The Picky Pen
Capitalization of Titles and Headers
Most people are familiar with capitalizing proper nouns and words at the beginning of a sentence. This is what…
April 23, 2026-
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The Picky Pen
Latin Clarification Terms
There are several Latin abbreviations that are used regularly in writing. This is particularly common in certain types of…
March 23, 2026 -
The Picky Pen
Engaging Readers Through Dialogue
There are many writing tools that an author uses to keep their readers engaged, but without dialogue, it would…
February 24, 2026 -
The Picky Pen
How to Punctuate Dialogue
Whether you are writing fiction or nonfiction, you will likely use dialogue in your work. Let’s have a little…
January 22, 2026 -
The Picky Pen
Misplaced Modifiers
As an author, you have to carefully craft sentences that grab the reader’s attention. Part of that, as I…
November 19, 2025 -
The Picky Pen
Common Apostrophe Mistakes
Apostrophes are small and barely noticeable punctuation marks, but without them the reader would have a difficult time deciphering…
September 22, 2025 -
The Picky Pen
Verb Verbiage
As a writer, it can sometimes be difficult to get your thoughts down on paper, much less stick to…
August 22, 2025 -
The Picky Pen
Figurative Language
Did you ever wonder how other authors make stories so interesting? Sure, they vary the structure of the sentences,…
July 23, 2025 -
The Picky Pen
Imagery
In a previous article, I discussed word choice. This is an important element in literature, particularly when using imagery.…
June 28, 2025 -
The Picky Pen
Appropriate Verb Tense for a Story
Have you ever wondered what verb tense works best in various pieces of writing? Worse yet, have you ever…
May 28, 2025 -
The Picky Pen
Writing Styles
So, you want to write an article but you don’t know where to start? To make it even more…
April 24, 2025 -
The Picky Pen
Creating a Story Title
Do you have difficulty coming up with a title for your article or story? This is sure to be…
February 22, 2025 -
The Picky Pen
Varying Sentence Structure
Do all of your sentences begin with “I,“ “we,” or a proper noun? Do all of them start with…
November 22, 2024 -
The Picky Pen
Considering Word Choice
Previously, we talked about the need to vary sentence structure to keep your writing from sounding repetitive. In that…
October 22, 2024 -
The Picky Pen
Use of Transition Words or Phrases
Do all of your sentences sound similar, or are you having difficulty transitioning from one scene to the next?…
August 22, 2024 -
The Picky Pen
How to Edit Characters
As we continue this editing series how we can develop a great story, I hope you’re able to see…
January 22, 2021 -
The Picky Pen
How to Edit Setting
As we continue this editing series how we can develop a great story, I hope you’re able to see…
May 24, 2020 -
The Picky Pen
How to Edit Scenes
As we continue this editing series how we can develop a great story, I hope you’re able to see…
April 22, 2020 -
The Picky Pen
How to Edit Point of View
As we continue this editing series how we can develop a great story, I hope you’re able to see…
March 22, 2020 -
The Picky Pen
How to Edit the Plot
As we continue this editing series how we can develop a great story by having all the layers in…
February 22, 2020 -
The Picky Pen
How to Find the Felt Need
This is the first post in my editing series in 2020 for how to develop a great story by…
January 22, 2020 -
The Picky Pen
Punctuation Series: How to Edit Commas with Clauses
In light of the holiday season, here’s a final fun topic in our Punctuation Series: editing commas within independent…
December 22, 2019 -
The Picky Pen
Punctuation Series: How to Edit Foreign Quotation Marks
Have you ever tried to read a book in a foreign language? Perhaps some of you have. I’ve tried…
November 22, 2019 -
The Picky Pen
Punctuation Series: How to Edit Slashes
We’re toward the end of our self-editing blog post punctuation series, but it certainly is not the end of…
October 22, 2019 -
The Picky Pen
Punctuation Series: How to Edit Parentheses
Here we are, nearly at the end of our year-long punctuation/grammar series. I hope you’ve learned a lot and…
September 22, 2019
