Tips On Writing Technique
When you have finished writing your family history book, take the time to review and edit it. Whoever your audience, you will want your book to be well written and edited.
Are your sentences too long, or too short? Is the whole piece too wordy? Does your writing flow smoothly? Or are there sections that may leave your readers wondering if they’ve missed something? Your stories should be tied together in a cohesive manner.
Do you have boring sections? Don’t be afraid to edit out bits that are not relevant. Review facts and carefully check dates and names to be sure that you have transcribed from your notes accurately. Always do a spell check, but never rely on this entirely. Always proofread the entire manuscript yourself.
Check for consistency in personal name spelling. There can be multiple spellings for surnames, and you may have uncovered quite a few in your research. Use the most common spelling for your surname and use it consistently throughout your book. You can always make a note of variant spellings within, or at the end of the book.
Choose one date format and apply it throughout your book. The standard date format for genealogists is day/month/year. The month is spelled out in full and the year is a four-digit number. Hence, you would write a date as: 2 February 1879. The date cannot be misinterpreted in this format.
Punctuation marks can improve the readability of your written word. Limit the use of exclamation points. They can become ineffective if overused. All sentences must end with a full stop (unless it is a question). There should be only one space after each full stop before the beginning of the next sentence.
Well-placed commas will help the flow of your writing. If there is a point in a sentence that you would naturally pause, or take a breath, you may want to place a comma there.
When using quotation marks, remember that full stops and commas go inside the closing quote marks, while semi-colons and colons go outside.
Semi-colons should be used to separate two complete sentences or two independent thoughts. A semi-colon is similar to a comma but with more emphasis. A semi-colon may also be used to separate items in a list when the series involves internal punctuation (such as additional commas). A colon is most often used to introduce a list.
The apostrophe has two functions. It indicates both the possessive case and contractions. This might seem simple, but it can cause problems. We can say either The whiskers of the cat, or The cat's whiskers. This is the possessive case, when something belongs to somebody or something else. When the possessor is single we indicate possession by using an apostrophe followed by the letter s: The man's coat. When the possessors are plural, the apostrophe is placed after the final s: The girls' bicycles. When names end with the letter s, either use is acceptable.
Contractions: in formal prose, we would write she has told him, but when speaking we would say she's told him. The apostrophe is used to indicate the missing letters: I am (I'm) - he is (he's) - you are (you're).
Read through your manuscript to identify any awkward sections and to check grammar, punctuation, continuity and clarity. Better still, get a friend or relative to read your draft, they may pick up errors that you have missed and let you know if there are any parts that do not hold their interest.