Magic with adjectives

Today I'm going to teach you how to make an ordinary, everyday phrase into an adjective. It'll be fun. I promise.

This super-amazing, magical power is used when a phrase is longer than one word but it's technically being used as an adjective. For example, let's pretend you're a grandma, and someone did something nice for you. You might write them a card to say thank you. Thank you is two words, so you may be concerned about attempting to make this an adjective because readers will be completely unaware that these words go together to describe the appropriate noun. Fear not. You can (and by can I mean you have to because grammar says) simply hyphenate the term.

In other words, you can write a thank-you card.

Now I know this seems a little odd, and you don't see it very often. You see it more commonly with numerical terms, like a three-mile run (ugh) or a quarter-inch cable. It's the same concept. If you don't hyphenate the terms, technically the adjectives there are mile and inch. You're not going for three one-mile runs. You're going for one three-mile run. See how much that hyphen simplified things? Similarly, Grace Potter doesn't have an inch cable that she's looking for a quarter of. She's asking for her quarter-inch cable.

And you, Grandma, are not writing a you card. You're writing a thank-you card.

Some of you sharp readers may have noticed I also hyphenated super-amazing. That's because it's important to note that the power to hyphenate adjectives is not just amazing. It's super-amazing. Yes, that means you should be doing that whenever you use the word super in that way.

I'm very sorry to introduce another brand-new rule you're now aware you're not following.

A synopsis of my current project

Here's a rough outline of my current book:

A kid goes to camp, and they eat food. There's a bad guy who eats food, and a cop has some physiologically improbable sex with some girl, which both follows and precedes them eating food. Also there's some baseball, and the kid's probably Jewish or something, and everyone eats a lot of food.

Does that give you an idea of the plot? Yeah, me either.

And I'm done.

Now with this man she was a complete woman.

Upholstery

I think this one broke my brain. I actually had to look it up to make sure it wasn't a thing because I was baffled as to how someone could honestly write this.

They upholstered their firearms.

I believe the word he was looking for was drew. But I see how that could be a tricky one.

Side note: I'm really hoping upholstered firearms become a thing.

Listen to my face

I sat down and smiled quietly.

How exactly would one smile loudly? Does this guy not know the meaning of the word smile?

Come to think of it, I'm not sure this guy knows the meanings of point of view or plot either.

Fun with translations

One of my fun jobs is called post editing, which means looking at stuff that Google Translate has "translated" and fixing it so it actually makes sense. Here's a sentence I came across today:

And if you just turn if the lift that was just because I envy.

What it meant to say was:

And if you just tuned in, if you're one of those people who just woke up, I envy you.

This is rather different.

Who is "everybody"?

I'm starting to think that when middle-aged, middle-class white men say that their book is for "everybody," it's not that they really think women or minorities are going to read their racist, misogynistic crap. It's just that "everybody" really only refers to other middle-aged, middle-class white men like themselves.

Point of view primer

Here's a quick lesson for those of you who don't understand point of view.

There are three types:

First person. I went to the fair.

Second person. You went to the fair.

Third person. He went to the fair.

Pretty simple, right? Yes, it is simple. People don't write in second person, so either your narrator is I or she/he/it.

If you're writing in third person, you have some options on how much information you want to give the readers.

Third person limited means that while the narrator is she/he/it and not I, readers only get to know the narrator's thoughts, feelings, etc. Think Harry Potter.

Third person omniscient means that the narrator is its own omnipotent entity that knows all and sees all. Therefore, readers get to know the thoughts and feelings of any and all characters. Think Winnie the Pooh.

Current trends in fiction overwhelmingly favor third person limited. I assume this is because it takes away the ability to say, "Little did he know..."

Now you might be thinking, "I'm going to write a book in third person, so who cares if it's omniscient or limited?" Let me answer that question for you.

Everyone cares.

Once you choose to write in third person limited, you cannot for any reason switch to omniscient. Limited means readers only get to hear the thoughts and feelings of the main character, so imagine how jarring it would be to suddenly get someone else's thoughts. It would be like hearing voices, only in book form. Yes, some authors do switch main characters from chapter to chapter, but when they do, they become limited to the thoughts and feelings of the new main character.

If you are going to write a book, you absolutely must understand the differences in point of view. You cannot write in third person sorta limited but sometimes semiomniscient. This is not only bad writing; it is inexcusable.

The end.