How to Start and Complete a Writing Project

In my last post, I discussed the importance of writing and how it makes you smarter. But it's one thing to understand why you should be writing and a whole other matter to actually do it. If you've ever had trouble finishing (or starting!) a writing project, try these nine steps.

1. Start with what interests you

Did you recently create a new feature? Hear about something cool you want to learn more about and share? Take time to research the topic, why it matters, and how it compares to similar features, products, or ideas.

2. Read similar content

If you're going to write a blog, see what you like about other blogs. The same goes for  documentation. Pay attention to what you like and don't like, and most importantly, why.

3. Write your draft

Don't worry about perfection! This is the time to get your ideas down. Part of what causes us to dread the blank page is fear of doing it wrong. There is no "wrong" in the draft stage. Just start writing.

4. Organize your content

Now that you've got your ideas down, look at the flow of the information. Are you starting with something that will hook the reader's interest or with something irrelevant or too detailed? Does the body of the document go off on tangents or add unrelated points in the middle of a paragraph? Are you summarizing at the end and giving further resources the reader can link to, or does it just trail off?

5. Edit

Go through each sentence and ask whether it adds value to the reader. Cut unnecessary words, phrases, and sentences. Make sure each sentence makes grammatical sense, and if you're unsure about a word or how to use commas correctly, look it up.

6. Take a break, and then read it again

Time away helps your brain reset so you can spot those gaps I mentioned in my last post.

7. Get it reviewed

This is the most important step. Send your draft to people who can give you feedback on the subject matter, the writing, or both. Wait for all the feedback to come in, and then (politely!) ask for clarification on unclear feedback. If you get conflicting feedback from different reviewers, you might need to make a judgment call about which makes the most sense. Be courteous and grateful, never defensive, with your reviewers. They are your most important resource, so treat them well.

8. Do a final edit

Incorporate the feedback, take a break, and then read it one more time. If you make anything other than the slightest tweaks at this point, get it reviewed again.

9. Publish and promote

Congratulations! You did it! Now it's time to make sure people read it. If you wrote a blog post, promote it on social media. Add appropriate keywords and hashtags.

If you updated documentation in response to customer feedback, let them know you fixed it and thank them for helping you improve the docs. In all cases, be sure to let your reviewers know it's published and thank them. People who are acknowledged are more likely to keep giving you feedback.

Time to jump in! You can print this list and start ticking off the steps, or you could add each step on your calendar. I like using the Self journal for planning and tracking goals. Whichever system you use, just start.

Do you have any tips or tricks for finishing a writing project? Please share them in the comments.

Collective Nouns

Collective nouns provide a way to refer to a group as a single unit. In fact, “group” is an excellent example of a collective noun; when you refer to a group, you are referring to all members of that group at once as a single unit. Other collective nouns you'll run into frequently are: team, data, network, family, and company.

Because the collective noun is being treated as a single unit, use singular verbs with it. For example, you write:

“The group is going to the event”

not:

“The group are going to the event”

Similarly, you write:

“The network of servers is offline”

not:

“The network of servers are offline”.  

When you follow a collective noun (“network”) with a prepositional phrase that defines what’s in the collective noun (“of servers”), it can be tricky to remember to use the singular verb (“is offline” instead of “are offline”). The reason is that your ear may cling to the last word it heard (“servers”) and think “servers is down” sounds wrong. But “servers” is the object of the prepositional phrase, NOT the subject of the sentence, and it's the subject of the sentence that the verb has to agree with.

If you see a prepositional phrase, take a look at what the sentence would look like without it, and you’ll have an easier time figuring out whether to use the singular or plural. For example, try this:

“The network of servers is down.”

Hmm, shouldn’t it be “servers are down”? Let’s remove the prepositional phrase:

“The network [of servers] is down” -> “The network is down.”

Could I say “The network are down?” Nope! The subject is “network”, not “servers” (“servers” is the object of the preposition), and the verb must agree with the subject, so it should be “The network is down.” So “The network of servers is down” is correct.

Of course, English is crazy, so there’s an exception: if you are putting the emphasis on the individuals in a group, you can use the plural verb. For example:

“After the event, the Tech Content team were trying to find their cars.”

This is the equivalent of saying:

“After the event, the members of the Tech Content team were trying to find their cars.”

In this case, it makes sense to use the plural verb, because using the singular verb would make it sound like the cars are owned by the Tech Content team, not by the individuals on the team:

“After the event, the Tech Content team was trying to find its cars.”

However, I recommend you avoid this awkwardness entirely and refer to the individuals explicitly as I did with “members” in the second example.  

Removing the prepositional phrase to help you determine whether to use the singular or plural verb is similar to a trick you can use when you’re trying to figure out whether to use the subject or object version of a pronoun, such as “and I” or “and me”.

For example:

Sam and I went to the market.

He gave the feedback to Sam and me.

The first sentence is pretty easy. Get rid of “Sam and”, and you’ll quickly see that “I went to the market” is correct, not “Me went to the market.” So you know it’s “Sam and I went to the market.”

But shouldn’t it also be “Sam and I” in the second sentence? If you pull out “Sam and” again, you can try it both ways:

He gave the feedback to me. (Correct)

He gave the feedback to I. (Incorrect)

Why? Because a prepositional phrase takes an object, not a subject, so you must use the object form “me”. Therefore, “He gave the feedback to me” is the correct sentence, and if you add back in “Sam and”, you get “He gave the feedback to Sam and me.”

These little mental tricks of pulling out extra information from the sentence to get down to the core components of subject, verb, and object can be very useful for figuring out whether to use the singular vs. plural of a verb and the subject vs. object of a noun.

What other tricks do you use to help with tricky sentences? Add your tips in the comments below!

Verbals

We’re all familiar with verbs. They describe the action or state of being. For example:

I run. (“I” is the subject, “run” is the verb) 

They crashed. (“They” is the subject, “crashed” is the verb) 

I think, therefore I am. (“I” is the subject in each clause, “think” and “am” are the verbs) 

The plane is flying overhead. (“plane” is the subject, “flying” is the verb preceded by the helper verb “is”)

But sometimes, a verb is not a verb!

A verbal is a word formed from a verb that functions as a noun, adjective, or adverb. There are three types of verbals:

• Gerunds
• Participles
• Infinitives

Gerunds

Gerunds end in "-ing" and act as a noun:

Flying is my favorite pastime. ("Flying" is the subject of the sentence) 

I love running. ("running" is the direct object of the sentence)

Participles

Participles act as adjectives. There are two types of participles: present and past. 

Present participles, like gerunds, end in "-ing", but they're used as adjectives, not nouns:

The flying squirrel was amazing. ("flying" is an adjective modifying "squirrel") 

The squirrel flying across the sky was amazing. ("flying across the sky" is a present participial phrase acting as an adjective modifying "squirrel")

Past participles usually end in "-ed" or "-en":

The crashed server made us frantic. ("crashed" is an adjective modifying “server”) 

The broken windows leaked a lot of rain. ("broken" is an adjective modifying “windows”)

Don’t confuse gerunds and present participles with verbs in the progressive tense, which come after a form of the verb “to be”:

The plane is flying overhead. (verb) 

The cat was running across the lawn. (verb)

Don't confuse past participles with verbs in the passive voice, which start with was/were:

The windshield was cracked. (verb) 

The windows were broken. (verb)

Infinitives

Infinitives start with “to” and end with the simple present form of a verb, such as “to fly” and “to crack”. They can act as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs.

Nouns:

To live is to adjust. 

I want to go. 

I love to fly.

Adjectives:

This is the best time to start. (modifies “time”) 

The first attempt to build the Panama Canal ended in failure. (adjectival infinitive phrase modifying “attempt”)

Adverbs:

You can tell an infinitive is acting as an adverb if you can put “in order” in front of it and get the same meaning.

To win, you need the highest number of points. (adverb modifying “need”) 

In order to win, you need the highest number of points. (same thing) 

We nailed plywood on the store windows to prepare for the storm. (adverbial infinitive phrase modifying “nailed”). 

We nailed plywood on the store windows in order to prepare for the storm. (same thing)

If you look at the noun or adjective examples of infinitives, however, you can't put "in order" in front of them and get the same meaning. "I love in order to fly" doesn't have the same meaning as "I love to fly", so you know in this case the infinitive is not an adverb.

Note that you use a comma after the adverbial infinitive when it starts a sentence:

To prepare for the storm, we nailed plywood on the store windows.

But you do not separate the adverbial infinitive from the rest of the sentence if it comes at the end of the sentence:

We nailed plywood on the store windows to prepare for the storm.

Don’t confuse infinitives with prepositional phrases. In infinitives, "to" is followed by a verb, whereas in prepositions "to" is followed by a noun.

I want to go. (Infinitive - "to" is followed by the verb "go") 

I went to the park. (Prepositional phrase - "to" is followed by the noun "(the) park")

So that's all you really need to know about verbals. And now I'm guessing (verb) you want to go (infinitive) to the bar (prepositional phrase) and forget all about them.

References

https://webapps.towson.edu/ows/verbals.html

Prepositions, Pronouns, and Particles

In the last lesson, we took a side trip into the essentials of technical writing. Now, let's get back to some thorny grammar problems. Today, we will cover prepositional phrases, how to use pronouns correctly within them, and how to identify when a preposition is actually a particle (and why you might care).

Prepositions

A prepositional phrase provides additional information such as when, where, and how. It always starts with a preposition like one of the following words:

in
of
to
with
on
after
for

(For a list of more prepositions, go here.)

For example, consider this simple sentence:

I drove.

If you want to say where you drove, add a prepositional phrase:

I drove to the store.

You could also use a prepositional phrase to say when you drove:

I drove to the store after midnight.

If you want to say more about which route you drove, put the prepositional phrase after the verb “drove”:

I drove on highway 101 to the store.

If you want to say more about where the store is located, put the prepositional phrase after the noun “store”:

I drove to the store on Broadway.

Notice that you’ve now nested a prepositional phrase within a prepositional phrase, which is perfectly fine. You can use several prepositional phrases to add lots of details:

After midnight, I drove with Sam on highway 101 to the store on Broadway.

A simple prepositional phrase has just a preposition followed by a noun (midnight, Sam, highway 101, store, Broadway) and any modifiers (e.g., sleepy Sam, busy store). 

If the words following the preposition include a subject and verb, though, it’s called a subordinate conjunction.

For example, here are two sentences that use the preposition “after”:

I drove after midnight. (prepositional phrase) 

I drove after Sam fell asleep. (subordinate conjunction)

Pronouns

In prepositional phrases, the words that come after the preposition make up the object of the preposition. In a subordinate conjunction, however, the words that follow the preposition make up a clause, which must include (at minimum) a subject and verb. Why does it matter if it’s a prepositional phrase or a subordinate conjunction? Let’s look at an example:

I’m going with whomever. 

I’m going with whoever wants to go.

In the first sentence, you don’t have a verb after the preposition, so it’s a prepositional phrase, and the pronoun that follows the preposition must be an object. This means that if you’re using a pronoun like “whoever”, you have to use the object form “whomever”, not the subject form “whoever”.

In the second sentence, however, you have a verb, so it’s a subordinate conjunction. In this case, you use the subject form “whoever” instead of the object form “whomever”.

This causes a lot of confusion. I see this incorrect construction all the time:

Wrong: I’m going with whomever wants to go.

This is wrong because “whomever” cannot be the subject of the verb “wants”. You need the subject form “whoever” instead. 

Now, let’s make things even more confusing:

I’m going with whomever I want.

This sentence is correct! Why? Because in this subordinate conjunction, the subject is “I” and the verb is “want”. It also has an object (“whomever”), which appears at the beginning of the clause in a subordinate conjunction. If you were writing the clause as a sentence, it would be:

I want whomever.

But when the clause is subordinate, the object comes first, which can make it harder to spot the subject vs. the object:

I’m going with whomever I want.

Take another example:

I’m addressing the letter to whom it may concern.

This is a subordinate clause with a subject (“it”), verb (“may concern”), and object (“whom”). 

Here’s another construction that causes problems all the time:

Shiraz and I took the candy. 

She gave the candy to Shiraz and me.

In the first sentence, “Shiraz and I” is the subject of the sentence, so you use the subject form of the pronoun “I”. But in the second sentence, “Shiraz and me” is the object of the preposition, so you use the object form and write “me” instead. You could also say:

She gave Shiraz and me the candy.

In this case, "Shiraz and me" is the indirect object, so you use the object form "me". 

People often say “Me and Shiraz took the candy” or “Shiraz and me took the candy”, which are both wrong and make my ears hurt. But it’s even more painful when people try to sound correct and use the subject when they should be using the object, such as “She gave the candy to Shiraz and I”. (No, she didn’t. She gave it to Shiraz and me.)

So how can you remember all this? First, identify the subject by asking yourself who or what is doing the action. You will then have a much easier time figuring out which word, if any, is the object.

For example, in the candy sentence, here’s what’s going on in my head:

“Okay, she’s giving the candy, so ‘She’ is the subject of the sentence and ‘gave’ is the verb. What did she give? The candy. So that’s the object of the sentence. Now I see a preposition (to), so what follows is either a prepositional phrase or a subordinate clause. I just see nouns, no verbs, so this is a prepositional phrase, which means I need to use the object form ‘me’. The pronouns 'I' and 'me' always come after the other person, so the sentence is: She gave the candy to Shiraz and me.” 

Particles

Here's an interesting point that won’t usually affect your writing but is nice to know: sometimes words that look like prepositions are actually part of the verb. These are called particles. For example, in the verb “sign in”, “in” is a particle, not a preposition, and is an important part of the verb. Consider the differences in these two sentences:

Be sure to sign in before you continue. ("in" is a particle) 

The sign in the office welcomes visitors. ("in" is a preposition)

The main reason you might care about identifying a particle vs. a preposition is if you’re tempted to move the parts of the sentence around. The particle must not be separated from the verb, whereas the prepositional phrase can be moved. For example, you can say:

In the office, the sign welcomes visitors.

But you cannot say:

In before you continue, be sure to sign.

Nor can you say:

Before you continue, in be sure to sign. 

Even Yoda doesn’t do this. (Awkward his speech is. Yes. Yes! Yet wise Yoda is.) 

References:

https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/prepositions-list.htm

http://www.chompchomp.com/terms/preposition.htm

https://webapps.towson.edu/ows/prepositions.htm

http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/yoda-grammar

-->

Six Tips for Writers

Several readers have approached me recently asking if I have any tips for them on writing. Funny you should ask, because I have advice to give on just about everything, regardless of whether I actually know anything about it. Luckily, I do know something about writing, and although I don't claim to be a trained mentor in this area, I'm happy to share what I've discovered along the way.

1. Don't Try to Impress Anyone
I think the number-one most important writing tip is to focus on telling a great story about something you really care about, and not to focus on trying to write pretty words. When I was a teenager, I remember focusing a lot on trying to write beautiful prose with not enough emphasis on the story and the characters, because I figured if I wrote enough fancy words, I'd sound smart, and people would like my stuff. It took me a while to realize that I didn't really care about "being taken seriously" as a writer and just really wanted to write great stories, and that made me a much better writer. You really have to write for yourself and not with the idea of whether someone else will think what you're writing sounds good.

2. Think the Story All the Way Through
It's also important to think the story through before writing it. Before I started writing Rising Shadow, I sat and thought a lot about all the characters and their back stories, who their families were, when their birthdays were, and so on. Then, I outlined all five books in the series (not in excruciating detail, just at a high level) before I started writing, and this has worked out great, because I'm planting little seeds in book one that won't mean anything until book five. I think J.K. Rowling does this amazingly well in the Harry Potter books, and I want to provide that same "aha!" moment when you go back and re-read my books as you recognize the little clues I'm laying out.

3. Don't Edit as You Write
The next most important tip is never to try to write perfectly in the first draft. Just get it down on paper. I wrote Rising Shadow in about six weeks and then spent nine months revising it. Just write. Really.

4. NOW Edit
I think the most important part of writing is the editing process, which thankfully I really enjoy. I have no problem slashing out whole sections, and I love getting criticism. This can be hard for a lot of writers--they feel that their words are precious or channeled from above, which makes it very hard to cut things that don't work. It's very important that you get over that barrier. If a scene really doesn't work but you love it, just cut and paste it into another file "for later" so you don't feel like you're throwing out your hard work but you're not keeping stuff that doesn't work in this particular story.

5. Don't Try to Force Inspiration
This is a hard one for control freaks, but really, you can't just say "I'm going to write a novel now" and pluck a topic out of the air. To put in the time and effort required to write a book, you have to write something you really care about, something that lights a fire under you every day. Otherwise, you'll quit after five pages and think you can't do it. If you've tried to write before and didn't get anywhere, you probably didn't have a good story to tell.

So how do you give your muse a little nudge? Read books, see movies, talk to people about what interesting things they're doing, and, my favorite technique: listen to people on public transit and start imagining them as characters and what their lives might be like. One of my favorite characters, Jesse, was inspired by a guy I heard talking to his friend on the train.

If you're at home and can't get out to stare at strangers, think of a topic that you are interested in and sit down to research it. Pretty soon, you'll start stumbling upon stories that spark an idea. This is the part where your family and friends think you've gone mad. "I was thinking about plows, because, you know, I like plows, and I found this story on the Internet about a man who found a thousand year-old plow buried on his farm, and then I started thinking, hey, what if there was a strange message carved on the plow that lead the man to solve a mystery that had been buried for a millennium!" Like that.

6. Learn the Rules
Lastly, get a good book on grammar and punctuation and learn the ins and outs of the mechanics of writing. I recommend The Elements of Style by Strunk & White. Learning the different between that vs. which, its vs. it's, your vs. you're, proper use of commas and semi-colons, and so on will make you a better writer, as you'll have the tools you need to express yourself without struggling. It allows the words to flow out of you much more smoothly, and it saves you a heap of time in the editing phase, allowing you to focus on editing the content, not the mechanics. You can also check out a blog like Meghan Ward's Writerland, which lists all kinds of writing tips including grammar and punctuation. If you want to break the rules, great! But you better have a good reason, and you better know the rules so that you can break them intelligently.

So there are six tips that I think are important for writers. Check back here for more tips in the future. I'm only blogging about once every week or two, because despite what all the experts say, I don't think you have to blog every single day to have a good blog. On the contrary, I think it's important to blog only when you have something important to say. But then again, I tend to disagree with the experts on a lot of things.

Or maybe I just like breaking the rules.