Your Editing List

You finished that first draft of your story. Whew! What’s next? Most likely, you’ll need to work on second and subsequent drafts, like a sculptor smoothing and texturing a statue. How do you do that?

In a previous post, I recommended you create a personal editing list. It should contain things you want to check in each story as part of your editing process.

Why is it a personal editing list? Every writer has different strengths and weaknesses. Your editing list should focus on your known weaknesses, while ensuring your strengths remain strong.

How do you find out about these weaknesses? You consult people you trust (including yourself). These people can include other writers in your critique group, Beta Readers, and editors of previous stories. You may also include weaknesses noted by those who commented online about your previous stories, especially when you agree with the comments.

Obviously, as you keep writing and getting more comments on more stories, your editing list will change. It’s not only personal, it’s flexible.

For those just beginning, I’ll propose a starter list. Add items as you discover your weaknesses, and delete (or disregard) items that haven’t been a problem for you.

  • Overall Aspects. Who is the protagonist? What is the protagonist’s problem? Does the story pass the ‘so what?’ test? How would I briefly answer the question: What is this story about?
  • Point of View. Have I chosen the right POV for the story? If other than Omniscient, have I selected the right character(s) to narrate it? When I change the POV, are the transitions clear?
  • Characters. Are my characters compelling? Why should readers care about them? Are my characters too stereotyped, and if so, what can I do to correct that? Have I conveyed the thoughts and feelings of the POV character?
  • Beginning. Does the first sentence, or at least the first paragraph, hook the reader? Does the beginning hint at the problem, convey the tone of the story, and include the protagonist? Does the story’s beginning foreshadow the ending without giving it away?
  • Plot. Does the plot convey the protagonist’s efforts to solve the problem? As the plot proceeds, do I build and release tension effectively? Is the story suspenseful? Do all the events and all the narration in the story advance the plot, or have I gone down rabbit holes?
  • Ending. Does the ending include a resolution to the problem? Is the ending too predictable? Does the ending go on too long after problem resolution?
  • Setting and Description. Is the setting clear from the start? Have I included too many details or too few? Have I grouped the setting details into an info-dump, and if so, can I sprinkle them throughout? Do my descriptions appeal to all five senses?
  • Dialogue. Is my dialogue appropriate and realistic? Have I conveyed a language accent with too many misspelled words? Does each major character have a distinctive (and contrasting) manner of talking, and vocabulary? Have I used dialogue tags effectively?
  • Show, Don’t Tell. For the key plot points, do I show rather than tell? Do I convey emotions, feelings, and impacts of events on characters? Do I merely relate events through narration? Do my characters react to events and actions appropriately?
  • Style. Have I strengthened the prose with similes and metaphors? Are there adverbs I can cut out? Have I used active phrasing? Can I choose verbs that are more powerful? Are there clichés I can delete or modify? Do I vary my sentence lengths enough? Is my vocabulary appropriate and consistent?
  • Spelling and Grammar. Have I corrected all unintentional misspellings? Is my grammar correct? Do I still have any awkward sentence structures? Do I have any misplaced modifiers?

There’s your starter list. Happy editing! Now it’s time for me to chip away at the next masterpiece by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 10, 2019Permalink

Biomimetic Technology

How is Velcro like a burr plant? How is the Eastgate Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe like a termite mound? How is a tire tread like a tree frog?

These are all examples of engineers solving problems by looking to nature, a process known as biomimetics. After all, animals and plants have evolved over millions of years, and have developed solutions to many problems. Why shouldn’t we learn from them?

Burdock Plant, the inspiration for Velcro

After a hunting trip, Swiss engineer Georges de Mestral observed burrs from the burdock plant sticking to his pant legs. He wondered how the plants did that, and from his investigation came ‘hook and loop fasteners’ or Velcro. 

Eastgate Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe with cross-section of chimney


Architect Mick Pearce sought a way to cost-effectively cool and heat a building in Zimbabwe, with its widely varying daily temperature cycles. He examined the flues and vents within termite mounds, and used the termites’ passive technique to save 90% of the cooling costs in his design for the Eastgate Centre.

Tree Frog Toe Pad inspiring tire tread

Automotive designers wanted tires that adhered to wet roads. They noted how tree frogs stick to smooth wet leaves, and even to wet glass because their toe pads squeeze water away through fine grooves. Tire treads have a similar design, channeling rainwater away for better adhesion to the road surface.

Characters in several of my stories use biomimicry, too.

In “The Steam Elephant,” (The Gallery of Curiosities, Issue #3) my sequel to Jules Verne’s two-part novel, The Steam House, the engineer known as Banks constructed a mechanical elephant around a traction steam engine. Verne likely chose an elephant to allow room for the boiler, and as a form that did not require railroad tracks.

My story, “A Clouded Affair,” in the anthology Avast, Ye Airships! includes a working, steam-powered ornithopter. These aircraft imitate birds by flapping their wings. Although useful in bird-sized machines, they never proved as practical as fixed or rotating wings in full scale. Even so, prior to the invention of the airplane, some designers tried to mimic birds in this way.

Along similar lines, my story “Instability” in the anthology Dark Luminous Wings is about a monk trying to fly by imitating flying creatures. Based on legend, my tale has Brother Eilmer of Malmesbury Abbey constructing a pair of wings similar to those of jackdaws. He soon finds this impossible to build in practice, so chooses to model his wings on those of bats instead.

Are you trying to solve a problem? If so, perhaps nature has already solved it for you. Look to plants and animals for inspiration. After all, biomimetics worked for—

                                                Poseidon’s Scribe

February 3, 2019Permalink

Writing Inside the Box

The problem with life is there are too many constraints. There are too many limits, too little money, too few resources, and never enough time. And that’s the good news.

Good news? Lest you think me crazy, I’ll explain.

A wonderful blog post by James Clear inspired this post, and I encourage you to read Clear’s article, too.

If Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) could constrain himself to write a children’s book using only fifty different words and come up with Green Eggs and Ham, then constraints may help you as well.

As discussed in Clear’s post, constraints (whether self-imposed or not) force you to think creatively, to find unusual ways to get things done within the limits.

As a fiction writer, you’re always imposing constraints on your characters, particularly the hero of your stories. Your protagonist is always racing against the clock, striving to get out of some trap, fighting to get free of a bad relationship, or otherwise burdened by severe limitations. With the usual options denied, your hero must become inventive in coming up with ways to resolve problems.

What about you? While writing your story, do you face constraints? Yes. I’m sure you have a word limit, even if only a vague one.

Other constraints include the tone of the narrative (once you’ve chosen that, you shouldn’t deviate), genre norms, a desire to stay away from stereotypical characters, character speaking style, the story’s Point of View, etc. Other constraints you might choose for yourself include vocabulary limits like Dr. Seuss’ story, an upper limit on readability index, a dislike of certain words or phrases, and thousands of other possibilities.

Perhaps the most constraining limit of all for any writer is time. You never know how much time you really have and you can’t buy more of it. You can’t take an infinite number of years to finish your story.

As one extreme example, consider the way Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451. With two small children at home, he sought a quiet place to write. At the library, he could rent a typewriter, but had to feed it a dime every half-hour. That would be a dollar every half-hour today. They say ‘time is money’ but imagine feeding money into your laptop all the time. No wonder Fahrenheit 451 is a rather short novel.

Constraints, whether imposed by the universe or by you, force you to optimize, maximize, and prioritize. They force you to choose some things and forego others. They force you to think beyond the normal, to consider bizarre alternatives, and to invent new methods.

Perhaps there’s no use complaining about constraints, then. We all face them. Just maybe, they’re bringing out your most creative impulses. Instead of complaining, accept them. Face them. Figure out ways to deal with them.

I’ve accepted the box I’m writing in, but it’s uncomfortable and my joints stiffened up. Now I’m stuck. I hope someone can reach in and help—

                                                Poseidon’s Scribe

January 27, 2019Permalink

To Fight the Unbeatable Foe

Pole to Pole Publishing just released a new anthology, Re-Terrify: Horrifying Stories of Monsters and More, and it contains a story of mine, “Moonset.” In that tale, my protagonist must “fight an unbeatable foe,” as in the song “The Impossible Dream (the Quest)” from the musical Man of La Mancha.

For Re-Terrify, the publisher wanted reprints, previously published stories that had appeared elsewhere. I’d written a horror story called “Blood in the River” that had appeared in Dead Bait, published by Severed Press.  As written, it was unsuitable for Re-Terrify, so I revised it.

In the story, detectives at an El Paso police department are questioning a murder suspect. The suspect claims to be about four hundred years old and to exist as a kind of vampire. At moonset, he turns into a vampirefish, a candiru. At moonrise, he turns back into a human male. In either state, he is invincible. Once it becomes clear he is telling the truth, the police are faced with the problem of defeating an invulnerable monster.

That much remains the same in both versions of the story. How did I revise it? Aside from changing the title, I changed the protagonist from male to female, fleshed out her role at the police department, heightened the tension, deleted a couple of scenes, and added a more dramatic final scene. 

The real-life candiru is scary enough. It wedges its barbed head into the gills of larger fish and sucks their blood until gorged. The antagonist of my story has that hideous capability in both his forms. In his human shape, he can spring blood-draining barbs from his fingers, and from a lower body part.

Neither bullets nor fist blows affect this villain. Nor do the traditional wards used against vampires. In both his forms, this shape-shifter is invulnerable to any attack.

What is my hero, Kendra Monroe, to do? How do you fight an unbeatable foe?

To find out, you’ll have to buy Re-Terrify and read “Moonset.” I look forward to reading the other stories in this anthology, too. In the meantime, that song from Man of La Mancha is now stuck in my head, and I have nobody to blame except—

Poseidon’s Scribe

January 20, 2019Permalink

6 Reasons Your Story Stinks

That story idea was so good, wasn’t it? While it remained an idea, it radiated beams of perfection across your mind. It screamed “Classic!”

Then you wrote it down. Now it doesn’t look so good. In fact, it stinks.

How could the same story that seemed so ideal when it sat upon a pedestal within your bran, end up so pathetic when you wrote it down?

Here are some reasons for that large ideal/real gap, and what to do about it:

  • You only completed a first draft. There’s no reason to expect your first draft to be good. You wrote it in a rush, not wanting to lose sight of the broad outlines of the story idea in your mind.
    Solution: Keep editing the story. In subsequent drafts, it will approach closer to the ideal version.
  • The emotions faded. You felt some powerful emotions while thinking about the story. Somehow, during the writing process, those passions abated. Now the real manuscript lacks the fire of the mental one.
    Solution: Put away the manuscript. Just think about the story again and try to recapture the feelings you had when you first thought of it. If you can do that, you may discover ways to improve the real version.
  • You got sidetracked. While writing down your story, you thought of some new characters, or a different setting, or a new subplot or plot twist. Whichever it is, that marked a deviation from the ideal story residing in your mind.
    Solution: You’ve got a decision to make. Does the deviation make the story worse, or better? If worse, delete it. If better, keep it.
  • A character demanded a bigger role. Somehow, during the writing process, one of the characters started stealing the show. That character developed a deeper personality and started speaking unimagined lines and taking unforeseen actions.
    Solution: As with the previous problem, you’re facing a decision. Think in terms of the story. Does this character’s expanded role improve the story or not? If so, keep that character as is. If not, you can either reduce the character’s part or substitute a different character. (Consider using that scene-stealing character in a different story.)
  • That mental story only seemed ideal. You discovered some things while writing the story. That story idea contained some serious flaws, like plot holes, actions without motivations, unnecessarily complex solutions to problems, or loose ends. Sometimes an idea only seems good until it sees the light of day.
    Solution: If you fixed the problem while writing the story, go with the one you wrote. If you got stuck partway through, shelve the story for a while. Someday, your muse may suggest a revised idea you can work with.
  • Your ideal is unattainable in reality. That mental version of the story is so clear, so perfect, but you just can’t match it in the real manuscript. You’ve been through several drafts now, each one better than the last, but it still doesn’t quite measure up.
    Solution: You can be like Leonardo da Vinci if you want, and dabble with your Mona Lisa for over a decade, making little improvements here and there. But consider declaring that story good enough and start writing another one.

We all struggle with the gap in quality between the ideals in our mind and the flawed reality of our tangible creations. It’s part of the human condition for our mental reach to exceed our physical grasp. Perhaps the Mona Lisa never matched da Vinci’s idea of her, but his painting still leaves most of us in awe. 

Now that I read back over it, this blog post falls far short of the one imagined by—

                                                                                Poseidon’s Scribe


January 13, 2019Permalink

Retreading Worn Trails: Path Dependence in Technology

A few weeks ago, I mentioned I’d be discussing technology topics in this blog from time to time, along with the accustomed advice for beginning writers. Today I’ll delve into path dependence in technology.

I’ve long found it fascinating how people deal with new technology. Occasionally, developers of a new invention will copy the appearance of an older one. They don’t do this to ease adaptation for the user, but rather to reduce the risk of failure. By starting with something proven, with available parts, and making only a few changes, innovators increase the chance of their invention’s success.

This is the technological aspect of the larger term ‘path dependence,’ since historical precedence frames the inventor’s decisions. Only later does the new invention diverge in form from its predecessor.

You won’t find path dependence in all new technologies, but it’s most often present in evolutionary, versus revolutionary, developments.

Robert Fulton’s Nautilus of 1800
  • As a former submariner, one of my favorite examples of path dependence is the shape of submarines. Early submarines intended for long transits, like Fulton’s Nautilus and the military subs of World Wars I and II, resembled surface ships. They had ‘U’ or ‘V’ shaped cross sections, not ‘O’ shaped. Only later did submarine designs deviate from the standard surface ship configuration.
Benz Patent-Motorwagen from 1885
  • The automobile is another example. The first automobiles resembled the horse-drawn carriages that preceded them. Subsequent automobile designs departed from this model.
  • E-mail is another example of path dependence. The term itself refers back to the postal mail that came before electronic mail. In the early days of e-mail, people also formatted their messages as they had with traditional letters.

I’ll also cite three examples from my own stories. These are all fictional inventions, but are path dependent in the sense that their appearance sprang from predecessor technologies.

  • When I came across a claim that someone had invented a prototype submarine in China circa 200 BC, I decided to write a story about that. Accounts of this feat from 22 centuries ago were vague, so that freed me to create my own version. In “The Sea-Wagon of Yantai,” my protagonist inventor, Ning, patterns his submarine after the horse-drawn wagons of the period. I assumed my inventor would make minor alterations to a vehicle type with which he was familiar.
  • In writing my story “The Wind-Sphere Ship,” I toyed with the notion that Heron (sometimes written as Hero) of Alexandria might have found a practical use for the toy steam engine he built in the First Century AD, that of propelling a ship. Of course, he wouldn’t have envisioned a propeller-driven ship with an 18th Century style steam engine. My story features an oar-driven galley, with eighteen of Heron’s spinning metal spheres driving the oars.
  • In “A Tale More True,” my protagonist constructs a gigantic coil spring intended to launch him to the Moon from Germany in 1769. Count Federmann knows nothing of aerodynamics (let alone the effect of acceleration on the human body), so his capsule is merely a small metal house, square in shape, with a pitched roof. Again, this innovator chooses a shape with which he’s familiar.

Do you know of other examples of path dependence in new technology, whether real or fictional? If so, leave a comment for—

                                                Poseidon’s Scribe

January 6, 2019Permalink

8 Science Fiction Predictions for 2019

You’ve been wondering where the genre of Science Fiction will be going in 2019, haven’t you? I knew it. You’ve landed at the right blog post.

Author with CRISTAL Ball

How do I know the future, you ask? Do I have a crystal ball? No. That would be irrational and silly. I have a CRISTAL ball, a Computerized Recursive and Iterative Stabilizing Trend ALgorithm, which I packaged in a spherical shape for optimized computing speed.

Diagnostic checks are complete and the presets are accurate, so I’ll set parameters for 2019 and access the graphical interface. Let me gaze into my CRISTAL ball…

  • In 2019, you’ll see more science fiction books written by authors from previously underrepresented groups (women, people of color, LGBTQ, etc.) and these books will explore concepts of belonging and isolation, as well as bending our current notions of gender and race.
  • The superhero theme in movies will peak and begin a gradual decline. It’s been an amazing ride, but I believe the market has saturated and audiences are getting tired.
  • Very few, if any, best-selling scifi books will feature faster-than-light drive. Most authors have accepted Einstein’s speed of light limit. FTL now seems hokey to readers.
  • Having already peaked, the steampunk and alternate history genres will continue to wane in books and movies, though they may retain strength in the video gaming world. This genre trend in books is troubling to me, since I enjoy writing steampunk and other alternative history.
  • We’ll see more Solarpunk, and the Punk Family will grow by a few more. I think there’s a great deal of uncharted territory in the solarpunk genre and a general hunger for it among readers. Most new ‘punks’ added in 2019 will be future-based, rather than alternative histories.
  • There will be fewer dystopian young adult books, and there will be an upsurge in YA depicting a positive (though not utopian) future. I think dystopias have run their course for the time being, and readers are ready for less bleak outlooks.
  • Overall, as a genre, science fiction will do well in the visual media of movies, video games, and graphic novels, but not in traditional book form. Plenty of authors enjoy writing scifi, but readers will turn away from this genre in greater numbers. This is another prediction I find personally disappointing.
  • The trend toward series novels will remain strong. Once modern readers make an emotional investment in a set of characters and their fictional world, they want to know what happens after the first novel, and after the next.

At the end of 2019, I intend to run a blog post confirming the accuracy of my CRISTAL ball. In the meantime, you can tell everyone you’ve glimpsed the future, as predicted by —

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 30, 2018Permalink

What Hath Smashwords Wrought?

Amid all the holiday rush, you meant to buy three of my books as gifts (or for yourself), but somehow forgot. Good news! That same $12 you were going to spend now buys four (4) books, or even more.  

Smashwords is holding an End of Year Sale, but they’re letting it run over one day into 2019. All the books in my What Man Hath Wrought series are 25% off.  

For $2.99, you can get After the Martians, Ripper’s Ring, Time’s Deformèd Hand, The Cometeers, To Be First/Wheels of Heaven, Rallying Cry/Last Vessel of Atlantis, A Tale More True, Against All Gods, Leonardo’s Lion, or Alexander’s Odyssey.

For just $2.24, you can get The Six Hundred Dollar Man, A Steampunk Carol, Within Victorian Mists, or The Wind-Sphere Ship.

These stories explore the theme of people dealing with new technology, a problem to which we all relate. I put my characters and technologies in historical settings, so these are all alternate history stories or secret histories.

Take advantage of Smashwords’ End of Year Sale, and enjoy some books by—

                                                            Poseidon’s Scribe

December 26, 2018Permalink

What the Tech?

Today I’ll introduce a new feature to my blog. I’ll be exploring the way people deal with new technology. It’s a theme in most of my stories, and I’ll be discussing it in some depth in this and future posts. I’ll still offer guidance to beginning fiction writers, but I’ll also pursue this technology topic on occasion.

I’m not concerned so much with any particular technology itself, but rather the relationship between humans and new technology. This relationship can bring about a number of problems, including:

  • Technical failures during development and testing
  • Development of a technology without considering its harmful or immoral effects
  • Unanticipated problems brought about by use of the technology
  • Lack of acceptance of, or opposition to, the technology by others
  • The technology’s failure to live up to its hype
  • The possibility that the technology may change the user in some way
  • Eventual complacence brought about by success of the technology leading to new failure modes

In many of my stories, I show characters struggling with new technology and encountering several of these problems. Here are some of the most recently published ones.

In “The Unparalleled Attempt to Rescue One Hans Pfaall” in the Quoth the Raven anthology, there are two new technologies. One is the hot air balloon, in which my characters voyage to the Moon in 1835. The other is a mysterious machine they find on the Moon, a device that maintains both the satellite’s atmosphere and the life-link between paired individuals on the Earth and Moon. The balloon causes no problems, but one character’s ignorance and rashness causes disaster when he operates the Moon machine.

In “Target Practice” in the Re-Launch anthology, the technologies are a future underwater prison and one-man submarines. They use the mini-subs in a cruel training exercise that always results in the death of an inmate. The challenge for my protagonist is to exploit weaknesses in the technology and possibly survive the training exercise.

In “The Steam Elephant” in The Gallery of Curiosities, Issue #3, the technology is a mechanical, steam-powered elephant. In 1879, the British owners and occupants of the elephant are confident they will prevail in a war with primitive Zulu ‘savages.’ Perhaps their confidence is misplaced.

In “Instability” in the Dark Luminous Wings anthology, my medieval monk protagonist invents a pair of bat-like wings to achieve human flight. Other monks in the abbey are convinced he’s insane, and his first flight is not problem-free.

In “The Cats of Nerio-3” in the In A Cat’s Eye anthology, I mention several technologies, but the most important is an artificially intelligent computer. The AI believes itself far superior to its human companion, but perhaps it shouldn’t count humans out so soon.

In “After the Martians,” aliens leave their technologies behind after a failed invasion of Earth, and people use them to fight World War I. The Martian tripods and heat rays change the very nature of the war.

In “Ancient Spin” in the Hides the Dark Tower anthology, the technology is a giant stone tower, designed and built in Biblical times. After the tower’s collapse, its inventor considers how to avoid the blame.

In “Ripper’s Ring,” the technology is an ancient ring that can render its wearer invisible. Not only does this change the ring’s finder in negative ways, it complicates the detective’s search for him.

In “A Clouded Affair” in the Avast, Ye Airships! anthology, the two competing technologies are a 19th Century steam-powered ornithopter and a 20th Century diesel engine biplane. Which one wins the battle?

You’ll see this topic considered in detail and related to more of my stories in future posts by—

                                                Poseidon’s Scribe

December 23, 2018Permalink

On Beyond Slash

In his 1955 book On Beyond Zebra! Dr. Seuss had child readers imagining several new alphabetical letters occurring after our last one—Z. Today, I’m advocating the addition of some new punctuation and fonts. Since the last punctuation mark on my keyboard is the slash (/), we’ll venture beyond slash. Way beyond.

Let’s face it.There are times when currently available punctuation just won’t do. Moreover, the number of keys on a keyboard no longer limits us. This is the age of multi-use buttons. Software programmers could easily show one or more pop-up keyboards that replace QWERTY with alternate punctuation marks and fonts. If we can have innumerable emojis and emoticons, we can certainly add some fresh punctuation marks.

Many others have proposed new punctuation marks that haven’t caught on yet, but should. You’ll enjoy other blog posts on this topic by Adrienne Crezo, Randy Krum, Keith Houston, and Zachery Brasier. I’ll start my list with marks advocated by others, and finish with two of my own invention.

ElRey Mark

The ElRey Mark is a variant of the exclamation point invented by photographer Ellen Susan. The original intent of the exclamation mark was to denote very strong feelings or loud shouts, like “Stop!” or “Watch out!” However, people now use it even for mild emphasis, as in “Thanks!” Named for ‘The King’ in Spanish, the ElRey Mark’s intent is to express a moderate amount of excitement or optimism. However, given the two dots in the ElRey Mark, I’d propose swapping it with the Exclamation Mark, so that ElRey would denote the stronger emphasis.

Exclamation Comma and Question Comma

We really need the Exclamation Comma and especially the Question Comma. They would permit exclamations and questions within a sentence, rather than having to reword them to occur at the sentence’s end. Invented and patented by Americans Leonard Storch, Haagen Ernst Van and Sigmund Silber in 1992, the symbols didn’t catch on and their patent has lapsed.

Interrobang

An advertising executive named Martin K. Speckter came up with the Interrobang in 1952. It combines the exclamation and question marks for those times when it’s tough to choose between the two, but your editor will only permit one, as in: “What? Now you tell me you don’t know how to land the plane?”

Love Point

I love the Love Point, invented in 1966 by author Jean-Pierre Marie Herve-Bazin. Yes, authors should be able to express the emotion of love through words alone, but the Love Point would add a charming emphasis to it. Couldn’t the world use a little more love?

Mockquotation Marks

Quotation marks are supposed to be for actual quotations, so there’s a need for a way to denote“air quotes” indicating what someone should have said or seems to be saying. Mockquotation Marks would serve that need in a visually obvious way. As near as I can determine, we can thank Mike Trapp of collegehumor.com for these marks.

Doubt Point

I’ve added the Doubt Point to my list, not because I think it’s particularly useful to express doubt through punctuation, but because it looks so Seussian. It was another creation by Jean-Pierre Marie Herve-Bazin.

Fleuron or Hedera

Here’s another punctuation mark I’d love to see for its appearance alone. Originally called the Hedera when used by the Ancient Greeks and Romans, the French renamed it the Fleuron, the name I prefer. Although they used it to separate paragraphs, I don’t care what we’d use it for; I just like the way it looks.

Now we come to my own inventions. Others have proposed reverse italics for other purposes, but I’d used them to add emphasis to a word or two within an already italicized section. It’s common to do that by putting that word in normal font, but that just doesn’t do it for me. Reverse italics would be a way of nesting emphasized words.

Possesstrophe

We’ve saddled the apostrophe with double duty for too long, and it’s often misused and confused. The apostrophe’s original use was to substitute for letters we’re not showing. We call those contractions, like don’t for do not. However, we use the same mark for possession. Allow me to introduce the Possesstrophe. It even looks like two arms reaching out to possess the word or phrase beyond the ‘s.’ The Possesstrophe would resolve the need to remember the rule for it’s as a contraction and its as a possessive.

What do you say? Let’s get some of these new marks accepted in standard usage. Go on beyond slash with—

                                                Poseidon’s Scribe

December 16, 2018Permalink