Win our February writing contest The sound your're hearing in that Oscar Wilde quote is called balance. Also known as parallelism, balance works because of the rub between similarity and difference. Balance draws reader attention to the most important parts of your message, with passages like: "... my head in the rainclouds, my heart in the sky." — Donna Tartt, … [Read more...] about Balance and Power
Writing contest
Create Wordoids
Make up words with this cool naming tool I was working on a story today when a writerruption occurred: My brother sent me photos of The Cutest Kid In the World, aka my niece. I got distracted and missed my deadline. Not really. But don’t you love the word writerruption? I made it myself, with the cool tool Wordoid. This site is designed to help you find a catchy name … [Read more...] about Create Wordoids
Nounify a name
'That was so Bankheadian' I was thrilled last month when one of my clients asked me to "Wylie-ize" part of her website. (Thank you, Libby Catalinich!) That reminded me of this exchange between characters in Jeffrey Eugenides' The Marriage Plot: “My goal in life is to become an adjective,” Leonard said. “People would go around saying, ‘That was so Bankheadian.’ Or, ‘A … [Read more...] about Nounify a name
From apostrofly to throuple
Create new words by merging old ones Tracy Ousdahl and Paul Pinney — let's call them Ouspin — have traveled the globe. But sometimes, instead of venturing out to a cool destination, they use their time off to visit their families. Don't call that a vacation, though. To Ouspin, that's a famcation. Half-and-half words like famcation — linguists call these portmanteaus … [Read more...] about From apostrofly to throuple