Ask Your Editor: Capitalizing relative titles

Are you writing about your Aunt Helen or your aunt Helen? Have you gotten advice from my Mom or my mom? Do you know when you should capitalize relative titles, or do you just do what feels right? There are rules, my friends, and they’re pretty cut-and-dried, so here we go.

If you want to put a relative title in front of someone’s name, it’s fine to capitalize it as long as you don’t also put a personal pronoun in front of it.

Compare these two examples written correctly:

• When we asked Uncle Harry about his health, he changed the subject.
• “Uncle” and “Harry” are used together as his name.

• When we asked my uncle Harry about his health, he changed the subject.
• In this sentence, “my” and “uncle” are used as adjectives to describe Harry, but they are not used as his name.

These two examples are written incorrectly:

• When we asked uncle Harry about his health, he changed the subject.
• When we asked my Uncle Harry about his health, he changed the subject.

The same rule applies if you’re using the relative title without the proper name.

These two examples are written correctly:

• If you want Mom to agree to the plan, we have to talk to her soon.
• “Mom” is being used as her name, so it’s capitalized.
• If you want my mom to agree to the plan, we have to talk to her soon.
• Placing “my” in front of “mom” means “mom” is no longer being used as her name; it’s now a description of who she is.

These two are written incorrectly:

• If you want mom to agree to the plan, we have to talk to her soon.
• If you want my Mom to agree to the plan, we have to talk to her soon.

Any questions? Send ’em my way. Suggestions for the blog? I’d love to hear them.

I’ve got a get-ready-for-the-season-premiere-of-Dexter blog in the works. Stay tuned! 

Ask Your Editor: Is it "there," "their," or "they're"? Let's talk usage.

Some very basic, but very common mistakes I find when editing are usage mistakes. These involve swapping one word for another because they (very often) sound alike and spell check won’t catch them (although grammar check sometimes—and I emphasize sometimes—will).

Here’s a quick rundown of the most common usage errors:

• Are / Our – These two don’t always sound the same, but often they do, which I think is what leads to their confusion. Practice your enunciation and I think you’ll confuse them less often.
• Are – is a verb.
• The chocolate éclairs are my favorite. 
• Our – is a possessive pronoun and indicates “we” own something. 
• Our house is the first one on the right. 
• Affect / Effect – There are some nuances to these two, but 99 percent of the time, you can rely on the following: 
• Affect – is a verb. Think of it as another way to say “to influence.” 
• How will the weather affect the town-wide yard sale? 
• Effect – is a noun and can usually be thought of as the consequence (result) of something. 
• What was the effect of adding salt to the recipe? 
• All right – This is a personal pet peeve, and I really don’t have very many of those. “All right” is always, always, always two words. Always. And while we’re at it, so is 
• A lot 
• Farther / Further – Although they are both adverbs, there are distinct differences between how they are used. 
• Farther – should be used to describe a physical distance. 
• It’s farther to my grandparents’ house than it is to my aunt’s. 
• Further – should be used to describe a figurative distance, or to imply something should be done to a greater degree. 
• My English teacher drove me crazy because she always wanted me to take my literature discussions further than I wanted to. 
• Its / It’s – Another pair that sound exactly alike and that have been confused for each other for centuries. 
• Its – is a possessive pronoun indicating ownership. 
• I think that dog has lost its bone. 
• It’s – is a contraction for “it is.” 
• Do you think it’s going to rain today? 
• There / Their / They’re – Yes, these three words sound identical to each other, but they serve three very different purposes. 
• There – is an adverb and indicates where something is located. 
• My wallet is lying over there on the table. 
• Their – is a possessive pronoun and indicates “they” own something. 
• Do you know if their house is on this street? 
• They’re – is a contraction for “they are.” 
• Of all our friends, they’re the ones I like the best. 
• Where / Were – Whenever this duo gets mixed up, it surprises me because they sound nothing alike. However, even outside the classroom, it’s a usage mistake I still see often. 
• Where – is an adverb indicating place or location. 
• Do you know where the game is tonight? That is where she said it was. 
• Were – is a verb. 
• They were going to call us later tonight. 

I could go on—and probably should—but this gets us started. I’ll probably revisit usage, but not likely in my next post. Maybe we should talk about voice … or formatting … or launch dates … What would you like me to discuss? Message me your comments and questions! 

Keep writing. Talk to you soon!

Ask your editor: Tips for writers

For two years, I’ve been working as a freelance editor. For the last year, I’ve been doing it full-time. I do most of my work using the Elance platform, and there I’ve edited hundreds of books and articles from people all around the world. One of the memoirs I edited last year, Michael Hurley’s Once Upon a Gypsy Moon, was sold to Hachette Books. An educational book I edited recently, Money and Teens: Waste Less, Have More by Wes and Darby Karchut, was named the EIFLE 2013 Children’s Book of the Year.

I share this with you for a couple reasons. If you’re a writer looking for an editor, you can click on the Elance link above to see in more detail the kind of work I do. If you want to have a conversation about the book or article or website you’re working on, send me an email and we’ll talk about where you are, where you want to be, and how I can help you get there.

The other reason I mentioned what I do for a living is that I’m going to start using my blog (when I’m not talking about my favorite TV shows, books, or people) to try and help writers who are working on their drafts and who might be close to the point of looking for an editor or a publisher or who might be almost ready to make their website live. I’m going to share some common problems I see when I edit and try and help other writers avoid making those mistakes before it even makes it to an editor. Some of my posts will be short and sweet; some will be longer. All of them will be geared toward helping to make writers better—to thin the weeds from their work.

Any questions? Shoot ‘em my way. Ideas for the blog—writing or editing questions you’d like answered? I’m listening.

And for you Dexter fans … the new and final season starts in a couple weeks. I’m planning on blogging my heart out for that. It’s gonna be hard to say good-bye to my favorite serial killer.

Courteous mechanics -- oxymoron, right?

I’m grateful for the mechanics my husband and I use. I really am. They’re trustworthy, they do the work on our cars for a fair price, and did I mention we trust them? Do you hear the “but” coming?

Here’s the “but”: I really like them, but why can’t they call me when the work isn’t going to be done when they said it was going to be done? I won’t be mad. I won’t be nasty. I know things happen, and I know they’re keeping the car because they still have work to do. Why can’t they just pick up the phone and call to tell me that?

Those of you who know me know that I’m self-employed. I’m a freelance editor who works out of her home. Lots of people trust me with things that are important to them—books, articles for the websites, white papers, etc. They pay me money to make these things better, and I promise to have them done on a certain day.

Even when I’m on track for delivery, I still communicate regularly with my clients to let them know how the work is progressing and that they can still expect the work to be delivered on the day we agreed. They appreciate hearing from me. On the rare occasion when I need an extra day or two, I message them early, explain the circumstances, and ask if they can afford the extra day or two. If they can’t, then I bust my hump to get it done on the scheduled day.

Why do I do this? Because they have trusted me with something that’s valuable to them, because they’re paying me to work on it, and because we had an agreed-upon delivery date. It’s common courtesy to communicate with your clients.

So why is this so hard for mechanics to understand? Why do they get indignant if you call because your car wasn’t done when it was supposed to be done? When I talked to them today, it was made very clear to me that I should not call again. They will call me when the car is done. Hmmm.

I’m not inclined to cut my nose off to spite my face, so I won’t be discontinuing my patronage of this mechanic. Like I said, they do good work and I trust them. But right now, I’m not liking them very much. Courtesy doesn’t take that much effort or that much time, and it goes such a long, long way.

I wish more mechanics were inclined to feel the same way. (And I made that blanket statement on purpose—most mechanics I’ve ever had to deal with have this same attitude.)

I don’t get it.

The Night Circus should be read again and again

A long time ago I read EW’s (that’s Entertainment Weekly) review of The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, and I thought, “Hmmm…maybe.” I downloaded a sample of it on my Kindle (love that feature, BTW), but I never got around to actually checking it out. Fantasy is usually not my thing, and other titles kept stepping up in front of it.

Now that my daughter is at school two hours away and I’m making that drive once in a while, I needed something to help pass those times alone in the car, so I started listening to audio books. And I finally got around to The Night Circus. And I loved it. I may have to actually download the whole book and read it again. It’s that good.

It qualifies as fantasy because the whole plot of the book revolves around magic and Morgenstern creates a unique—and incredible—world within the circus itself. Otherwise, though, it’s very, very real.

I won’t tell you much about it because to do that would be unfair to you and the story. The Night Circus needs to be discovered by each of us individually. Morgenstern alludes to that in the final pages of the book, and I have stolen that paragraph and taped it to my mirror. It’s now my mantra as a writer.

Here’s what I will tell you, in case you haven’t heard of this book and I’ve piqued your curiosity: There are two magicians who like to compete with each other by setting their students against one another in a competition. The night circus is the venue for the competition. One day it’s not there, and the next day it is. Inside the tents are all sorts of amazing, fantastical sights. (Morgenstern’s descriptions evidence her other calling as an artist. I think this book is going to be a movie, and it will be a dangerous one to make because all of us who love this book are going to have very definitive ideas as to what the movie should look like!)

Within the book are stories of pride, love, loyalty, friendship, courage, strength, and betrayal. You may get teary eyed at the end. I did.

The Night Circus is so unique, so good. I can’t wait to read it again.

Sons of Anarchy - Andare Pescare: Gemma's sacrifice

Tuesday’s episode of Sons of Anarchy was called “Andare Pescare,” which is Italian for (basically) “to go fishing.” It works, doesn’t it? Eli is fishing with the Sons to get his hands on Frankie for Frankie’s part in Eli’s wife’s death. Jax is fishing for proof that Clay was behind the break-ins, and he’s using Gemma as bait. I don’t usually have a lot of sympathy for Gemma, but that’s starting to change.

My opinion for the first four seasons was Gemma made her bed a long time ago—and played a part in the death of JT—so she deserved to get hit by any shrapnel that exploded around her. Ever since she took that beating from Clay last season, though, I’ve started to look at Gemma differently.

She was 19 when she fell for JT and became an old lady. She’d had two kids—and lost the oldest one—not too many years after that. As she herself put it, she was “all in” from Day One with JT. Her man, her club, her babies—that was her life, and she did whatever she thought she had to do to protect them. She still does. She’s a grown woman living the life a teenager designed for her, and she’s trying to make the best of it.

I don’t think she loves anyone more than she loves Able and Thomas—not even Jax. And now, Jax is leveraging that love to get what he needs from Clay—a confession—so that he can finally push Clay from the table and maybe even kill him. He’s becoming more Clay-like with each episode. When Gemma told him about how happy and “light” (I loved her use of that word) she felt when she was with Nero, I really thought Jax might give her a pass, that he might say, “You know what, Mom, I want you to be happy. Forget about what I asked you to do.” But he didn’t, did he? Clay wouldn’t have either.

So, Gemma is sacrificing a part of herself so that she can still have her grandchildren—and her son, I imagine to some degree—in her life. Her eyes looked so dead when she showed up at Clay’s house with the cortisone. I don’t know what will be left of Gemma when this is all over, and even with every bad thing she’s done, my heart (finally) goes out to her.

And then there’s Juice.

I love Juicy. I’ve loved him for a long time. He’s another one that got in way over his head (with Eli and the feds) and doesn’t know who to trust or how to fix it now. I think Juice has been swinging from that tree, gasping for breath, for a very long time now. It’s only a matter of time until gravity does what gravity is best at and he breathes his last. I will cry, truly cry, when we lose Juice. I agree with Bobby: “I’m tired of burning brothers.”

This has been a gut-wrenching season of SOA. Sutter (who is fantastic as Otto, IMHO) is fearless when it comes to his story lines, and I admire him for that. But I hope we’re about done losing Sons. I think Juice’s loss is inevitable, but I hope he’s the last one for Skeeter for quite a while.

Don’t forget … next Tuesday’s episode of Sons of Anarchy is 90 minutes! If you don’t (or can’t) watch it live, set your DVR accordingly. See you then.

Sons of Anarchy: Laying Pipe -- Opie!!

I watched this week’s episode of Sons of Anarchy, “Laying Pipe,” and I’m still in denial. I never, ever, ever would have expected events to unwind the way they did. Major spoiler alert: if you haven’t seen the episode yet, read no farther.

For those of you who watched, WTH? Right? How can it be possible? The Sons have gotten out of so many different jams I was just sure they were going to get out of this one. Romeo was going to save them. They were going to fight—and win—their way out. But that’s not what happened.

Pope’s request for a dead son to even up the score for the dead Niner and the dead cop isn’t really an unusual demand. I remember another gunfight in Laroy’s bar when the Sons went in with the Mayans and the score was evened up right there in the bar—although it wasn’t a Son that had to die. The games they play have high stakes. Everybody knows that.

But … Opie?

I can’t get my head around it. At one point, when it was just Jax and Opie in the cell and Jax was coming clean, I halfway wondered—and so did Husband—if Opie would volunteer to be the one. He’s so lost. He’d just found out the truth about his dad and Clay. So, when he stepped up and hit the guard, I wasn’t completely surprised.

But … Opie? Dead?

I didn’t think it would really happen. I thought something would save him. He was doing well right at the beginning of the fight, and I thought he was going to come out of it. I was wrong, and it sucks. I appreciate the fact that Sutter is willing to sacrifice major characters for the sake of the show and the story. That takes guts and integrity. I do appreciate that. But man, I’m gonna miss Ope.

Before I move on from talking about this episode, I ought to touch on Jax. What did you think of his change in terms that he delivered to Pope? What do you think of his willingness to hand Tig over to Pope when he’s done with him? He’s blaming Tig for Opie, don’t you think? Husband says it’s not Tig’s fault. (I was holding Tig accountable for Opie.) So, I said, okay, it’s Clay’s fault, not Tig’s. Husband says no, it’s just that they’re at war and that’s what happens. Awfully philosophical of Husband, and he’s probably right, but I’m still blaming Clay. I hope he gets his. And I hope we get to watch.

The feud between Tara and Gemma (and Wendy) is interesting but pales in comparison to losing Opie. Tara continues to become more and more Gemma-like, and she still annoys me. She’s no better than Gemma and I’m tired of her acting like she is. Nero must really like Gemma considering the money she cost him when she bashed in that girl’s face. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop with Nero, but maybe it won’t. Maybe he’s just a civilized pimp with no violent tendencies. Really? Maybe he’s exactly what he seems to be, which would be a rarity indeed for this show.

I’m almost scared to see what Sutter and Sons of Anarchy have left to give us, considering we’re only three episodes into this season. But I guess that’s part of the appeal.

I’d like to tune in next week and see that Opie didn’t die. But I know it won’t happen. RIP Opie. Not sure who Jax will be without you.