Saturday, March 13, 2010

Web editor


Okay, so I totally stole that title from the piece itself. But it's too perfect not to use.

This article in Slate called Hey, Charlotte, about that thing you wrote last night... by Dan McCoy is a riot. Wilbur gives Charlotte a bit of helpful advice about her writing.

It might sound familiar to anyone who's gotten writing advice:

"It's not as if I don't appreciate your efforts on my behalf. This must have taken all night, and it certainly looks beautiful up there, bedecked in morning dew and glistening. And—let's make this clear—I'm no writer... So, please, don't take this the wrong way, but I have a few notes."

But my favorite part was:

"As a sentence fragment, it lacks a certain clarity. What if someone took your unattached clause and hitched it to the word have, as in the sentence, "Have some pig"?"