Tricky Edits Column for September 2026

Tricky Edits

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Knowing When Rules Don’t Apply…and When They Do

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the winningest book in her 
HowToDoItFrugally Series for writers, The Frugal Editor,
now in its third edition

Introduction: I ran into the quotation below as I was editing the next book for my HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers and it reminded me of how long it takes me to adapt to rules or ideas I’ve held for a long time and how difficult it is for me to convince my clients that participation in the marketing of our books is an essential part of publishing. Thus, I decided to share the excerpt below for you, hoping it would help convince you that it’s okay—even a necessity—to give up old habits or to break rules you have been living with a lifetime. Hold on to your hats. You might not like it at first but if you’ve heard something like it before—or if you’ve begun to notice—just as an example—that the dialogue you’ve been writing as you oh-so-carefully observe all the grammar rules that worked well enough for you from kindergarten through to high school are starting to feel a little stilted or that you’ve begun to wonder why no agent has accepted your manuscript for the story idea you think could go all the way to the number one position on Amazon’s bestseller list!

“Beware grammar rules that interfere with your choice to write believable dialogue—or limit your creativity. Play with rules. Destroy rules. Learn new ways to get around rules. It’s lots of fun!” ~ CHJ

“’It’s complicated’

“We hear that phrase everywhere these days.

“When it comes to language, the trick is to keep an open mind about “rules” that have been imposed on us from, what? Kindergarten? I didn’t encounter a class that acknowledged rules could fluctuate from genre to genre until I risked enrolling in a graduate seminar in writing while I was still a freshman. That’s where I heard that some rules were never rules at all and that never-break-a-rule-mentality is likely to confuse, even destroy creativity.

“Language is a beautiful, growing thing that sets us apart from other lifeforms and brings us closer to the things in life we love. Poets have been making up words, possibly since before writing was invented. We’re doing better about defending our independence only a few decades ago. These days even journalists are using storytelling, including dialogue in their reporting."

Denouement: So there it is…in quotation marks because I lifted it from Chapter Four in my own work in progress. I hope it will prepare you to be more willing to consider all the new stuff you have heard or are about to. An open attitude will prepare you to partner better with an editor—either accept their advice or defend your reasons for breaking whatever rule they believe you’ve been breaking. We writers—even great editors—never know all the specifics used by the wide array of professions that writing offers. But I know from personal experience that my motto “the more you know…” is therapeutic. In other words, writing can be less stressful than many of us believe it could be.

ABOUT CAROLYN:

My thanks to Dawn Colclasure for sharing my tricky edits in her free newsletter, many of them directly from the pages of the third edition of The Frugal Editor in my HowToDoItFrugally Series for Writers. I have been with SPARREW through thick and thin from its first edition in her generous #SharingwithWriters effort as part of giving back to the publishing industry. It has done a difficult but great job adjusting to the new model presented to us with the advent of the internet and digital printing. Hooray! It is big enough to accommodate all kinds of publishing and most of the preferences of forward-looking authors. Some of those authors—like me—have tried so many publishing models I’ve lost track. Thanks for coming back. Do find the entire series on a special Series Page offered by Amazon. And please watch for the addition of Word by Word: A Vocabulary for Success. 

MORE ABOUT YOUR #SPARREW CONTRIBUTOR:                                         

The triptych that Amazon provides the authors of series published by their KDP unit. It feels like a bonus. 

Once a month Carolyn Howard-Johnson shares something writer-related she hopes might save some author from embarrassment (or make the task of writing more fun or creative.) The third edition of The Frugal Editor from Modern History Press includes contact list magic. It is the second multi award-winning book in her multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers. Find it on Amazon’s new buy-page for series where the e-book is offered with one click of online’s version of a set of books. (The availability—free—of that new page for authors with book series that appear on KDP’s pages is another of her #FrugalBookPromoterTips.) And her winningest book, The Frugal Editor, has been fully updated including a chapter on how backmatter can be extended to help readers and nudge book sales. And watch for her new book on—you guessed it—word lists!

This article is an excerpt from a new vocabulary book written especially for career-minded authors that WinningWriters.com will give to those who enter their 2024 #NorthStreetBookPrize. Carolyn has been a sponsor since that contest’s introduction. This book is among the several value-added benefits Winning Writers contestants and winners are offered at no extra charge. Carolyn’s book will be released in early 2026 by Modern History Press. Find the entire series on a special Series Page offered by Amazon.

Carolyn blogs sporadically on editing at The Frugal Editor and at her SharingwithWriters blog on other aspects of the publishing world and welcomes guest posts with ample author credit lines and links and welcomes guest posts complete with credit lines and ample links for her guests. She also tweets writers' resources and tips at her Twitter account using #FrugalBookPromoterTips hashtag.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson brings her experience as a publicist, journalist, marketer, and retailer to the advice she gives in her HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers and the many classes she taught for nearly a decade as instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program where has found a little humor can decidedly make a lot of learning easier on one’s disposition. 

The books in her HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers have won multiple awards. That series includes both the third editions of The Frugal Book Promoter and my The Frugal Editor.Published by Modern History Press, they have won awards from USA Book News, Readers’ Views Literary Award, Dan Poynter’s Global Ebook Award, the marketing award from Next Generation Indie Books and others including the coveted Irwin award. How To Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethicallyis still in its first (very frugal!) edition but please wait for the second edition from Modern History Press. 

Howard-Johnson is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award, and her community’s Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing. She was also named to Pasadena Weekly’s list of “Fourteen San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen” and was given her community’s Diamond Award for Achievement in the Arts.