It is a curious thing that faith-friendly fiction, particularly of the Christian variety, requires a de facto warning label. You won’t find it on a sticker on the book jacket. Rather, it comes in the form of a marketing tag. Stories that positively portray the religious convictions of a main character, or that carry an underlying Christian theme, are required by the publishing industry to self-identify as a “Christian” sub-genre.
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Dashes: Up with En, Down with the Em!
The vast majority of English speakers overlook difference in how dashes are used, thinking all dashes are equal. They are not. There are actually three types of dashes commonly used in literature, each with their own name and “approved” usage. The standard dash, the one on your keyboard, is actually a hyphen. It is the most commonly used, typically to connect compound words like merry-go-round, or to make sure that multiple-word descriptors are understood correctly. (Did you catch the use of that hyphen?)
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There are many ways of writing bad fiction, or at least of including elements of bad fiction within otherwise good stories. This essay is a short walk through my encounters with some books and film.
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