Grammar and writing tips Archives

Writing a Memoir with Life Lessons to Help Others?

February 6, 2026February 6, 2026 by Rosanne Ullman

Older woman showing book to younger woman

Choose How to Structure Those Advice Components.

Many memoir authors include life lessons to help others who face challenges similar to their own. From illness and injury to abuse, learning issues and difficult relationships, our hurdles are never ours alone. Often, memoir authors believe that other people can benefit from reading how to manage or overcome hardship from someone who’s been through it.

But how do you structure a memoir that has both narrative and lessons? As always with memoir, there’s no single way to craft this, but there are some obvious options.

Deftly throughout the book

Readers are smart and will pick up on the lessons just from your narrative. Even if you want to mention resources or offer advice more obviously, you can weave that information throughout the book. Really, most memoirs have lessons inherent in the story. People get that.

At the end

One way to make it easy on yourself is to save the direct advice for one or more final chapters. By then readers know you, understand that you’ve overcome the same challenges they now face, and may be looking to you as a type of mentor. This structure gives readers the option to read these life lessons or not bother. You may not like that, but you can’t force lessons on someone anyway.

At the beginning

For some authors, the whole point is helping the next person avoid or deal with unwelcome developments in life. If you’re thinking of your book as more “how to fix yourself” than as a traditional memoir, it makes sense to start out by framing the issue you’re addressing. You can use the second person “you” and liberally sprinkle in “command verbs” so that it reads something like: “Make sure you follow your doctor’s orders,” or “Know that you’re strong enough to leave someone.” Then you can pivot to your personal story and come back to the advice later in the book.

Make each chapter a specific lesson

Perhaps your healing/recovery/triumph took place over a lot of steps. If you have enough, you can craft each of those parts as its own chapter with its own lessons. The title of each chapter will reflect that. Then you still have the choice of either weaving the advice into the narrative or separating it from the story.

At the beginning or end of each chapter

I just read a very good memoir, Heart of a Stranger by Angela Buchdahl. The author tacks onto each chapter a little aside that is related to the chapter’s topic. Buchdahl is a rabbi, and these sections are kind of mini-sermons. Either she quotes scripture, discusses the chapter’s topic in a broader context, or in some other way passes along the wisdom she’s gained in her life. It did work in this book. As with saving all of your advice for a final chapter, putting it at the beginning or end of every chapter signals to the reader that this is a part they can just skip. And, again, you may not like that, but readers who are there for the story and not the lecture will thank you.

Use essays rather than narrative

Instead of writing your story out with all the tools of fiction writing, you can write a series of essays. Taken as a whole, the essays may tell enough about your life to be considered a memoir. But chapter by chapter, you’re writing exactly what you want readers to take away from your book.

Write two books

If your traditionally written memoir becomes popular and you sell a lot of copies, you will become a sought-after author. At that point, you need a next book! You could fashion that second book as more of a how-to and round it out by reviewing the latest research on the challenge you overcame.

Ask a lot of people to read your book. No matter how you’ve structured it, if they feel that the advice comes across in too heavy-handed a manner, believe them. But if you do have distinct lessons to teach, don’t shy away from that. Add a layer of subtlety and a dash of humility, and readers may very well accept and appreciate your cautionary tale.

Possessive with the Gerund

December 4, 2025December 3, 2025 by Rosanne Ullman

Hang in there to learn this last grammar point

No one knows this structure.

You may not remember learning this rule about using the possessive with a gerund, but I assure you it was in an English grammar book you had at some point. It goes like this: some words ending in “ing” should be introduced with a possessive rather than an object pronoun. That’s the case when the “ing” word is a gerund, which is a noun.

To make this easy for you to understand, here are sentences that naturally seem to follow this construction correctly:

Their whispering disturbed everyone who was trying to watch the movie.
You probably don’t say, “Them whispering disturbed…..”

They took my arriving early as a sign of eager participation, which was not the case.
Again, it doesn’t sound right to say, “They took me arriving early….”

My constant apologizing only made them angrier.
Would you say, “Me constant apologizing….?” Unlikely.

His dancing was fun to watch.
Was “him dancing” fun to watch? We tend to say/write this correctly.

I think these examples sound correct because a word like “dancing” or “singing” is recognizable as a noun. But in many cases, using the possessive is not as intuitive, even though it is still correct:

He didn’t appreciate my commenting on his new facial hair.
vs. the error of:
He didn’t appreciate me commenting on his new facial hair.

I hope you don’t mind my interrupting you.
vs. the error of:
I hope you don’t mind me interrupting you.

To prevent my mom’s having to drive home late, I insisted she stay overnight.
vs. the error of:
To prevent my mom having to drive home late, I insisted she stay overnight.

You may have chosen the second choice in each example, but technically that would be incorrect. All three should take the possessive. So your ear is often an unreliable ally in this decision.

Sometimes It’s Not a Gerund

However, sometimes an “ing” word is not a gerund; it can be a participle. When it’s a participle, which is a verb form rather than a noun, you shouldn’t use the possessive:

I saw them still waiting for the bus after I’d circled the block twice.

I get annoyed at people claiming to be someone they’re not.

On the first example, your ear won’t let you write, “I saw their still waiting for the bus….” In that case, you can trust yourself to recognize that “waiting” is a participle.

On that second example, you could make an argument either way. Could “claiming” be a gerund and then it would be “people’s claiming”? I suppose so. But even highly educated readers may stop and have to look at that sentence if it has the possessive, and when you write a book, you don’t want to stop the reading fluidity.

Then there are sentences that require the possessive to be correct, but I’ll opt for making an error instead. Examples:

My basketball team’s winning the competition gave us all confidence as we prepared for the next challenge.
vs.
My basketball team winning the competition gave us all confidence as we prepared for the next challenge.

In some sentences, it’s important to figure out whether the “ing” word is a gerund or a participle, because using the possessive will change the meaning:

I wanted more info on the man juggling three jobs.
vs.
I wanted more info on the man’s juggling three jobs.

Did I want more info on the man, as the first sentence implies, or did I want more info on how to juggle three jobs?

Get It Write has a good explanation of this. In general, though, I am not judgy about it. If you want to drop that possessive, in most cases I’m okay with that decision. But as with so many grammar rules, I usually reword a questionable sentence. I would never write a sentence like the above “basketball” example. I’d say: Winning the competition gave everyone on my basketball team confidence as we prepared for the next challenge.

There are so many ways to convey the same thought that I try not to get trapped into these gritty choices.

One More Controversial Grammar Point Explained

November 17, 2025 by Rosanne Ullman

Can you end a sentence with a preposition?

Continuing from my last post, here’s another controversial grammar point.

Ending with a Preposition

Grammar-type people love to haggle over this one, and the meme above shows one of the several versions of a quote widely, but probably erroneously, attributed to Winston Churchill. No matter who really said it, the quote is perfect for making the point that in some cases you tie yourself in knots trying to avoid ending a phrase or sentence with a preposition.

The easy-to-understand sentence, “That’s something I will not put up with,” ends with the preposition “with,” and according to the rule, must be addressed in some other way. That leads you to, “That’s something with which I will not put up,” which still ends with a preposition. So you have to take one more step to reach the unwieldy, “That’s something up with which I will not put.”

As with everything in English, you can reword a thought to avoid the problem. For example, you can say, “I won’t put up with that.” Problem solved. But do you have to do that every time?

I think in some cases you should and in some it’s not necessary. In a memoir, you probably will include a lot of dialogue. Make your dialogue sound natural. A lot of grammar rules go out the window when you’re quoting people in the way they truly talk.

Apart from dialogue, let’s look at sentences that you might end with a preposition but don’t really have to. Before we start, consider that sentence you just read. It ends in “to.” Rewording that is a bit of a nightmare. No matter how many “which” devices you use, you can’t just stick the “to” somewhere else; it doesn’t work to say, “Let’s look at sentences that you might end with a preposition but to which you really don’t have” or “….a preposition but have to which you really don’t.” To avoid ending with a preposition, you would have to totally rework it. I’d say, “Let’s look at sentences that you might end with a preposition, but you can choose not to do that.”

Here are examples of sentences that you might end with a preposition but, instead, you can reposition the preposition:

I didn’t know which category I should place that into.
vs.
I didn’t know into which category I should place that.
I didn’t know which half I should take my slice from.
vs.
I didn’t know from which half I should take my slice.
He was head of the committee I eventually took charge of.
vs.
He was head of the committee of which I eventually took charge.

In all of those sentences, I would use the “which” device and avoid ending with a preposition.

I’d choose differently for the next sentences. Even though it’s not difficult to avoid ending with a preposition, I don’t think that improves the sentence. Sometimes you improve the grammar at too high a price to the language or the communication:

Her own situation was what she wanted to talk about.
vs.
Her own situation was about what she wanted to talk.
I know I wasn’t exactly the kind of person they were hoping for.
vs.
I know I wasn’t exactly the kind of person for whom they were hoping.

I would just use the first option in those sentences. In some cases, you’re dealing with an idiom of some sort. Take this:

I didn’t know where that comment came from.
vs.
I didn’t know from where that comment came.

In that sentence, too, the first option sounds more natural.

Let’s try “with” as in the meme quote:

They told me to bring a “plus one,” but I don’t have anyone to go with.

Sure, you could say, “…but I don’t have anyone to bring.” That’s what I would do, at least in writing. But if you’re writing a memoir from the heart, and you want to write in a natural way that ends some phrases and sentences with a preposition, I certainly will not stop you.

This whole line of thought applies when you’re talking about a clause rather than a full sentence. If you say, “I didn’t know which half I should take my slice from, so I let the other person go first,” you still have to decide where “from” goes. It’s exactly the same as if it ended the sentence.

Note to anyone who stuck with me through this long lesson: I have one more coming, and then we’ll be done with grammar for a while.

Two Controversial Grammar Points Explained

October 30, 2025 by Rosanne Ullman

Meme demonstrating use of the Oxford comma

Breaking Some Rules You Learned in School Can Enhance Your Writing.

You might think of grammar as black and white—correct grammar and incorrect grammar and nothing in between. But some grammatical structures fall into a gray area. Maybe the thinking on them has changed over time, or there might be examples of great writing taking opposite choices. So let’s explore some tricky grammar. Here are the first two controversial grammar points, and I’ll follow up with more in the coming weeks.

Serial Comma

People keep wanting to die on this hill, typically in favor of the serial, also called the “Oxford,” comma, but some stalwarts against the damn thing stake their claim to higher ground as well. The serial comma is the comma before and when you’re naming three or more items.

Outside of the United States, the serial comma has generally been accepted as proper. But Americans, especially American journalists, have been more likely to contend that the serial comma is, at the very least, unnecessary. In “my day,” standard stylebooks advised dropping the comma, and journalism schools taught that you’re always trying to save space, even the space of a tiny punctuation mark.

But then the Internet came along, with its eclectic and global mix, and Americans saw that they were in the minority not only in the world but also among academics, who tended to go with the comma. The meme above depicting JFK, Stalin and strippers became the rallying image against the serial comma. The idea is that without the comma, JFK and Stalin become identified as the two strippers. With the comma, you’ve invited two people and an indefinite number of strippers:

We invited the strippers, JFK and Stalin.
vs.
We invited the strippers, JFK, and Stalin.

What never went viral is a meme showing how inserting the comma can create an ambiguous meaning. In the following example, JFK could be your uncle, whereas without the comma it’s clear that you’ve invited three people:

We invited my uncle, JFK, and Stalin.
vs.
We invited my uncle, JFK and Stalin.

For many years after getting my master’s degree in journalism in the U.S., I held fast to omitting the serial comma as I was taught. But when times change, I change. Today, even here in my country the serial comma has become relatively standard, and the AP Stylebook no longer bans the comma and, in fact, recommends using it in a long, complicated series. I still drop it in a short and simple series:

On my birthday, I received three cards, some makeup and a necklace.

But in anything longer or more complex, I usually throw in a comma before the and.

Sentence Fragments and Run-ons

A proper sentence requires a subject and a verb. Sometimes it’s an implied subject, as in a command. “Go away!” is a sentence with you as the implied subject.

But skilled writers do not always have to be proper in their writing. Run-on sentences and sentence fragments used to indicate a lack of sophistication. Today, they can signal just the opposite. When you break rules with knowledge and purpose, you’re molding the language to fit your writer’s voice. That’s a good strategy for developing your style. With that approach, you can justify inserting a period after a phrase that has no subject and, therefore, is not really a sentence. Or you can use the once reviled comma splice instead of a period or semicolon to create what technically is a run-on sentence.

Look at these examples of sentence fragments (in bold). I think they’re just fine within the context of their paragraphs:

My sister stared at me but said nothing. Nothing at all. She didn’t even blink.

I looked away and thought of all the things I could do. Accept the ring. Give him reasons for not accepting the ring. Tell him I still loved him. Tell him why I hated him. At least give him a hand so he could get up off his knee. Instead I walked away, slowly at first and then more quickly, not once looking back.

Let’s twist that second example and turn it into a run-on, comma-spliced sentence:

I looked away and thought of all the things I could do. I could accept the ring, tell him I still loved him, head into some imagined and unlikely sunset with him. Or I could decline his proposal, tell him why I hated him, push him to watch him fall completely to the ground. I could at least extend a hand, help him get up off his knee. But all I did was walk away, slowly at first and then more quickly, not once looking back.

I routinely use both devices—the fragment and the run-on. Fragments are the way we speak; they’re useful for connecting with the reader. With run-ons, I like the cadence of omitting the and or the or. I like the way you say it in your head when it’s a complete thought without being a proper sentence.

Come Back for More Torture

Next time, I’ll tackle ending a sentence with a preposition and using the possessive with gerunds. You don’t have to know anything about it ahead of time to understand—you’ll see!

How Much to Explain in Your Memoir

July 22, 2025 by Rosanne Ullman

It’s not easy to figure out where readers need background info.

Knowing how much to explain in your memoir is one of the trickiest aspects of writing it. You may be humming along in a chapter about working at your first job when you hit a roadblock simply because you don’t know whether readers will need background information to fully set the scene.

The level of detail involves three areas: specifics about you personally; information that enriches the reader’s knowledge about a broad topic such as a period in history, a location or a famous person; and a quick reference to a phrase or pop culture tidbit that someone might google if you don’t supply it—or the opposite and get kind of insulted if you do.

Let’s take them one by one, using that example of the chapter about your first job, teaching high school history. It’s important to your story because you moved to the city to take that job, and the school is where you met your spouse, who also was teaching there. You want to talk about the courtship, but the job wasn’t very significant because after two years you moved on to a different line of work.

Personal Details

If your whole point is to include this job because it’s where you met your spouse and the city is where you decided to live, you may feel that you’re going down a rabbit hole to explain why you took the job to begin with. And is there any use in comparing your own high school with this one? Talking about the memories it brought back? Should you bother saying that the principal reminded you of your uncle because of some quirk they had in common? And if you wouldn’t otherwise mention your uncle, do you have to explain a little about him?

These decisions are a good example of the difference between a first draft and a final manuscript. Throw it all in there at the beginning. Then in subsequent drafts, surrounded by all the other chapters in your book, this first job will feel either substantial and worthy or distracting and off-topic—content a reader might just skim.

This also is an example of what “they” mean when they tell you to kill your darlings. You may get a lot of satisfaction from reminiscing about this time in your life, but if it doesn’t serve the plot or delight the reader, cut it out. You may find your memories of your uncle to be amusing, even to a stranger, but does it have anything to do with your theme? There’s no right or wrong here, but don’t waste readers’ time or risk boring them.

Encyclopedia-level Information

Then there’s the information that isn’t really about you or your life. With the high school as the setting for dating your future spouse, what should you say about the school itself? You might describe walking through the halls just as you remember. Readers have been to high school and will be able to picture it without any description, so I wouldn’t go overboard. But when you walked into your future spouse’s classroom, what was on the wall? Or in your own classroom, was there a map? A screen of any sort? It’s helpful to supply some of that detail

You spent only two years in teaching. Should you educate the reader on the history of the teaching profession and what it means to people? No. What if your whole career was in teaching? Still no, not unless your book’s theme is you as a teacher.

But you moved to the city in which the school was located, and that became your permanent home. Talking about the city, from its geography and history to the climate, business community and people, could be germane to your topic.

Common Knowledge—or Not

There was a time when we all read newspapers and watched the same three television channels. Common knowledge was universally common knowledge. With that no longer true, it’s hard to know what references in history or pop culture will go over readers’ heads. How much explanation do you owe your readers? When does it become condescending?

I was reading a book review in The New York Times that mentioned Andy Warhol and then said the book’s prose style was “unlikely to be anyone’s cup of soup.” To smile at that, you have to be familiar with Andy Warhol’s painting, “Campbell’s Soup Cans,” you have to know the phrase, “Not my cup of tea,” and you have to pick up on the way the writer conflated the two. You can’t get away with explaining a joke, so the reviewer here did not offer the reader any help. You either got it or you didn’t. Readers of NYT’s Sunday book review section probably need no backup on this one, but it’s still an assumption on the reviewer’s part to include the reference at all. For readers who get it, though, it’s fun.

Conversely, I just finished the audiobook memoir All About Me! by Mel Brooks, and when he talks about being served Limoncello in a restaurant, he explains what Limoncello is—a lemony liqueur—because when he drank it someone had to identify it for him. He doesn’t mention that Limoncello is generally served between courses to clear the palate, which is the only important thing about Limoncello. So I’m not sure his explanation served any purpose at all. Since Brooks was 95 when he wrote his memoir, I’m not going to pick on him for this.

Customize for YOUR Books

From these examples, you can see that you must have a reader in mind to take an educated guess about how much explanation readers will need about the common knowledge part and somewhat about the encyclopedia-type of information.

But also think about how your narrative is flowing. Does the reader need a little break from the drama? That might be a good time to describe the city in detail. Are you writing your memoir partially in the hope that you’ll educate readers? Then you need background on that illness or country, the science or history, a building or method. But if you’re writing to show off how great you are at descriptions, it’s better not to indulge in that sort of thing.

Tips from A Selection of Memoir-Writing Blogs

May 1, 2025 by Rosanne Ullman

Top Memoir Blog badge for Write My Memoirs

With the Write My Memoirs blog ranked #4 among memoir-writing blogs, let’s look at what the rest are advising memoir authors.

When FeedSpot notified me that it had ranked the Write My Memoirs blog fourth among all online memoir-writing blogs, of course I went to FeedSpot to take a look. And there it was. I didn’t pay these people or do anything out of the ordinary, so fourth sounds pretty nice to me. Then I became curious: what are the other blogs like? If you’re equally curious about the advice other bloggers are giving memoir authors, to save you time I’ve curated tips from a selection of memoir-writing blogs on FeedSpot’s list.

Some of the memoir-writing blogs I went through mostly provide the blogger’s review of books and even movies. I’m not interested—I’ll go to Goodreads if I want reviews. But some do give advice the way I do, anticipating what memoir authors need to help them produce their books. I chose four to share some of their tips with you.

Marion Roach Smith

Seasoned writer and memoir coach Marion Roach Smith has roughly 2,500 social media followers, so I understand why Feedspot awarded her blog the top spot. Her strategy is to interview published writers to get their answers to questions such as how to keep faith in your own ideas. I think these are more or less transcripts from her podcast. But a recent blog post, “In Praise of Humility in Memoir,” departs from that pattern as Smith shares her own views.

From that blog post: “My father, a fine sportswriter, used to say that you should try to write everything like a letter home, a suggestion that’s both graceful and correct. In a letter home you rarely tell those people who raised you how very great you are, or right you are, or unique. You tend to write about the ideas you are trying on, or the things you’ve tried and failed; how scared you are, or how lonely.”

I think that’s pretty good advice, although that last sentence uses the semicolon incorrectly. In a sense, a memoir is a very long letter. Even if you view your book as part memoir and part self-help book, readers don’t want a pompous author crowing about success. As you may remember, I listen to a lot of celebrity memoirs. So the authors are, by definition, famous and usually incredibly talented and good at what they do. But the enjoyable memoirs are the ones that focus more on their insecurities, flaws and failed attempts.

Memoir Writers Network

Occupying the #2 spot is a blog that is updated only every six months or so. I have nothing against book author Jerry Waxler, owner of Memory Writers Network, but I’m not sure why a blog with such infrequent posts qualifies for that rank. Also, I noted some punctuation errors that are probably not simple typos. Still, I found some things of value.

Titled “Siblings Disagree: Family Feuds in Memoirs,” one post focuses on Waxler’s experience reading a particular memoir about a dispute within a family. He explains that as a reader, he doesn’t take sides but instead uses memoirs to inspire a thinking exercise:

“To get the most value from my memoir reading experiences, I ask myself questions. Who are these people? What makes them tick? What would I have done? How deeply did I feel, not just the emotions of the situation, but perhaps even more importantly, how did the author’s presentation lead me through moral, ethical, and emotional dilemmas toward resolution?”

This is valuable for memoir authors to hear. Wouldn’t you be happy to have readers be so affected by your book that they would want to ask themselves these questions?

Louisa Deasey

Down the list a bit is a blog written by Louisa Deasey, an Australian writer who coaches authors and helps them publish—a lot like what I do. She has a big pile of blog posts to choose form, and I looked at one called, “When You’re Feeling ‘Stuck.’” Her answer to breaking that barrier is to come back to your “why” of writing the memoir. I think that’s a great tip.

In the post, Deasey metaphorically compares writing a memoir to growing a plant, writing that “seeds need darkness and quiet time in order to grow. They require faith, vision and trust. We can’t be pulling them up every few days, demanding to see ‘evidence’ of their growth. We can’t be talking to everybody about what it looks like… because we can’t see. The most miraculous creations (in the plant kingdom and in our human lives) don’t look like anything for awhile, until suddenly…They exist!”

I like that comparison.

Write Your Memoir in Six Months

Linda Joy Myers, one of two founders of Write You Memoir in Six Months, wrote a blog post that even I could use to read: “Pushing the Fear of Being Sued to Where It Belongs—on the Backburner.” In Facebook memoir groups, this is a perennially hot topic. A lot of authors fear that the people they write negatively about will sue them, and fighting a lawsuit takes money even if you have confidence that you’ll win in court.

Myers reminds authors that there’s no point in worrying about offending people until you at least have a manuscript. She writes, “The first draft is for you—and it’s for you to sort out your story, what you need to say, and how you’ll say it. The job of the first draft is to give you space to write! You need to claim that space and time and put publication fantasies and worries aside.”

She cautions writers from trying too early in the process to get permission from the people mentioned in the book. As you continue writing, you’ll change and delete a lot of references, so wait. Also, you may not get the answer you’re hoping for, and that could set you back in your motivation.

Myers acknowledges that once your book feels complete, you should consult a lawyer to identify which parts or language will be defamatory enough to possibly generate a lawsuit. You may want to change names and all identifying characteristics of some of the people. But all of that is for later. If you want to write your memoir, just go and write your memoir.

I agree with this advice, too. So I think FeedSpot chose some good memoir-writing blogs for authors to explore. I hope you always come back here to number four as well.

Words Writers Mix Up

April 16, 2025April 15, 2025 by Rosanne Ullman

Speech bubbles indicate young woman mixing up words while speaking with judgmental older man

Confusion grows over word usage.

I used to think the growing list of words writers mix up meant they were having a homophone issue—there/their/they’re, affect/effect, complimentary/complementary and that sort of thing. When terms sound alike, it’s easy to forget which meaning is spelled which way. Just remember that something may pique your interest, but you’re not much fazed by it.

These confused words are called malaprops or malapropisms and there was a time when we could use them as puns, but today I’m afraid that too few people would get it. Check out this joke with a pun in written form. How many people would get it?
The bride walked down the isle. Must have been a destination wedding.

More Malapropisms

As confusion grew, I began to see mixups with words that are pronounced only slightly differently from each other—lose/loose and precede/proceed, for example. Another commonly confused category comprises words with similar meanings, such as allude/refer.

But in recent years, the malaprops have expanded into full phrases made of up words that, in meaning if not sound, have nothing to do with each other. If you find yourself saying, “For all intensive purposes,” today’s column is for you. This column is for you as well if you laugh when people say that.

I’m not going to go through the sound-alikes, look-alikes or close-meanings. It’s a very long list available on various websites; I found a comprehensive account published by Touro University. Instead of repeating all of that, I’ll interrupt your memoir writing by giving you a few laughs and review some malapropisms that have created a whole new category of language-nerd comedy.

Let’s Laugh at Least

About as common as “for all intensive purposes,” which by the way should be for all intents and purposes, is “doggy dog world.” We know that can’t be correct, because that would be a cute world instead of the competitive world, or dog-eat-dog world, that is our reality.

You flesh out an idea when you want to explore it. I suppose you can “flush out an idea,” but that would indicate the idea’s quick destruction. I probably don’t have to tell you writers that you can take me for granted, but you cannot “take me for granite.” These are called eggcorns, a specific term for the phenomenon of mishearing a word or phrase and repeating the nonsensical replacement, launching a comical new meaning that spreads like a virus.

I give a little leeway to “deep-seated” as the eggcorn of deep-seeded. For one thing, they sound identical in the way most people would pronounce them. And for another, I can understand rationalizing that a deep-seated bias is a bias that goes a long way down, which is close enough to the intended meaning. Plus we don’t used the word “seeded” very often in ordinary conversation.

A similar pair is “chomping at the bit” vs. champing at the bit to indicate being eager to get going on something. Not only do they sound nearly alike, but we no longer use that meaning of the verb “champ” at all. So the original meaning of “champing”—that a horse is biting at the bit—is no more appropriate than saying the horse is chewing, or “chomping” at the bit. Still, when you’re writing, use the one that is generally considered correct, which is champing.

On the other hand, while it’s easy to understand how nip it in the bud became “nip it in the butt,” that doesn’t mean the second phrase makes any sense. You might nip something in the butt—ew—but that would have nothing to do with the nip-it-in-the-bud intended meaning of stopping something before it has a chance to cause much damage.

I’ve had this does-it-make-sense discussion with my grown children, who tried to convince me that a diamond in the rough is more or less synonymous with a needle in a haystack. No. When you perceive a bit of shining genius in an inexperienced person, the person is a diamond in the rough and just needs mentoring or an opportunity. When you find a shining genius in a group of ordinary people, you’ve found a needle in a haystack. You know this is correct because the phrases don’t make sense when you use one to mean the other.

So when you write what you consider a common saying, think about the meaning. Why make even a small error—“tongue and cheek”—when you can avoid it by realizing that makes no sense? Then you’ll look it up and find tongue in cheek, put your own tongue in your cheek, look in the mirror and see that it gives you a look of kidding someone, which is what you’re doing when you say something in a tongue-in-cheek manner.

You curl up in a fetal position, not a “feeble position.” You’re telling a “bald-faced lie”? Think about that. What exactly is a bald face? It’s a bold-faced lie. If you believe someone has an “alterior” motive, that is not a word at all. You mean an ulterior motive. If you believe that’s a “mute point,” think again, because it’s a moot point. And if you call it a “moo point,” you’ve been talking to Joey Tribbiani in a funny segment on Friends.

Misheard Song Lyrics

A subgroup of eggcorn is mondegreen, referring to a misheard song lyric. This term was coined in the 1950s by writer Sylvia Wright, who confessed that as a child she’d repeated a folksong lyric, They had slain the Earl of Moray and laid him on the green, as “They had slain the Earl of Moray and Lady Mondegreen.”

My husband and I were married a year or two when I realized that he sang along with Neil Diamond’s Forever in Blue Jeans as “Reverend Blue Jeans.” Luckily I had a sense of humor back then! And when the internet came along with all of its available trivia, I discovered that my husband wasn’t alone—this was among the most commonly misheard lyrics. But my favorite mondegreen is a misheard lyric from Purple Haze. Jimi Hendrix wrote the line as Excuse me while I kiss the sky, so I’ll use the eggcorn as my sign-off today: “Excuse me while I kiss this guy.”

(AI created the generation-gap image. I apologize to young people.)

Craft Your Memoir with Four Descriptors in Mind

October 31, 2024 by Rosanne Ullman

Use these cornerstones to shape a compelling narrative.

As an author, you want to write well and craft your memoir in a fashion that keeps people reading. That requires attention to both picky rules and broad conventions. It takes talent and practice, and to some degree one can compensate for the other. But telling a story that people want to read entails more than good writing. I suggest you craft your memoir with four descriptors in mind.

Make it Entertaining

You may think of “entertaining” as amusing, but it’s not quite that. If you’re watching your favorite drama or even horror movie, you’re entertained, right? Shakespeare’s tragedies are as entertaining as his comedies. If you’re a history buff, even his histories will entertain you.

So don’t think of an entertaining memoir as a funny memoir or even a happy memoir, but if you’ve had happy moments, include them. There should be some parts that aren’t dismal. Infuse suspense, because a gripping memoir is an entertaining memoir. Weave in little surprises to entertain the reader with something unexpected. Describe something familiar in a new way—that also will entertain readers.

Make it Relatable

Your readers will not have lived your life, and some of your readers’ lives may not resemble your life at all. But if readers feel empathy for you and can relate to your experiences, they will want to see what happens next. They will want to know whether you make the choices they would have made in your place.

You want your readers to feel the same emotions you felt throughout your experiences. That’s the “show, don’t tell” part. Don’t tell them how you felt in the hope that they can relate to those emotions. Just describe what happened, and if your story is relatable they will feel the same emotions on their own. That’s the magic.

Make it Informative

Books educate us on all sorts of things. Sometimes, books spark interest in a topic we didn’t previously care about. When you’re determining how much text to devote to describing a city you’re visiting or your mother’s medical condition or the professional projects that earned you an award, at least on your first draft write it all out. You can always cut paragraphs during the editing process.

Picture a curious reader, because people who read tend to be curious people. When readers finish your book, they want to have learned something about their world, not just your world. They want to have new knowledge that they can carry with them in general, not only in relation to your story. I’m currently reading Andre Agassi’s Open and learning a lot about tennis competition!

Make it (Mostly) Accurate

Relying on memory is a sure way to include inaccuracies. As a memoir author, you should always do your best to tell the truth. But your truth, as you remember it, is not necessarily how things really went down. This is a challenge for every memoir author.

Lucky are the authors who have spent their lives journaling. In those journals can be fine descriptions and details you wouldn’t even think about twenty years later. You have the feelings you’re feeling in real time.

But if you have no diary to draw from, at least do some fact-checking. Make sure you’re using the correct spelling of the names of streets, people, businesses. Check dates! They’re important to your story but elusive in the memory. Ask people involved in your stories to tell you their recollections of what happened, and compare their accounts with what you’ve written. If you can get your hands on transcripts of proceedings, video footage or any other record of events, take the time and trouble to do that.

You might want to include a disclaimer that you are presenting the events as you remember them. But if your memoir is mostly accurate as well as informative, relatable and entertaining, you will have a book worth reading.

Story Example for Memoir Writers

October 16, 2024October 16, 2024 by Rosanne Ullman

Trying to glean lessons from my own tale of Hurricane Milton.

Here on Florida’s Gulf Coast we’ve had two weather crises back to back. I’m sure you’ve heard about our battles with Helene and Milton.

During my evacuation two days before Hurricane Milton made landfall, I tried to distract myself by writing up my experiences in real time, in diary fashion. Afterward, I thought about this episode in terms of whether it would fit into a memoir. Would this be something I would include? It would depend upon the general theme of my memoir. Either way, I think it holds lessons as a story example for memoir writers.

I wrote the piece in present tense. As I’ve mentioned in past posts, I’m not a big fan of writing an entire memoir in present tense. In this case, I did what came naturally, and there it was: present tense right in my face. So I now am better acquainted with why many memoir authors want to write in present tense. People who’ve read this account tell me they feel as if they’re right there with me, fretting about where the hurricane will make landfall and nervous about how it will impact my life. Isn’t that every memoir author’s aim? So I get it.

I still think that for a full memoir it’s easier and ultimately more effective to write in past tense. The reader grows weary of present tense. For a short piece, though, present tense can work well. I like it for the introduction to a memoir or for any chapter that takes place at the current time.

This sample story demonstrates how a narrative in present tense can accommodate some past tense when appropriate. It also illustrates ways to interlace feelings with description, manage dialogue, provide background when necessary, use active voice and action verbs, and sneak in little facts you want the reader to know without dwelling on them. You also can see from this story how, if you have a diary filled with stories, you will have to do some editing. For example, I would probably replace the last four paragraphs with an update on any actual changes I made in the ensuing years or a transition to the next story in the memoir.

Seeing Eye to Eye with Hurricane Milton

Four days in Sarasota in October 2024

Hide from wind, run from water.

It’s a new phrase for me, and I memorize it. Like “feed a cold, starve a fever”: you must keep it straight, which is which.

But what if you have both a cold and a fever? “Feed” and “starve” are mutually exclusive, not the case with “hide” and “run.” So I do both, scared of wind, frightened of water.

It’s Monday, October 7, and as I run and hide from a natural disaster, obsessively focused on my own immediate trauma, the rest of the world is marking the date as one year since the Hamas attack on an Israeli music festival. On Facebook, I see that a friend is recalling the same date more than 20 years ago as the day she lost her 15-year-old son. Tragedy takes many forms here in the human experience, and what’s happening to me is not the worst that can happen.

We were cold in Chicago, so four years ago we moved south, out of the path of snowstorms and heartland tornadoes but into the belly of tropical weather. “I could never live in Florida,” some friends have said to me, with hurricane danger mentioned among the reasons. We chose an area that historically has not been in the eye of the tiger storms, but we understand there’s still risk, that past is not necessarily prologue with nature’s inherent volatility. In exchange for paradise winter, we accept humid summer and the wildcard of hurricane season.

October 8, another long and stressful day. With distance between my body and life-threatening peril, I obsessively click around from weather map to weather map, hoping that I can mentally will Milton to defy all science and just dissolve or turn tail and head back out to sea. The TV forecasters offer me no reassurance. When one of them chokes up during a report, that becomes the news. Another one wears a fitted blue dress revealing that she is pregnant, reminding me that life goes on in one way or another. I think back to yesterday, when my own pregnant daughter and her husband sent around pink balloons to let relatives know what kind of cousin/grandchild they can expect in March.

As October 9 dawns, my anxiety is high. We’re staying in a hotel casino west of Miami that was sparsely populated when we arrived on Monday but ran out of rooms by late Tuesday. We drove two cars to keep them from flooding at home. It was a little chancy to go south in case Milton taunted forecasters with a swerve to the right, but going north to Georgia or Alabama would mean three times the mileage, much heavier traffic and worries about gas availability. Along with me are Keevan and our friend Barbara, who evacuated with us from her home in Venice, just south of us. We are lucky to have options and resources; we understand that, and we meet people from all over the state’s southern half. Some live right on the water, others more inland but in mobile or manufactured homes. Every story is different. One couple splits time between balmy winters in Venice, Florida, and mountain summers near Asheville, North Carolina, devastated by Hurricane Helene just two weeks ago. Their house in Venice is in danger from storm surge not from the Gulf itself but from the Myakka River flowing at the end of, and perpendicular to, their street. They look sad, but here they’re at least safe.

Between watching the news and continuing to plead with Milton to be gentle, I do normal things. It’s drizzly in Miami, but I take advantage of a short period of sun to go for a run in the parking lot. Then Keevan, Barbara and I drive to Walmart and Publix and somewhere for lunch. We’re tired of expensive hotel food and bring groceries and boxed leftovers back to the hotel, where we have a mini-fridge and microwave. As the wind picks up in Miami, we calculate how much worse it must be at home, so much closer to the storm. I check the phone app connected to our home alarm, and there’s no signal. That means we’ve lost power at home. I wince.

After dinner in our room, Keevan and I go down to the casino to play the slots. It’s a sensory onslaught of blinking colored lights and sounds of ding ding ding as the machines hand over winnings, but the players look more defeated than victorious. We meet a couple from Punta Gorda. “Where are you from?” they ask us. “Sarasota,” I reply. “Oh….” Sarasota gets the biggest “oh….” as it sits right in the center of all the spaghetti storm-tracking models. I feign a weak smile as I take a selfie to remember this weird juxtaposition of home-to-here scenery.

Distraction and commiserating with people keep my spirit manageable as Milton inches closer to the Gulf coast. It’s a category 5 hurricane and then cat 4 and back to 5, then 4 again but getting down to cat 3, which is some good news. It jags and wobbles, sometimes north and sometimes south, and it’s not clear which direction will most spare us. It doesn’t matter, because it feels crummy to root for it to hit other communities instead of my own. My anxiety begins to morph into acceptance, which is good, because when landfall finally happens sometime around 9pm, Milton hits Sarasota’s beach on Siesta Key, eight miles from our house.

It seems not to take long before the hurricane’s eye settles over Sarasota and the TV storm reporters are talking about how eerily still and quiet it is. But soon after that, “dirty side” gusts and downpours start whipping the city. Before I go to bed, I check the alarm app again. It’s connected. I’m not sure whether that means we have power or, more likely, that the connection is picking up the backup battery, but the app indicates nothing out of the ordinary.

It’s October 10, and Milton is still a hurricane but no longer over land. We text our neighbors, who had planned on riding out the storm at home because they have hurricane shutters, whereas we are still trying to figure out that part of living here. A next-door neighbor responds that there’s no power in the neighborhood, but our house seems to be intact. It feels like a miracle. I picture all the possessions I left there as I hurriedly and arbitrarily packed some objects while abandoning others. From what we can tell, the roads going northwest are passable. We drive the three hours home.

The sun is shining, and as we glide along Routes 41 and 75 we see standing water and flattened trees, but nothing significant to indicate what took place during the previous 24 hours. At home, there’s no power but there is everything else just as we left it, except for a dozen palm fronds littering the lawn and two trees that toppled and damaged our fencing. But there’s not even water blanketing our street the way there was during Hurricane Ian and some of the other storms that made landfall much farther than eight miles from our house. So what is the deal here?

A few things worked in our favor. Milton did accede to my wishes in weakening to a cat 3 storm by landfall. Although it dumped a lot of rain in some areas, it was fast-moving and didn’t build up massive rain measurements in Sarasota. The half-hour it took for Sarasota to pass through the eye provided a little break when the wind and rain stopped. Every storm is quirky and spotty, and how it meanders into the particulars of Tampa Bay’s configuration will change the impact of water levels for cities up and down the Gulf Coast. All in all, worse-case scenarios did not happen. And the people heeded warnings, evacuating where mandatory and then some. We were not required to evacuate. We live just outside the last evacuation zone, Evacuation Zone E, and the mandate came in only as far as Zone C. Unfortunately, Milton set off lots of tornadoes that twisted their way all over the state, causing casualties across the state in southeast Florida, not far from our refuge.

What you see on TV is a version of what’s happening. News reporters stand at the most dramatic visual point, right at the coast. Inland the rain and wind may be just as harsh, but often sturdy fencing and rows of trees provide some barrier to houses. Of course, then there’s the danger of the trees falling and smashing things, but mostly it’s protection. The storm surge they talk so much about affects only the neighborhoods right along the shoreline and aside rivers and lakes. People living in houseboats always should leave, and those in mobile/manufactured homes are at risk anywhere within the hurricane cone. But other houses are constructed in adherence to strict building codes meant to withstand severe weather. Resorts, restaurants, hotels and various other businesses are situated along water, so storm surge is an important factor in the economy of the community but not in most of the residential areas of a city like Sarasota, although high rise condos offering enviable waterfront views often have to rehab their lobbies after a major storm surge.

I learned a lot from Hurricane Milton and feel more like a seasoned Floridian in the aftermath. I still probably will evacuate during future hurricanes, because I would have trouble getting through a night with no power or possibly even cell service while the trees are thrashing about outside. But I think I’ll be less frantic next time, and maybe we’ll have storm shutters by then.

How to Use Pronouns Correctly in Your Memoir, Part 2

September 17, 2024 by Rosanne Ullman

Person planting white flag to show surrendering

You can avoid these four common errors in pronoun use, so don’t give up!

I’m not sure I can make a lesson in how to use pronouns correctly fun, but I hope I can make it comprehensible. Sit down. You’re going to be here a while.

Error 1: Using the subject pronoun as the object pronoun and vice versa

It’s not that either subject pronouns or object pronouns are falling out of favor. They’re all still as popular as ever, but people insert them in the wrong places. First, a reminder of which is which:

Subject Pronouns: I / he / she / you / we / they / it / who
Object Pronouns: me / him / her / you / us / them / it / whom

Subject nouns/proper nouns/pronouns cause the action. They’re the main thing. Object nouns/proper nouns/pronouns receive the action. They can be direct objects, indirect objects or objects of the preposition.

With a noun, you don’t have to know whether it’s a subject or object, because it will be the same word. The little boy started kindergarten last month. The teacher called on the little boy. The word doesn’t change until you use a pronoun:

She started kindergarten last month.
The teacher called on him.

Easy, right? You wouldn’t say, “Him started kindergarten last month,” or “The teacher called on he.”

But for some reason, when constructing a sentence with two subject pronouns or two object pronouns, people often choose one from each category. The results are wrong: “Her and I went to school together” or “The teacher called on him and I” or “The teacher called on he and me.” Sometimes both of the two pronouns come out wrong, as in “Me and her went to school together” or “The teacher called on he and I.”

Stick with all subject pronouns for the subject and all object pronouns for the object, and if “I” or “me” is one of the pronouns, put it last. The trick is to first construct the sentence with one pronoun at a time. Then you’ll choose the correct pronouns when you combine two or more.

She and I went to school together.
The teacher called on him and me.

Here are more examples to show you that it works the same way with “who” and “whom” and whether the object is a direct object, indirect object or object of the preposition:

I don’t know who will attend the program, but I hope it will be people to whom the information applies.
They and we brought the salad and dessert, so you can thank them and us for healthy greens and a sweet ending to the meal.
They gave her and me the notes to read, but time ran out before she and I could share them.

Notice that “you” and “it” use the same form no matter what function they serve:

I made dinner for you, and you brought me flowers.
When I read this book, it changed my life, but I still returned it to the library.

Error 2: Using an apostrophe with a possessive pronoun

Possessive pronouns never take apostrophes. Again, let’s start with identifications:

Possessive pronouns: mine / yours / his / hers / its / ours / theirs / whose
Possessive adjective pronouns: my / your / his / her / its / our / their / whose
Reflexive pronouns: myself / yourself / himself / herself / itself / ourselves / yourselves / themselves

Not one apostrophe on that list! If you remember just that rule of punctuation, you will avoid this common error.

Possessive nouns and proper nouns, however, do take apostrophes. Maybe that’s why so many people are confused about this. We say, “Maria’s brother will be here shortly,” “The hurricane damaged both Colin’s house and Jen’s house” and “My dog’s tail got caught in the door.” But drop the apostrophe when you replace the noun or proper noun with its pronoun substitute:

Her brother will be here shortly.
Your brother will be here shortly.
Whose brother will be here shortly?
The hurricane damaged both of their houses.
His tail got caught in the door.
Its tail got caught in the door.

There is no word “his’s,” “her’s,” “their’s” or “your’s,” but there are the words “hers,” “yours” and “theirs,” three of the possessive pronouns:

The wallet is his.
That shirt is mine.
This document is hers.
The car is ours.
These gifts are yours.
The idea was all theirs.

The word “it’s” with an apostrophe doesn’t indicate an exception to the rule of no apostrophes in possessive pronouns. This rule has no exceptions. It means that “it’s” is not a possessive but a contraction. In contractions, an apostrophe replaces one or more letters. We write “doesn’t” for “does not,” for example.

With nouns, proper nouns and pronouns, the contraction shortens words like “is” or “has,” as in “Sam’s driving very well,” or “Olivia’s received the highest honors.” You can shorten a pronoun with another word the same way:

You’re [you are] trying too hard.
We’re [we are] doing our best.
He’s [he is] driving very well.
She’s [she has] received the highest honors.
It’s [it is] going to be a nice day.
It’s [it has] been a long time since I’ve [I have] seen you.
Who’s [who is] coming with me?
Who’s [who has] been making that noise?

Test the word you’re using to see whether it’s a shortened form of two words. If you’re shortening two words and one of the words is a pronoun, that’s a contraction and you need an apostrophe. If you’re not shortening two words, then the pronoun you’re using is a possessive and you should not use an apostrophe.

Error 3: Using the object pronoun with “be” verbs

As language evolves, this rule is gradually disappearing. So it’s up to you whether you want to apply it to your writing; sometimes it makes the sentence sound awkward.

Here’s a list of “be” verbs, from the family of the infinitive “to be”: am / is / are / was / were / will be / may be / might be /ought to be / could be / would be / should be / might be / all “been” combinations

If you’re old enough to remember land line phones, you may have been taught to respond, “This is she” or “This is he” when someone asked to speak to you. That shows the correct use of the subject pronoun with a “be” verb. But it can sound wrong, especially since you now know that you should use objective pronouns in the object position. Examples of the subject pronoun with “be” verbs:

It might have been he who asked for help, but I don’t remember.
If either of us gets into trouble for this, it will be I.
The ones who hosted the party were we.

My best advice is to never use those constructions but also not to write the technically incorrect “it will be me” or “it might have been him.” Instead, you can switch the order and possibly simplify the sentence:

He might have been the one to ask for help, but I don’t remember.
Of the two of us, I will be the one who gets into trouble for this.
We hosted the party.

Error 4: Being imprecise in choosing a pronoun that ends a clause.

Don’t get thrown by the word “clause”—it just means a full thought with a subject and verb. A sentence can be a single clause or comprise two or more clauses.

For precision, you may have to draw out the sentence in your mind to determine whether to use the subject pronoun or the object pronoun. For example, would you say, “I love you more than she” or “I love you more than her”? Your decision depends on your intended meaning:

Don’t marry her! I love you more than she [does].
My ex-girlfriend? Of course I love you more than [I love] her.
He’s not as tall as I [am], but he plays tennis better than I [do].
I won’t give you as much of a raise as [I’ll give] him, but I predict that you’ll advance in the company faster than he [will].

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