A word’s placement makes a difference.
I have a beef with Safeway. They may know groceries, but they struggle with word order. 
I cringe every time I hear this line in their radio ad: “Safeway only sells U.S.D.A. choice beef.”
What’s wrong with that? The placement of the word only.
In English, modifiers belong as close as possible to the word they … Continue reading
Don’t waste a sentence’s key part.
As I edited a manuscript for busy moms, I thought of birds and binoculars.
Specifically, I thought of an illustration that taught me how the words a writer places at the end of a sentence stick in a reader’s mind.
Here’s the illustration, by Robert Elmer in the former Christian Writers Guild’s course for pre-teen writers:
Do your first lines establish these three, key points?
Because I was unfamiliar with the surroundings, I took a wrong turn. My only recourse was to go back, check things more carefully, and start afresh.
That’s disconcerting if you’re driving a car, but also while reading a novel — finding yourself lost as you try to negotiate a new scene.
Besides … Continue reading