Not Nearly Everything You Need to Know About Writing

By Karen DeGroot Carter

The first in a series of short collections on grammar, style, story structure, publishing trends, getting your words in print, book marketing, and more, Not Nearly Everything You Need to Know About Writing (Vol. 1) serves up valuable insights to help you write more clearly and professionally, find a literary agent, and get your work published.

Author and editor Karen DeGroot Carter has over 30 years of experience as a professional scribe and copy editor. A graduate of the Syracuse University S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, she is a novelist who has edited numerous works of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry and written articles published online and in print in websites and publications ranging from LiteraryMama, BlogCritics, and The Compulsive Reader to Publishers Weekly. She is active on the Medium, where most of this book's brief articles were published in publications such as The Startup, The Writing Cooperative, and Storius Magazine, and she has worked in the marketing departments of multiple corporations. Her first novel, One Sister’s Song, has been in print for nearly 20 years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Karen DeGroot Carter
• Release date: Oct 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005366285

Karen DeGroot Carter

Karen DeGroot Carter has over 30 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. A graduate of the Syracuse University S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, she is a novelist who has edited numerous works of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry and written articles published online and in print in websites and publications ranging from LiteraryMama, BlogCritics, and The Compulsive Reader to Publishers Weekly and the Syracuse (NY) Post-Standard. She is active on Medium.com, where her work has been published in publications such as The Startup, The Writing Cooperative, and Storius Magazine, and she has worked in the marketing departments of multiple corporations. Her first novel, One Sister’s Song, has been in print for nearly 20 years, and she is the author of Not Nearly Everything You Need to Know About Writing: Tips, Tricks, and Insights for Writers of All Types (Vol. 1).

Book preview

Not Nearly Everything You Need to Know About

Writing

Vol. 1

Tips, Tricks, and Insights for Writers of All Types

by Karen DeGroot Carter

Copyright 2020 Karen DeGroot Carter/Carter Communications

About the Author

Karen DeGroot Carter, a native of Syracuse, New York, and a graduate of Syracuse University, has lived in Hartford (Connecticut) as well as Nashville, Dallas, and Denver. Her first novel, One Sister’s Song, was published by Pearl Street Publishing of Denver, and her short stories have received awards from Writer’s Digest and Glimmer Train Stories and been published online by The Creative Café on Medium.com. Her articles, essays, and poetry also have been published in print and online. Karen currently works as an editor in the marketing department of a financial services firm and is represented by the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency. To learn more about the author, visit KarenDeGrootCarter.com.

This book consists of writing-related posts published on Medium.com in early and mid-2020. Other Medium posts by Karen DeGroot Carter include:

Where I Come From ― Personal essay in Illumination

My Daughter’s ― and My ― Mary Poppins Moment ― Personal essay in Our Human Family

When Your Name Becomes a Running Joke ― Personal essay in Get Inside

Alegría ― Short story in The Creative Café

Needle in the Air ― Poem in Literally Literary

Why the Parents of the Future Will Ace Parenting ― Home Sweet Home

Help for Home-Schooling in the Age of Coronavirus ― Home Sweet Home

Another Way The Social Dilemma Falls Short ― An Idea

A Deeper Dive into Our Social Media Dilemma ― An Idea

A Fan of the Late Forrest Fenn Tells All About Her Treasure Hunt ― An Idea

Deciding Which Desk Type Is Best for You ― An Idea

Why Water Alone Is Not Enough to Keep You Hydrated ― Illumination

The Miracle Method That’s Keeping Me from Making My Sciatic Nerve Pain Worse ― Illumination

Lori Tharps of My American Meltingpot

The Best Digital Content Publisher You’ve Never Heard Of

Handshakes and Hugs

The Crisis Within the Crisis

Readers Helping Writers in Tough Times

Authors Helping Authors

The Science Behind Being Kind

The Surprising Growing Appeal of Universal Basic Income in the U.S.

How Hate Hurts

Contents

Punctuation and Grammar

~Tricks to Help You Fix Broken Sentences

~The Top Three Free Grammar Checkers Available Online

~Three Free Online Resources to Help You Improve Your Grammar

~Three Rules Related to Commas (and Semicolons) in a Series

~Dashes, Parentheses, Commas, and Colons

~When—and When Not—to Insert Punctuation at the End of a Bullet Point

~When You Should Hyphenate, Open, or Close a Compound Word

Nonfiction and Fiction Writing and Marketing

~Kicking Your Writing into Gear

~AP Style: What It Is and How It Can Help Your Writing

~Traditional Book Publishing in 2020 and Beyond

~Tricks to Pick the Right Word Every Time

~The Seven Elements of Story Structure and Your Story’s Premise

~Much More Than Scene Crafting 101

~Improve Your Literary Market Research

~How to Track Your Literary Submissions

~Five Online Resources to Help You Find a Literary Agent

~Six Free Online Lists of Book Bloggers

Plus More

~Unique Word Origins: How Seven Popular English Idioms Came to Be

~More Unique Word Origins: How These Six Popular Idioms Came to Be

~Thank you!

~Reviews of One Sister’s Song

Punctuation and Grammar

Image by Shotkitimages from Pixabay

Tricks to Help You Fix Broken Sentences

And make your writing more professional, polished, and persuasive

While many English-speaking writers naturally understand the basics of English sentence construction, often the details that result in broken sentences — and how to fix them — are not understood. As usual, Grammar Girl provides helpful insights into issues related to writing strong sentences. But for those of us whose brains freeze up at the thought of diagramming a sentence, there may be an easier way to spot — and fix — common errors in sentence construction.

Hearing strong sentence structure

The key is to listen closely to how your sentences sound when you read them, imagine breaking them into pieces, and play around with their building blocks — the words and phrases that compose them. Put your imagination to work as you read a sentence — out loud if possible — that doesn’t sound quite right. If you were to read a sentence like After driving across town, the store was closed, and recognize that it sounds off for some reason, you could try imagining a store driving anywhere, which obviously couldn’t happen. The issue, then, is related to the store. Since a store can’t drive across town, who should be put in its place in this sentence? The person who is actually driving across town. This might help you get to a correctly constructed sentence such as, After driving across town, she found the store was closed.

The issue of following an introduction