K – Keep an eye out for every trifle. #AtoZ

Posted on by writershilpa

Keep an eye out for trifles.

This particular post is  for myself – a ‘note to self’, so to say –  as it’s the little things – the trifles – that I so often overlook while writing.

Calling these ‘trifles’ is in itself a mistake, as it’s these little things that really matter a lot to our writing, but to which we often fail to give due importance.

I learnt about these over the years. Still am learning, thanks to some really helpful, caring friends I made over the years.

So, without further ado, let’s look at these little BIG things, shall we?

Using ‘rich’ words:

Desist from using words you never use while speaking. Especially ‘rich’ words that you may think will make your post shine.  I often did it in the initial days of my blogging, until my friend pointed it out to me and told me it made my posts seem artificial.

Grammatical errors:

We often eat up our ‘articles’ (a,an,the), which can really make a lot of difference to our sentences.

For e.g. “My post is in mess.”

“My post is in a mess.”

See the difference the a  does to the sentence?

‘You’re’, ‘your‘, also get mixed up, as do ‘It’s‘ and ‘its‘. Little things we tend to overlook in our hurry to finish our post.

Using too many adjectives or adverbs –

“He rushed to her side, quickly.”

The adverb ‘quickly’ is unnecessary here. He rushed, didn’t he?

Grammarly is the place to visit. It helps in polishing our Grammar and presenting crisper posts.

Cliches:

My friend, Pawan Hegde, often points out the number of cliches in my posts and urges me to be original instead of using these overused phrases, which lack originality. ‘Deafening silence/ raining cats and dogs/ time heals all wounds’ and so many more are all cliches, which we ought to quit using.

Punctuation marks:

Using either too many commas, or no commas, or commas in the wrong places. Using the semi colon instead of the comma;  usage of the colon, the ellipsis (the three dots I am so crazy about!), the  dash (the en dash and the em dash which I often tend to forget about), all of these need to be worked upon with care.

Do visit this link for more information on punctuation marks. These are the tiny things that really make a huge difference to our writing.

Typos:

Okay, typos happen all the time and these can be ignored. But, to avoid typos, the best thing to do is to read the post aloud. You will discover words you missed, phrases you could do without, as well as any spelling/syntax errors, homophones, homonyms, incorrect words, and much more!

Paragraphs:

My paragraphs used to be really long earlier. It’s only by observing other bloggers that I discovered that keeping the paragraphs short —  4 to 5 lines — makes the post appealing, and easy on the eyes.

Try reading posts with lengthy paragraphs and compare them with those with shorter ones and notice the difference.

Preview the post:

After you have read and re-read your post and sifted through it thoroughly, click the Preview button to give it a final check. Are the images well placed, the fonts right, the entire look of the post appealing to the eyes of the reader? That little Preview button is there for a purpose. And, I discovered it quite late.

As I said in the beginning, this post is really for my use. Often, I get carried away by the thoughts crowding my mind and ignore these trifles, and upon checking the post later, I come across all the errors I could have avoided had I been more careful.

I hope you find this post useful, too. I haven’t gone into the details as I risked making it a really lengthy post and losing out on my readers.

Maybe I will do a detailed post some other time, after I get the approval from a Grammar Nazi!

Happy writing!

 

Love,

SHILPA…

 

P.S.

If you come across any errors, mistakes in my writing, or the information given, do point it out to me. I welcome your suggestions.

SHILPA.

April 2018 A to Z blogging Challenge

My theme for the A to Z Blogging Challenge is all about my blog, Metanoia, and my blogging journey from the time  I started, 5 years ago. The lessons I learnt, the tips and tricks I picked up from fellow bloggers and the guidelines I could have used back when I began. 

 

Published by writershilpa

Writing and art are, for me, a panacea for my restless Geminian nerves. Blogging gives me peace in the chaos called Life, and art helps me distract my wandering mind. An obsession with healthy eating and fitness led me to create this health and wellness blog. Apart from health posts you will also find book reviews, my art work and experiments with words here, at Metanoia. My writing companions--my pets--offer me precious insights into Life and are a constant source of inspiration to me! So, do get comfy, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy your visit. Your presence here means a lot to me, you know?

30 thoughts on “K – Keep an eye out for every trifle. #AtoZ”

  3. At first I thought this was the dessert trifle 😛

    You said it, Shilpa! We overlook so many things thinking that they have little value, but in the end these are things that matter the most. Most of the time at least.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. I am so glad I came across this blog post. I have this tendency to commit mistakes while I post something because I’m in such a hurry to type. I totally agree with you about using rich words too. I discovered the Preview button quite late as well. Taking 5 minutes to sift through ones post before publishing makes he’ll of a difference. Fantastic post!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. We all do that. But it’s only after a while that we realise how focusing on the little things goes a long way!
      I am happy you could relate to this post.

      Thank you for visiting!

      Like

  10. Thanks for this quick checklist. These are all very simple points yet make all the difference between a post and great post.
    When I was in college, I asked a senior, why is vocabulary so important. Why do we need to use such fancy words when half our audience wont even understand.
    He gave me reply that satisfied me for then. He said that people at the top where you wish to reach know it all.
    But years later, now I feel that while knowing it all is important, keeping things simple is important too. Thus great content with simple language became my pursuit

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Very true, MT! I have always remembered one thing while blogging – “Keep it simple, silly!” It’s a line from a song, or something, I think, but it makes a lot of sense.

      Using fancy words means putting off our readers. It makes our posts seem ‘put-together’ to impress and not to enjoy.

      Like

  13. I do eat up the artocles and sometimes words, and make typos too. A lot of my review happens after I publish the post 🙈 excellent points on comma and semi colon, and the uses of cliches too. I still get confused where to use a semi colon 😀

    Liked by 1 person

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.