Tag: writing

dash it all!

Published on by Michael McCandlessLeave a comment

I can’t imagine why there’s a controversy around the using dashes correctly, but there it is. Especially the “em” dash. My position? Use the em and other types of dashes liberally, but accurately. Like so many publishing terms, the “em” in “em dash” derives from the old days of printing and typesetting. The length of an em dash, far from being arbitrary, was equal to the width of the letter “m” in whatever typeface was being used. Simple, right?

Usage

The bigger question is when to use em dashes. That’s pretty simple, too, but also a bit sublime. I find that em dashes are all about pacing — (note the em dash) guiding the reader through your text. This is really useful in fiction. Storytelling with em dashes at just the right points is almost like being there — listening to you tell the story audibly.

Less-experienced writers sometimes use an ellipsis (the three-dot thingy) where they should being using an em dash. Ellipses indicate missing text: “His boring speech began with a joke…it ended with mild applause.” In some instances, the em dash may be confused with a colon, which is used to show that what follows provides detail to what was just said, as in “We had a great summer vacation with special side trips to some of our favorite places: Disney World, Cape Canaveral, and Daytona Beach.”

More dashes

Then, there is also the “en” dash, which — you guessed it — is equal to the width of the letter “n” in the typeface. En dashes are used by rule to separate the elements of a range, as in pages 12–15, a connection, as is in the date 12–19–2025. It’s sort of like a hyper hyphen, which is just a shorter dash.

How do you insert em and en dashes? Your word processing tool may let you use the commands Insert and then Symbol. A faster way is to place your cursor where you want the em dash to appear. Then, hold down Alt and type 0151 for an em dash, 0150 for an en dash, or 0045 for a hyphen. These numbers are part of the ASCII range of codes, but that’s another post.

For more on any of this, just consult your favorite style guide (mine is the Chicago Manual of Style) , search engine, AI tool, or Wikipedia. And have fun going crazy with dashes until you get them under control.

Sum-sum-summertime reading

Published on by Michael McCandlessLeave a comment

The picture shows my perfect summertime scenario. Reading on the beach, shaded, with a tall, cool one close by. This aspirational reading scene is my hope every year around this time.

As a self-published author, you could be the name on the cover of the book enjoyed by the summertime reading enthusiast. How would that feel?

Maybe Touchwood Press Publish-It-Yourself resources can help you toward that feeling.

I like detective fiction best as a summertime read. Or that classic that I’ve been promising myself I would finally get to. I’ve been trying to finish Moby Dick since high school. I’m re-reading Slaughterhouse Five and launching a project to read all the Vonnegut books I read but didn’t understand in college.

The New York Times, Goodreads, Kirkus Reviews, and other sites with book reviewers all see summertime, and especially vacations, as reading time. Rightly so. But if you’re not getting away to the beach or wherever on vacation any time soon, find a summertime reading spot and while away a few hours a week working on that stack that’s been growing on your nightstand, or trespassing on valuable desktop real estate. Open your mind and make space for new content. Wander in your thoughts in a summertime sort of way. I mean what is summertime for?

Memoir Your Thing?

Published on by Michael McCandless1 Comment

I have a story to tell about my life, my trials, my breakthroughs. How do transform my memories into a book?

In my Publish-It-Yourself Course, I meet many writers with a strong impulse to share their life experiences and help others find a way through struggles of their own. Humble, maybe desperate beginnings, traumatic childhoods, young adult crises, adult failures. But somehow they found their way to better times, hope and healing, with support from people, faith, or inner strength.

Writing a memoir is hard. The place to start is to decide the one message that you want to pass along and maintain focus on that. Begin unpacking your memories and experiences, crafting them into clear, compelling stories. Compile the stories around a central structure and journey through your life. Forget being chronological; be thematic.

Will I offend? Will I be criticized? Will I pay for my honesty? These and more questions will challenge your resolve and eat away valuable time better spent just writing.

As you begin writing, read what others have said about the writing of memoirs. Here is a short list of the best of the best:

The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr. As she breaks down the key elements of great literary memoir, she breaks open our concepts of memory and identity and illuminates the cathartic power of reflecting on the past. Anybody with an inner life or complicated history, whether writer or reader, will relate.

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. Agonizing over the seemingly impossible task of writing a school report on birds, Anne’s father counseled “bird by bird. Just take it bird by bird.” For a quarter century, more than a million readers—scribes and scribblers of all ages and abilities—have been inspired by Anne Lamott’s hilarious, big-hearted, homespun advice and learned how to approach writing memoir. 

Educated by Tara Westover. About a young woman home-schooled and isolated by survivalist parents to age 17. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. Immensely helpful and illuminating to any aspiring writer, this bestseller shares the experiences, habits, and convictions that have shaped him and his work.

Where do I start?

Published on by Michael McCandlessLeave a comment

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said gravely, “and go on till you come to the end. Then stop.”
— Alice in Wonderland

“Start with the end in mind.”
— The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Take time to imagine your finished book—in your hands, handing “thanks for your support” copies to relatives and friends, on the book shelf of someone you’ve just met, in your favorite book store and library, on an e-reader or tablet, as an audio book. How does that feel?

Continue reading “Where do I start?” →

Copy editting…don’t publish without it.

Published on by Mike McCandlessLeave a comment

Editor job title on nameplateEffective copy editing removes verbal noise from your manuscript. Great copy editing is invisible and makes you look like a better author. Here’s a good article for self-publishers on the promise and pitfalls of doing your own copy editing. Summary? Proceed with caution. (Yes, we know about the misspelling in the header.)