Snarky becomes a new Substack venture In the last few years, I've had a lot of fun by putting on my hat as The Snarky Editor and commenting about the awkward, silly, and sometimes hilarious editing …
How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm …?
Even though I grew up on a working Midwestern farm, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t get into the mind of a farmer enough to make a farmer character sound realistic. But I have to cackle like a hen when I …
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Putting your ducks in a row
A/K/A, getting the modifiers and the clauses to line up right so everything makes sense There’s a natural flow to English – some kinds of descriptions simply sound better in one order than in …
Redundancy and other repetitions
Lately the Snarky Editor has been running across an unusual number of repetitive phrases. Most of them are thoughtless, because the author is just cruising along telling the story without stopping to …
When expressions go astray
When an author thinks he or she knows the reference, and doesn't stop to check, the results (like these examples from published books) can be amusing ... and sometimes disconcerting. …your client …
If you can’t spell it…
Just make it up! At least, that's what a few authors seem to think is appropriate. Here are some examples from recently-published books: When his dad died from sorosis of the liver and Bobby went …