always be on the lookout for details that aren't obvious. 

I remember the exact moment I started doing this myself. I was in a subway station in LA. Other than the years I spent there, I've never lived anywhere with a subway system. I had been on the NY subway when I was younger, but my senses weren't as keen then. This particular day in LA, I happened to notice the rush of air that proceeds the arrival of a train. You can feel it even before you hear the squeal of the train's brakes. This detail isn't particularly life-changing, but it gave me pause. It makes perfect sense why it happens; the air is being displaced by the train just as water is displaced when you slip into the bathtub. But I had never heard anyone mention it before. And its exactly those kind of details that make a setting real.

Details like that exist for all the five senses, and they cover the entire spectrum of human interaction. If you tune in to them, they will begin to populate your writing even without deliberate effort. The mere act of observing them plants them in your subconscious, and they begin to naturally emerge in your work.

Being open to the world around you is one of the most important habits a writer can develop. If we're to write what we know without writing exclusively about ourselves, we'd better know everything we can. (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!)

The Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing, Part Nine

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

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Commandment Nine: Thou shalt edit thyself, and allow thyself to be edited

This one shouldn't come as a surprise coming from me. But I firmly believe that all writing deserves to be subjected to brutal, merciless editing.

And not just polishing as you re-read. No. I mean tough editing from someone who knows grammar, punctuation, and the principles of fiction. Someone who won't pull any punches. Someone who will tell you flat out that your story sucks, if that is, in fact, the case.

I've met writers and editors that believe that editing should be done with a light touch, in order to preserve the writer's voice. But I don't agree.

For one thing, if a writer's voice is so fragile that it can be undone by suggesting some more sentence variety, or asking them to avoid over-abundant alliteration, then that writer needs to accept that their voice may not be fully developed yet. If you're afraid an editor will strip your voice out of your work, you must not trust your voice. If it's there at all, it will survive even the harshest edits.

The deeper issue is that too often (arguably most of the time) authors use this amorphous, ineffable thing we call "Voice" as an excuse to avoid editing. Once you invoke the divine mystery of Voice, all meaningful analysis comes to a screeching halt. (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!) After all, Voice is nearly synonymous with a writer's taste in words, and as the old maxim says, "in matters of taste, there can be no disputes." (If I encounter this argument an editor, it usually signifies to me that the writer is in the First Stage of competence, and will not benefit from my participation)

Appealing to voice is the same logical fallacy that occurs when someone invokes the divine to avoid being proven wrong. It's a cop-out. I'm a believer myself, but if you ever catch me saying "because God says so" when you're critiquing my opinions, you have my permission to slap me. Gimme a good rap on the beak, set me straight.

When a good editor critiques a piece of writing, they should be prepared to defend each note with logic (I'd say the same for any time anyone tells another person to change in any way). Every change the editor suggests requires a reason, and I will be the first to admit that if their only reasoning is personal preference, you should feel free to disregard that particular note. That's not to say you should dismiss it out of hand, though. If you respect the editor at all, you should at least consider their opinion, because it's likely based on experience. And if you still disagree, no good editor will insist you take their suggestion anyway.

The thing to remember is that editing is a mostly thankless job. Editors don't get royalties. You don't see famous editors walking red carpets. Nobody gets rich editing books. In the majority of situations, editors don't even get credit. Pick a novel off your bookshelf, and scan the front matter for the editor's name. Unless the author thanks them in a dedication, I'm betting it's not there.

Editors exist to serve writers. Unless the editor is an idiot, every decision they make has the same goal: to make the book easier to read. Any editor who tries to take over another person's story is an idiot, because they're not going to get credit for it. And remember what I say about the path of least resistance. Readers, by and large, only read books that are easy to read.

One final point: writers must learn to self-edit, at least to some extent. You can't just vomit all over your computer screen and expect some superhero to swoop in and make it a bestseller. If you put that much of the burden on your editor, you don't really deserve the credit, do you?

Expecting your editor to just fix everything is the same as a musician who can't sing expecting the recording engineer to just autotune all the wrong notes. The end result feels fake. Cognitive dissonance is built into the final product, and the audience can sense that something is off, even if they can't quite say what. Some of them won't care, but do you really want to bank your whole career and reputation on people not caring that your work is shoddy?

Writing is a creative endeavor, to be sure, but the writers who attain sales and recognition do so by working hard. You can't expect to dance around like a woodland nymph, surviving on inspirational Pinterest quotes, and then suddenly have Peter Pan the literary agent sweep you off your feet and carry you to the land of success.

You better work, bitch.

The Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing, Part Eight

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

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Commandment Eight: Thou shalt not meddle with point of view

I've talked a lot about point of view. I've talked about how to edit for point of view. It's pretty obvious that I'm opinionated on the subject, and I've taken the time to express those opinions. So this is going to be a short post.

I've also talked a lot about the fictive dream. The fictive dream is the joy of reading fiction, and anything that meddles with it threatens that joy. And POV is the portal through which we enter the fictive dream (like this quote? Click here to tweet it!).

POV is a delicate thing. In the hands of a master, it can produce startling effects. In the hands of a careless amateur, it can make a story totally opaque.

When you supply too much information, you clog the portal with facts, and the fictive dream disappears. When you shift unexpectedly from one POV to another, you close one portal, and force the reader to search for the new one. When you use a first person narrator to tell a story whose scope goes beyond that character's experiences, you build the portal too narrow. When you use an omniscient narrator to show and tell everything, you build the portal too wide, and the reader is unable to focus.

If you have doubts about your ability to wield POV, err on the side of caution. Don't try to pull any tricks just for the sake of being tricky (as I've said before in this series).

And most importantly, think about what you can and cannot know, given a certain point of view. If your detective story is written in first person, your detective can't know what the murderer is doing while he's walking the beat. If you're writing in an intimate third person, you can't see what's going on behind walls or across vast distances. If your narrator is retelling stories from her past, remember that she is going to have a different perspective on those events than she did at the time.

In short, don't fiddle. POV is a tool, not a toy. Pick the right tool for the job, and don't mess around with it, or you'll hurt yourself.

The Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing, Part Seven

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

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Commandment Seven: Thou shalt know thy characters and settings as thyself

We've all been told to write what we know (and if you keep reading this series, you'll be told again), but that axiom works in reverse too: know what you write.

Part of my problem with pantsing is that when you begin with a blank page, you begin with flat, undeveloped characters (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!). You might put them into a dramatic situation, but you don't really know how they'll act, and without some kind of plan for character development, you're bound to miss a few opportunities. They might surprise you, which is good, but chances are they won't start surprising you right off the bat.

Characters are the core of your story, and they are the part that readers are most likely to remember. When I read Foxfire as a lonely teenage boy, I fell in love with Maddy and Legs. I missed them when the book ended. I missed them so badly that I actually wasted the time to see the god-awful 1996 adaptation. I don't know if Joyce Carol Oates is a plotter or a pantser, but she damn sure spent some time on the characters in Foxfire. They felt more alive and real than a lot of actual people I've met.

The issue is the same for settings. If you create a setting on the fly, chances are it's going to be pretty drab on the first pass. If you describe anything, it'll probably be the most obvious stuff, and that isn't what brings settings to life. Readers are savvy enough to fill in the obvious details on their own. The key is to provide the details that aren't obvious, and just enough of them to get the reader's imagination going. To do that, you have to get your imagination going.

Settings aren't always the most important element of a story, but they can be powerful if you develop them well. Anyone who's read Lord of the Rings probably wanted to live in Middle Earth, orcs and all. I remember reading those books and vividly imagining all the food, drink, and pipe-weed the characters consumed--heck, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't part of the reason I'm a pipe smoker to this day. Little details like that made the world so real that a part of me never left. Tolkien definitely overdid it when it came to exposition, there's no question, but his setting became part of his reader's lives forever.

While I strongly advise restraint when it comes to including details about characters and settings, it never hurts to generate those details. The only way you can know too much about your characters and setting is if taking notes becomes an addiction, and keeps you from actually writing. And as a borderline OCD case, I can see where that would happen. But when you're plotting, it's worthwhile to research or create as much detail as you can. You never know when you'll see an opportunity for intrigue. It's the Pantry Method again; gather all the information you can, and only show readers the really interesting bits. The rest will be there if you need it, and if you don't so what?

For me, a well-defined task is essential. That's why I took the time to build templates to help me in this process. I've tried to ask myself every possible question, and when I'm plotting a story, I answer as many as I can. If that sounds helpful to you, Check out my Plotting Resources page, where you can download all of my plotting templates.

Even if you're not a plotter, you need to find a way to get into your characters and explore your settings. Without them, your book is a synopsis at best.

The Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing, Part Six

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

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Commandment Six: Words are sacred, thou shalt not abuse them

We've already touched on this, but it's one of the most important things to realize when you become a writer: Words are powerful. Like anything powerful, they must be wielded responsibly.

Take a moment and try to imagine the world before written language. Try to imagine how much harder everything would be. These days, our thoughts exist almost exclusively in written language, much to the chagrin of previous generations. We text and email more than we talk. We post on Facebook instead of calling to catch up with friends. (Some people bemoan this state of affairs. I, on the other hand, am a huge fan of it, for reasons I won't go into now)

Try to imagine your typical day without writing. I'll give you a hint: it's impossible. You can't even wake up on time, because there's no such thing as numerals to put on a clock. You can't order breakfast off a drive-through menu. You can't do any work, because there are no computers, and no books from which to learn skills.

Writing is the foundation of all knowledge. It is the beginning of progress. (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!) Speech predates writing, possibly by millennia, but without the ability to transmit ideas beyond one's immediate space and time, progress was effectively nonexistent. The ability to cast ideas in a lasting medium makes the transmission and growth of knowledge possible.

Even when we write to entertain, we wield this awesome power. Anything that blasphemes against or abuses the power of words is at odds with the choice to write. If you deny the power of written words, why on Earth would you want to be a writer?

So what does this mean in practical terms? On the most basic level, it means you owe it to yourself and your potential readers to learn everything you can about words. Learn your parts of speech. Learn grammar. Learn linguistics, if you can. LEARN. Don't assume that just because you write a mean memo, or occasionally say something eloquent over cocktails, you know everything you need to know about words. You can never know too much.

One of the most overlooked crimes against words is the careless use of punctuation. Don't get me wrong, nobody is perfect, least of all myself. But readers can tell the difference between a small misstep like an unnecessary comma and a writer who just doesn't care. Punctuation marks are the accessories that ornament your words. They are the boundaries that divide them. Their use or misuse supplies meaning and subtlety. At least try to use them right.

Part of the reason I feel entitled to speak as forcefully as I do is because I'm guilty of every crime I condemn. When I started out as a writer, I couldn't tell you the difference between a preposition and a pronoun. I didn't know what a parallelism was. Worst of all, I didn't think I needed to learn these things; I thought I could get by on my innate facilities.

I still have plenty to learn. I'm still a little shaky on semicolons; I tend to use them when I probably shouldn't. But learning is a part of my regular routine now, and my knowledge base is always expanding.

Another part of revering words is not using them cavalierly. Purple prose is among the worst crimes an author can commit, because it saps words of their power.

If you are alive in the twenty-first century, you probably come across words that have lost their meaning every day. "Free" doesn't mean what it used to. Neither do words like "vintage", "sale", or "literally".

How about profanity? When you were little, the word "fuck" probably seemed like the gravest transgression you could ever commit. Unless you're a sheltered little lamb who doesn't use the internet, you probably don't even bat an eye at the word "fuck" anymore. I sure as shit don't. I fucking use it all day long.

Or how about exaggeration? Was that really the best hamburger you've ever eaten? Did that slice of cheesecake really change your life? Of course not. In speech, these kind of exaggerations are acceptable, because they disappear the moment they're spoken, or at least the moment they're forgotten by whoever hears them. And if they're being used for comic effect, exaggerations are fine in speech or writing. Megadeth's new album didn't literally shred my face off, but it's amusing to talk that way about heavy metal.

Purple prose is what happens when writers strain for effect. It's what happens when writers become too self-assured, too impressed with their ability to wield complex words. Words may not cost you anything to use, but when you write overwrought, flowery sentences like "The sun hid behind ivory clouds that gave its light the texture of a rippled curtain draped over the infinite window of the sky" when you could have said "It was cloudy", you harm those words. Every unnecessary over-extension is another step in a word's gradual descent into meaninglessness.

You might get away with disrespecting words. People do. But you can't expect to. And even though you can, that doesn't mean you should.