A Few Caveats

1. Stories don’t have thesis statements. They present the reader with life circumstances and let the reader draw the lesson on his/her own.
2. You have to write to where you live.
3. Issues of syntax and flow of ideas remain central to any communication we do.
4. Be a storyteller or be a philosopher.
5. Don’t know why it works, but qualifying one life touches more lives universally.
6. You get 3 exclamation points for your entire life. An exclamation point won’t do anything bad nouns and verbs won’t.
7. Find ways to deal with the excessive use of personal pronouns. 1^st person plural pronouns aren’t as offensive as 1^st person singular, for whatever reason.
8. Always ask, “What are you accumulating literarily throughout a project?”
9. Foreign words are always italicized.
10. Good poetry is condensed language.
11. Don’t let your language overcomplicate your communication. Above all, you want people to understand you.
12. Periods and commas go inside quotations and colons and semicolons go outside (unless you’re British and then it’s backwards).
13. Selection, arrangement and emphasis of details produce artistic unity.
14. Eliminate to be verbs for more powerful communication. (am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been) Use an active voice. Across the board, passive voice excuses responsibility. Use it when appropriate.
15. Edit for clarity and validity.