Today, I’m thinking of all those travelers in my life who have gone on ahead.

When a family member or close friend dies, books can give comfort and understanding, guiding a reader through grief’s landscape. Over the years, and through many losses, I’ve found myself returning to the same set of books.

For children:

Water Bugs and Dragonflies by Doris Stickney and The Fall of Freddie the Leaf by Leo Buscaglia – I originally bought these two books for my daughter when she was four, and we read them together when a close family friend died. Although some readers have slammed The Fall of Freddie the Leaf as too sentimental, my daughter loved the simple story and still rereads it when she’s grieving. My personal favorite though is the Stickney book, a fable about water bugs and what happens when one of them climbs up a lily stalk and vanishes from sight. How do the other bugs make sense of what’s happened?

For adults:

The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights, both by Joan Didion – Thoughtful, emotional reflections on coping with the loss of first her husband and then her daughter.

How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapters by Sherwin B. Nuland – This classic is blunt, detailed, and  unsentimental, but surprisingly moving.

The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade by Thomas Lynch – Essays that chronicle small-town life as told by an undertaker who is also a poet.

New discoveries:

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande – Recommended by my cousin, this book makes readers think hard on what we want for ourselves and our loved ones at life's end.

Gratitude by Oliver Sacks – Four essays written by this brilliant man in his final months.

Any books to add to this list? Please share them in the comments.

Young writers learn to use quotation marks as early as their first book report, and those handy marks appear in every type of writing from term papers and blog posts to business reports and novels. Even though quotation marks are ubiquitous, often in my editing I see confusion about when to use them and how to punctuate around them.

Quotation marks are commonly used in five situations:

While knowing when to use quotation marks is fairly straightforward, sometimes the mechanics around them can be tricky. Always capitalize the beginning of a direct quotation. Example: “Look at my new coat.”

If the direct quotation is only a sentence fragment, then no capital letter is needed. Example: A reviewer referred to zombie tropes as “mostly clichéd and played out.” 

When an attribution separates a direct quotation, then the second part begins with a lowercase letter. Example: “Promise me,” she said, “you won’t go with them.”

For punctuation, a comma generally concludes direct quotations with an attribution unless the quoted statement ends with a question mark or exclamation point.
Examples: “They are all going to the movie,” she said. 
“Where did they go?” she asked. Note that the attribution is still lower case. I’ve seen it capped (“She” in this case), which is incorrect and just looks odd.

If there is no attribution after a direct quotation, then a period concludes the sentence (unless the quoted statement ends with a question mark or exclamation point). Examples: Sherry said, “I don’t agree with you.” 
Sherry yelled, “I don’t agree with you!”

Generally, periods and commas go inside the quotation marks. Other punctuation marks go outside of the quotation marks unless they are part of the quoted passage.
Example:  Did I really hear her claim that she still has money “as long as there are still checks in the checkbook”?

If there is a quoted statement within a larger direct quotation, then use single quotation marks to set it off within the double quotation marks. Example: “She said, and I quote, ‘I don’t care if you come or not.’” Make sure that the single quotation marks are pointing the correct way.

Keeping these rules in mind for quotation marks will improve your writing, and you can quote me on that.

I’ve written before about exploring graphic novels and comic books for girls. My daughter and I had been reading comic books with strong female protagonists but found ourselves in a rut—tired even of powerful princesses, subversive superheroines, and snarky Slayers. My daughter just wanted to read about a girl more like her. Roller Girl, by Victoria Jamieson, fit the bill.

This graphic novel, winner of the Newbery Honor Award, is set in Portland. The summer after fifth grade, 12-year-old Astrid signs up for a junior roller bowl derby camp. She assumes her best friend Nicole will too, but Nicole wants to attend ballet camp instead. The two drift apart, and Astrid is on her own, negotiating old and new friendships and the physical challenges of roller derby’s strange new world.

Roller Girl introduces the reader to colorful characters and a gritty, unfamiliar milieu. I knew nothing about roller derby before reading this novel, but the many concrete details ring true. The reader dives into training along with Astrid and finds out how physically demanding this sport is. You feel her exhaustion in your bones in a way that you don’t when reading about a superhero, which makes Astrid’s journey that much more satisfying. Jamieson adds spot-on dialogue and believable relationships, making this book a winner for girls and women of all ages.

No, “The Proximity Rule” isn’t an episode title from The Big Bang Theory. It’s a rule of grammar related to subject-verb agreement.

First, let’s review the basics of making compound subjects agree with verbs. When two or more subjects are joined by “and,” then they are almost always a plural subject and so take a plural verb.

Example: My cat and dog greet me at the door when I come home.

The exception is when the compound subject is a single unit, such as “research and development,” which would then take a singular verb.

When two or more singular subjects are joined by “or” or “nor,” then they take a singular verb. If the subjects are plural, then they take a plural verb.

Examples: Either Joe or Leah goes shopping for their mom.
                  Neither potato chips nor hot dogs are healthy foods.

The Proximity Rule comes into play when one of the subjects is singular and one is plural. Look at the subject nearest the verb to determine if the verb should be singular or plural.

Example: Either her brother or her sisters were responsible for leaving the window open.

Since “sisters” is the closest subject to the verb and the word is plural, the plural verb “were” is correct. If the singular “brother” was closest to the verb, then “was” is correct, and the sentence would read: “Either her sisters or her brother was responsible for leaving the window open.”

Remember The Proximity Rule to make compound subjects joined by “or/nor” agree with their verbs.

A client recently asked me about how to punctuate a sentence in her manuscript. Should the sentence read “My sister, Claire, planned the family reunion,” or “My sister Claire planned the family reunion”? Which was correct?

My answer was: “It depends.” To her credit, she didn’t throw her manuscript at me. How you punctuate the sentence above depends on which style guide you use and the meaning of the sentence.

Let’s start with the basics. The word “Claire” in the example above is an appositive. An appositive is a noun or pronoun that explains, renames, or identifies another noun or pronoun in the sentence. Here’s an example: The piano, a spinet, was hard to move. “Spinet” is an appositive that further defines “piano.”

An appositive can be a word, phrase, or clause. Here’s an example of an appositive phrase: The piano, a spinet that a friend was selling, was hard to move. While appositives can appear at the beginning, middle, or end of the sentence, they most often come after the nouns they explain, rename, or identify.

Examples:
Young women, their arms draped with leis, met the arriving tourists. (after the noun “women”)
Their arms draped with leis, young women met the arriving tourists. (beginning of the sentence)
Arriving at the airport, we saw the young women, their arms draped with leis. (end of the sentence)

Now comes the tougher part: how to properly punctuate an appositive. One rule, followed by many style guides and publications, says to use commas to separate appositives from the nouns they modify UNLESS the information in the appositive is necessary to understand the sentence. In this sentence, “the piano, a spinet, was hard to move,” the sentence would still make sense if you deleted the words “a spinet,” so the appositive is set off with commas.

However, if the appositive is necessary in order to understand the sentence, then you don’t need commas. In grammar guides, these words, phrases, or clauses that supply necessary information for sentence meaning may be called “restrictive appositives” or “restrictive clauses.”

Here’s an example: In high school, he developed an app that made him rich. If you remove “that made him rich,” the sentence doesn’t make as much sense. The appositive is necessary for the sentence’s meaning. One way to remember this rule is: Necessary information = no commas. Additional information = add commas.

Examples:
The City of Falls Church, which is known for its fine public school system, is only 2.2 square miles. (additional information, add commas)
Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night is a comedy. (necessary information, no commas)

Let’s return to my client’s example: My sister Claire planned the family reunion. Does the sentence need commas? It depends. (Stay with me here.) Some style guides, such as the Chicago Manual of Style apply the rule above and say it depends upon whether the appositive is necessary information. If there is more than one sister, then the word “Claire” is necessary because it defines which sister planned the reunion. Necessary information means no commas. On the other hand, if there’s only one sister, then you can remove her name, and the sentence still makes sense. Additional information means adding commas.

However, some publications make an exception to this rule. They don’t bother with commas if the appositive is just a name, whether the information is necessary for meaning or not.

Examples:
My wife Joan is traveling for work this week.
She highly recommends her hairdresser Carlos.
His friend Paul will stop by today.

After considering all this, I told my client that her sentence about Claire didn’t need commas. That’s my position, and I’m sticking to it—no matter who throws what at me. 

A client asked me to edit a PowerPoint presentation and check the use of than vs. then. Sure enough, than had been used when then was the correct choice. When do you use which word?

Let’s look at the easier one first. The word than is used after a comparison, so it often accompanies comparatives like taller, better, and smarter (to name just a few) and words such as more, less, and fewer.

Examples:
Tim is taller than Tom.
Sunset is later this month than last month.
Cassie has fewer paperbacks than her sister has. 

Then is used when referring to time or a sequence of events.

Examples:
We’ll see you then.
She walked to the corner and then crossed the street.
Come to the diner, then we can order breakfast.

Combined with the word if, then can also mean in that case, or as a consequence.

Example: If the car is in the shop, then I won’t be driving to work.

Remember, use than in comparisons and then for everything else. Knowing the difference between than and then means you’ll never find yourself in this situation, from Season 1 of The Wire.

In an episode from the recent remake of The X-Files, one character’s dialogue tried to tie together two disparate events into one unified theme with a heavy-handedness that dragged me right out of the story. I wasn’t alone in my reaction. A reviewer described that same dialogue as having “all the convoluted desperation of a three a.m. term paper thesis.” On-the-nose dialogue sticks out.

The expression comes from hitting something “on the nose,” or getting it exactly right. When referring to dialogue, it generally means that a character says exactly what they’re thinking. My definition of on-the-nose dialogue is broader and includes when characters say exactly what the writer needs them to say for the sake of an audience. The problem with on-the-nose dialogue is threefold: it’s unbelievable, boring, and pulls the audience out of your story.

Let’s look at some types of on-the-nose dialogue and how to avoid them.

The first type is when characters say exactly what’s on their minds. Imagine an older married couple staring at the negative result on a home pregnancy test, and the husband asks the wife, “How do you feel?” And she replies, “Well, I guess I’m mostly relieved, but it’s kind of bittersweet too because while our lives won’t be completely upended, I’m a little sad not to have another baby since our children are all grown up.” Do real people talk like that? Was her speech interesting? Did it make you engage at all as a reader? Most of the time, people don’t say exactly what they mean. Look for the subtext, or the indirect meaning, in a scene. Can characters express themselves by what they don’t say or by something they do instead? Suggesting by showing rather than telling is more believable and makes the audience invest in figuring out the characters.

Another type of on-the-nose dialogue results from the dreaded data dump, or exposition that the audience needs. Too often, writers have characters tell each other things they already know just for the sake of the audience. For example, two crime scene technicians already know how luminol works; it’s unbelievable that one would explain to the other the science behind it. And at Thanksgiving dinner, the relatives already know that Uncle Bill is a serial cheater who always marries the other woman; no one would likely announce to the others that he’s on his third, fourth, or fifth wife. A character might, however, crack a joke based on that unsaid, shared knowledge. To avoid a data dump of expository dialogue, find another source for the information.

On-the-nose dialogue also can result when the writer uses a character to restate the story’s theme. The fix? Just don’t. Don’t do it. If you’ve crafted a sound story with believable characters, your audience already gets your theme; you don’t need dialogue to hammer it home. Instead, if you want to echo the theme, look for an image, action, sound, or music that can do the same thing. You’re showing rather than telling, and since it’s more subtle, the audience will work harder and delight in their discovery.

What if you’re stuck and don’t know how else to get the needed information down on the page? That’s what first drafts are for. It’s okay to write on-the-nose dialogue at first to make sure the scene is complete. Just make sure to go back with your editor’s red pen and revise, looking for places to use subtext, other sources for exposition, and different ways to make your theme resonate.

Exposition is a literary device that introduces background information to the audience about events, settings, and characters. Done poorly, exposition dumps data, boring an audience senseless.

Imagine that I have a protagonist who’s an expert sculptor, and it’s essential for character development and the plot for the audience to understand the tools and materials she works with and the precision involved. I could have the protagonist (or the narrator) deliver an entire treatise on sculpting, thereby letting the momentum in my story slam to a dead stop.

So how do I convey that crucial exposition without the dreaded data dump? The easiest solution is to show the audience, not tell them. So let’s say the protagonist isn’t a sculptor but has a powerful motive to find out more, perhaps to assess the value of a sculpture he’s stumbled across. The audience learns the details as the protagonist does. This technique works only if it’s believable that the protagonist doesn’t already know the information.

However, in my example, the protagonist is already an expert. It isn’t believable that she wouldn’t know what goes into creating a sculpture. How do I present that information in an entertaining, believable fashion? I have a couple of options:

These options can help you to dodge the data dump and achieve artful exposition.

How I wish I’d had this book to read when I was growing up! Although Robert Munsch’s book The Paper Bag Princess was published in 1980, I didn’t discover it until 2003. When my daughter was born, my thesis advisor gave her The Paper Bag Princess as a gift. The book had become a tradition for my advisor, her go-to gift for baby showers and birthdays. Once I read it, I was a lifelong fan, and I've shared it with my daughter countless times over the years. Buying the book for baby showers and birthdays became a tradition for me as well.

The story is straightforward. Princess Elizabeth has a bad day. A dragon destroys her castle, burns all her clothes, and kidnaps her fiancé, Prince Ronald. What’s a girl to do? This strong, resourceful princess dons a paper bag, tracks down the dragon, outsmarts him, and rescues Prince Ronald. Who then disses her appearance because it doesn’t meet his standards of how a princess should look. What happens next will have little girls (and women of all ages) cheering.

According to Munsch, his wife was responsible for this book. In the 1970s, they both worked at a daycare center, where he told the children stories about princesses and dragons. Princes always came to the rescue. Exasperated one day, his wife asked, “Why can’t the princess save the prince?” And Elizabeth, the Paper Bag Princess, was born.

Although strong female protagonists for little girls are not quite so rare anymore—even Disney has wised up in recent years with Brave and Frozen—this hardy pioneer helped to show the way. Brava, Princess Elizabeth! Long may you reign.