The “rules” about how to style numbers still trip up veteran writers (and editors). There are a lot of rules, and numbers is one of the topics that style guides often have very different ways of handling, which adds to the confusion.
In the US book-publishing world, we use the Chicago Manual of Style to determine how to treat numbers in text, whether fiction or nonfiction.
Tighten your writing by trimming unnecessary words and let your verbs do the heavy lifting.
Commas seem to be one of the greatest stressors for writers, including my clients. It makes sense–the comma is the most versatile punctuation mark and is used in so many different ways.
Adding to the confusion: there are instances where you–yes, you the author–get to decide whether or not to include a comma.
If a writer sticks to speaking words (said, asked) for their dialogue tags, then the tags will fade into the background for the reader, keeping their attention on the good stuff, the actual dialogue.
Where does the comma go?
I don’t know why this rule gets the regal treatment.
I recently heard someone call ellipses drama dots, and now I want to rename them. Drama dots sounds much more intriguing.
I know many writers are swearbears. Nothing can make a writer cuss louder than an unexpected Word update just when they’ve hit a writing groove and all the words are flowing easily.
The em-dash is one of my favorite punctuation marks. No worries if you have no idea what an em-dash is. I didn’t either until I became an editor. Well, I knew what it was, I just didn’t know its name.
Apostrophes do NOT make a word (including your last name!) plural.