NOTES ABOUT THE MEMOIR STORIES

Some “little” things:

1. When we write the time, we write: 6 a. m. or 6:00 a. m. (not 6am)

2. When we begin a sentence with a numeral, we write it out: Fifty people showed up at the party. (The only exception to this is if it’s a year, such as: 1998 was a memorable year for weather.)

3. When making a DASH, we use 2 HYPHENS together. Put a space between the words and the dash. Otherwise it looks like you are making a compound word. NOT: My sister-a bratty kindergartner-gives me a headache. BUT: My sister – a bratty kindergartner – gives me a headache. (Note that when you make the 2 hyphens, the computer will automatically merge them into one dash.)

4. When you use a multiple-word adjective, hyphenate it. My 12-year-old brother just got braces. We had a month-long wait for news about our cousin. 5. Again, be careful with EVERY DAY or EVERYDAY. If you use it as 1 word, it’s an adjective that needs a noun after it. Otherwise, you need 2 words. Her everyday routine including working out at the gym. Every day, she worked out at the gym.

6. The idiom is “all of a sudden,” NOT “all of the sudden.”

7. Learn the difference between AMOUNT and NUMBER. If what you are referring to is a countable thing, use number. If it’s not countable, use amount.

We got a huge amount of snow overnight. At the dance, a small number of students were dressed inappropriately.

Some “bigger items:

1. Comma splices are running rampant in your papers!!!! You MUST learn what a sentence is and punctuate it correctly. This is the equivalent of knowing your multiplication tables in math.

Comma splice: We had trouble finding a parking space, everyone in town seemed to be at the mall. How to fix it: (Which one works best here?) 1. Change the comma to a period. 2. Change the comma to a semi-colon. 3. Add a FANBOYS conjunction after the comma. 4. Delete the comma and add an ABBI.

2. Drop in effective DETAILS every so often. Many of you are telling everything rather than showing.

Weak: The doctor told me I had broken my arm. Better: Dr. Cudney peered out from behind his glasses and smiled at me. “I’m afraid it’s broken in two places,” he said softly, patting my unaffected hand.

Weak: My friends and I went to the concert and had fun. Better: Sammy and Dave picked me up in their parents’ van, and off we went to the Allstate Arena. We screamed along for two straight hours to the hits of One Direction, dancing in the aisles as blue and purple lights swirled around us.

3. If you don’t know how to punctuate dialogue correctly or how to separate you dialogue into paragraphs, USE A MODEL. Open ANY fiction book to see this, and make yours match!! You must take responsibility for this.

4. Verb tenses must be CONSISTENT. I’m seeing your verbs switch from past to present to past to present so much that my head spins. Example: My mom came into the room and she gives me my phone. (See the problem?) Example: Everyone gathered at my house at 8:00. Our neighbors had brought some chips and salsa, while my best friend brought grapes, and my aunt was making a pizza. I just stand there, eating it all.

5. Avoid clichés like the plague! Examples: You can do anything you put your mind to. A good friend is someone who is there for you.

6. Don’t over-correct with pronouns. Remember, when a pronoun is in the SUBJECT position, it needs to be the subjective case. When it’s used in the predicate of the sentence – after the verb – it needs to be in the objective case. My friends and I went to the dance together. My dad took my friends and me to the dance.

7. ; = . A semi-colon is NOT a comma on steroids!!! It is ONLY used to separate TWO COMPLETE SENTENCES.