Pesky Punctuation
and the awesomeness of orthography
How important is it for your ReAdErs to GET what you’re
Let’s try that again …
How important is it for your readers to get what you’re saying … clearly … succinctly … easily … straight away?
When it doesn’t happen, it’s often not so much our words that get in the way … it’s more our use of punctuation and orthography. Orthography, in case you’re wondering, includes things like typeface, font style, layout on the page or screen, use of capital letters, paragraph, line, word, and letter spacing, handwriting neatness, etc.
It’s one of the reasons I prefer the acronym SPOG (Spelling, Punctuation, Orthography, Grammar) when using verbal shorthand to refer to key writing skills rather than SPAG (Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar). Orthography is important!
Punctuation can be used creatively. So can orthography. This month’s writing competition invites you to take inspiration from Carol Michelon’s illustration for the section on these topics in Master the Art and Craft of Writing and use punctuation and orthography creatively in an original piece of writing.
Submit an entry and you could be the lucky winner of a $10 Amazon gift voucher. The first fifty entrants will receive a free copy of my forthcoming book, Master the Art and Craft of Writing, and every entrant will receive a free sampler of writing exercises. What do you have to lose?
And as this is both a contest and an opportunity to learn, let’s look at some creative examples:
You can use capital letters creatively to add emphasis with ‘all caps’:
The falcon spread its wings gracefully, lifted its head, bent its legs, and WHOOSH!
Have you ever seen a full stop or period used in the middle of a word? It just isn’t done, is it? Well, what if there were a good reason for it - like if someone was spelling out a word for emphasis?
“I do NOT … N.O.T. NOT … not NOW … not EVER want to see a homophone mistake from you again!”
And sometimes less is soooo much more …
Your task is to write a short piece (100 words maximum) inspired by the illustration above by the talented illustrator, Carol Michelon, in which you explore punctuation and orthography creatively.
Full rules here.
Deadline: Midnight on Wednesday 25th July 2022 BST
Upload your submissions here and share them on social media with the hashtags #unknownstoryteller #carolmichelon #leonconrad #artandcraftofwriting
This Course and Competition is part of The Unknown Storyteller project, focusing on the art and craft of how to tell a story, Master the Art and Craft of Writing is the counterpart to Story and Structure: A complete guide. The book explains how to structure the story you want to tell in the first place and will help you shape great stories to tell. It’s due out later this year, in the second half of 2022.
Stay connected! 🔗
Substack: leonconrad.substack.com
Medium: Leon Conrad
Twitter: @TradTutor
Facebook: @WhyDoesStoryStory
Instagram: traditionaltutor
Website: leonconrad.com