Author Archives: Rob Bignell

“I admire anybody who has the guts to write anything at all.” – E. B. White “Let the world burn through you. Throw the prism light, white hot, on paper.” – Ray Bradbury “Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled toContinue reading “5 Great Quotations about Aspiring Authors”

Sometimes there just isn’t a rule for a grammar dilemma. Such is the case with driver side vs. driver’s side. Either form is quite common and acceptable in writing. Such is the case with other similar constructions, such as dog collar vs. dog’s collar and passenger side vs. passenger’s side. No doubt the reason driver’s side and passenger’s side sound like they may be wrong is because the word followingContinue reading “No Wrong Turn: Driver Side vs. Driver’s Side”

Science fiction stories typically arise from a novum, a scientifically plausible concept that is a “reality” in the tale. The novum might be an mechanical device like robot servants, artificial intelligence, or faster-than-light spacecraft; it also can be a hypothetical idea such as “The Earth is a scientific experiment run by aliens to determine the meaning ofContinue reading “Five Writing Prompts for Science Fiction”

Anytime you write an academic paper or a nonfiction book, you likely will need to quote your sources, especially when they make their point in a powerful, evocative way. Should the quote be lengthy, you may need to typographically set it apart as a block quotation so that it is easy to read. A block quotation is aContinue reading “How to Use Block Quotations in APA Style”

“A simple act of putting on clothes is almost impossible for me to describe without many false starts.” – Eudora Welty “First, cut out all the wisdom, then cut out all the adjectives.” – Somerset Maugham “One tends to write beyond what’s needed.” – James Schuyler “Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.”Continue reading “5 Great Quotations about Revising”

Sometimes when typing or formatting a manuscript in Microsoft Word, to indicate a change of scenes, you might center a group of three to five asterisks between paragraphs. Then you hit return.  And the darndest thing happens: The asterisks turn to a whole line of them, and no matter what you do – highlight and delete them,Continue reading “Getting Rid of a Line of Dots that Won’t Go Away”

Adverse and averse often are confused because both imply something negative while sounding very similar. But as with the way these words are spelled, so there also is a subtle difference in their meanings. Adverse means unfavorable or harmful, as in Mary suffered an adverse reaction to the medication. Averse means strongly dislikes or opposes, as in A lifelong Republican, SamContinue reading “A Positive Answer: Adverse vs. Averse”

Science fiction stories typically arise from a novum, a scientifically plausible concept that is a “reality” in the tale. The novum might be an mechanical device like robot servants, artificial intelligence, or faster-than-light spacecraft; it also can be a hypothetical idea such as “The Earth is a scientific experiment run by aliens to determine the meaning ofContinue reading “5 Science Fiction Prompts, Storystarters”

• Understand instructions before writing paper• Types of academic papers you could write• How to properly punctuate ‘et. al’• Examples of how to use e.g. vs. i.e. • How to use page numbers in APA Style Citations ______________ My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both newContinue reading “5 Must-Know Rules for Writing Academic Papers”

“Young or old, good or bad, I don’t think anything dies as slow and as hard as a writer.” – Charles Bukowski “Writing is hard work and bad for the health.” – E. B. White “Writers live twice.” – Natalie Goldberg “Writing is a dreadful labor, yet not so dreadful as idleness.” – Thomas Carlyle “TheContinue reading “5 Great Quotations about the Writing Life”