Writing What Nots

As novice writers we are always looking for that one big break that would help to jump start our careers. Sometimes we take things way to seriously and forget that writing at first is not about paying the bills. I love writing but let me tell you if I had to rely on it to pay the bills I would be living on the street. In this article I am going to point out some small tid bits about writing so sit back and enjoy.

1. The Paragraph

The paragraph first made its debut in the 1866 book Composition and Rhetoric, by Alexander Bain, a professor of rhetoric at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Bain defined a paragraph as a “collection of sentences with unity of purpose.” Later, the paragraph came to be seen as a small-scale composition, a view we still hold today, due to the clear beginning, middle, and end that both share.

2. Plot

Plot is the arrangement of events in a story. Plots include the exposition, rising action, climax, and denouement (resolution).

3. Bake A Cake

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that writing is a neat process. It’s rather messy, like baking a cake. As you add each “ingredient,” You stir the whole thing around a lot to blend it altogether. If your paper looks sloppy, then you’re probably on the right track.

4. Some Formats

Paragraphs in essays, novels, short stories, and so on are normally indented 5 spaces. This is set automatically on your tab key. Business letters, in contrast, are often typed in “block format,” without indented paragraphs. Instead, you separate the paragraphs with a double space. When deciding whether or not to indent paragraphs in business documents, follow the style conventions used in your business or company.

5. Too Much

There’s such a thing as too much elaboration. You’re under no obligation to include everything you found. Don’t beat the topic to death.

If you look around you will find hundreds and hundreds of little tid bits like the ones here. In the future I will be writing more articles with more of these little helpers. If you choose to use any of them, that is entirely up to you but they are fun to read and discover where a lot of them come from.

Dale Mazurek