Writing in the Voice of Me

Guest post from Tilia Klebenov Jacobs 

“My book is about, um, me.  Is that okay?”

This is the question I get most often when I teach novel-writing classes.  And I say go for it, because every novelist is a memoirist and every memoirist is a novelist.  Even the most earnest nonfiction writer must of necessity apply a little fiction here and there, if only because she probably wasn’t taking notes on that watershed conversation thirty years ago.  By contrast, the novelist can create a completely fictional character, but as often as not writes about himself.  Far from being a cop-out, this can add richness to one’s prose.

Benefited or Benefitted—Which Is Right?

• Benefited and benefitted are both acceptable spellings.
• Benefited is more common in the United States.

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When you make a verb past tense, sometimes all you have to do is add -ed. Other times, you double the final consonant before adding it. What about the verb benefit? Is the past tense benefited or benefitted?

Benefited vs. Benefitted

The quick answer is that both of them are acceptable.

Is It Omelet or Omelette?

• Omelet is the spelling used in American English.
• Omelette is the spelling used in British English.

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An omelet (or omelette) is a type of egg dish, often served at breakfast or brunch. Neither spelling is wrong, but there are some guidelines for when to use which.

Omelet is the standard spelling in American English. In fact it appears about twice as often as omelette in American publications.

What are we grateful for? Commas.

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, the Grammarly team polled more than 1,700 Facebook fans on what piece of punctuation they are most “thankful” for in their writing.

The semi-colon, em-dash, and period, were top contenders; yet, overwhelmingly we learned that English writers are most thankful for the comma.

Although writers enjoy the comma, many do not know how to use it.

7 Awesome and Underused Scrabble Words

If a perfect game for competitive wordsmiths exists, Scrabble is it. Not only does the game allow you to flex your vocabulary muscles, it also encourages you to use key strategies to increase your score. When you play these seven underused words, you’ll have a winning chance at an all-time Scrabble high score.

Maximize 

One of the easiest ways to score big with Scrabble is to use one or more of the highest-ranked letter tiles.