Competitions – Page 35

is for abbreviation, among other things. This is an area that is still misunderstood by some novice writers. In keeping with the theme of my blog, I’ll be using words associated with writing as I make my way through the alphabet. Now where was I? Oh yes, abbreviations.

A simple method for remembering the proper usage is to keep in mind, that the reader may not know the abbreviation; so use the full word first, followed by the abbreviation. You can then use the abbreviation throughout the remainder of your piece of writing.

For example: The hero in my book, ‘Beyond The Law’, is depicted at the beginning of the story as a member of the Special Air Service (SAS). That’s simple enough.

Where would we leave out an abbreviation? This would be the case, where it is no longer necessary, because of the accepted use of a shortened version of a word.

An example of this would be telephone, which up until recent times would have been abbreviated with an apostrophe, i.e. ‘phone; but now it is simply written as phone. Another one is the shortened version of aeroplane; ‘plane, which is now recognised as plane.

How about plurals that do not require an apostrophe?

CDs, MPs, DVDs, and so on.

This was just a glimpse at one area of writing, but there are many more to come. Now, on how many occasions did I fail to italicise all the words beginning with a? The first correct answer gets a name check on my next post.

Thank you for reading and I’ll see you tomorrow with B, for … bye.

It doesn’t matter what you write; whether it be non-fiction, fiction, articles, reviews or simply readers’ letters occasionally – you will at some stage find yourself using numbers. Yes, we’re all very good at words … a few letters added together. How rapidly can you remember when a number should be spelt out as a word, or written as a figure? Is it two, or 2, forty, or 40?

Like many areas of writing, I rely on my military background for a description. Yes, it’s that old faithful; it’s a bloody minefield.

Before looking at the detail, let’s look at the circumstances. If you are writing for a magazine, newspaper, or any established publication, you have it sorted for you. Every publication has a ‘house style’ or ‘submission guidelines’ which will keep you in line. This is equally true of feature/article writing or non-fiction. Imagine you’re about to write a piece for ‘Young Scientist and Inventor’, or some similarly titled magazine – it will have its own rules.

Rather than make this post look like an algebra lesson, yes, that mathematics discipline that involves letters and numbers – I’m going to give an intro here, and a link to ‘Creative Writer and Artist’ which is one of my two websites. I have a comprehensive guide to using numbers within creative writing on that particular site.

* If the number is between one and ten, it should be spelt out. Anything from 11 upwards should be shown as figures. There are of course some exceptions.

* A sentence is best not started with a number, because it must be spelt out, so the easiest thing to do is avoid it; by restructuring the sentence. Enough said there.

* If the two different ‘categories’ of numbers are to appear in the same sentence, then a fair guide is to show both as spelt out – not one spelt out, and the other shown as a figure.

Now, be honest; how many of those three points were you confident about? Obviously, there are exceptions, as there are with any rules or guidelines. Think about such things as; dates, times, distances, temperatures, measurements … getting the point?

At this point I’d like to express my thanks to Lorraine Mace and Maureen Vincent-Northam for covering this topic so well in their joint venture; ‘THE WRITER’S abc CHECKLIST’. I’ve learned about writing numbers from various sources, but the aforementioned book is my bible on the matter. If you haven’t got a copy – get one! It’s available from various sources, including; Amazon and Accent Press.

Unless you’re one of those clever-clogs writers that already has this area sorted in your mind, please feel free to use the link below and see a more detailed explanation, and as always; thank you for reading my blog.

http://www.tom-benson.co.uk/writing and numbers

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