Creative People Will Want to Know These 4 Tips from JJ Abrams

If you’re a fan of film, television, or lens flare, you’ve probably heard of JJ Abrams. He’s the Emmy award–winning writer-director-producer who brought us Alias, Felicity, Lost, Super 8, Mission Impossible III, Cloverfield, and 10 Cloverfield Lane.

Oh yeah . . . and he rebooted two of the greatest sci-fi franchises of all time, Star Trek and Star Wars. No big deal, y’all!

If you’re ready to make your own creative mark on the world, listen up—JJ’s got some advice for you. Here are four tips on creativity from the “Spielberg” of this generation.

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1Emotional Connection Is Everything

I love larger than life, kind of spectacle moments. But what’s important to me is that the characters are at the center, that emotionally you know where you are, and you’re tracking characters that are taking you through those spectacular moments. And that to me is the most important thing, that balance of the intimacy with the spectacle and the sort of hyper reality.

JJ knows the bottom line: your audience has to care. If they’re not emotionally invested in what’s going on, it doesn’t matter how shiny or bombastic you make something. That climactic moment you worked so hard to create will feel hollow if it’s lacking an emotional core for your audience to connect with.

2Be Open to the Best Idea

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If you’re not open to the best idea, whether it’s a scene for a movie, an episode or a story arc for a series, you’re closed to the possibilities . . . to look at it like a job or a project that is delineated by the expectations, to me limits the possibilities. Some of the great inventions were not intended.

JJ likens the creative process to “driving in the fog.” You have “the big idea” of where a project is going, but you’re also giving your work the space to organically evolve.

The Lost character Ben Linus was originally written for a single episode. When actor Michael Emerson showed up (and was brilliant), the Lost creators realized the character could be far more important to the story, and Ben Linus became a central character.

Are you willing to scrap your original idea for the best idea?

3Your Voice Matters

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. . . what I kind of learned early on is that your voice is as important as anyone else’s. You may not always be right and you shouldn’t be cocky about it but I felt that I needed to learn that the ideas that I had were as good as anyone else’s ideas. . . . That thing that you feel, if you really feel it, other people do too.

We all struggle with imposter syndrome and second-guessing ourselves. But if you’ve got an idea that excites you, don’t write it off. It may not always pan out, but if you don’t give yourself a chance, who will?

4The Only Thing Stopping You Is You

You want to write? Make movies? JJ’s advice is to go do it!

I used to say . . . to someone who wants to write, “Go! Write! Do your thing.” It’s free, you don’t need permission. But now I can say, “Go make your movie!” There’s nothing stopping you from going out there and getting the technology. You can lease, rent, buy stuff off the shelf that is . . . just as good, as the stuff that’s being used by the . . . “legit people.”

. . . the technology has been democratized, everyone has access to the ability to be a filmmaker, and if you want to do it, the only thing stopping you is you.

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The Early Bird Catches the Word: Analysis Shows We Write Better by Day

“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

So says the old proverb, often attributed to Benjamin Franklin. Of course, Franklin lived in a time before electric lighting, when staying up late meant burning the midnight oil and people had good reason to be productive during the daylight hours. Even so, at least when it comes to writing well, he may have been onto something.

Centuries later, with our homes illuminated by not only electric lights but also the glow of TVs, computers, and handheld devices, many of us have come to identify as either early birds or night owls. Early birds turn in at a reasonable hour so they can wake refreshed first thing in the morning. Night owls stay active long past dark and tend to sleep later.

The Grammarly team wanted to know whether time of day had a measurable effect on the quality of a person’s writing, so we crunched over one billion words proofread by our app in search of answers. Ben Franklin might have been pleased with our discoveries. We learned that, although we can’t know the status of their health, wealth, or wisdom, Grammarly users do their best online writing early in the day. Have a look at our infographic to see how early birds and night owls fared when blogging, writing emails, and using social media.

To share this infographic on your website or blog, copy-paste the embed code into your editor.

Early birds make fewer writing mistakes

Our research showed that early birds, defined by our study as those who write online between the hours of 4 a.m. and 8 a.m. in their local time zones, made fewer writing mistakes overall with an average of 13.8 mistakes per 100 words. Night owls, those writing the evening hours away between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., were more error-prone with 17 mistakes per 100 words.

When it comes to platforms, writers tend to make fewer spelling, grammar, and punctuation blunders when writing blog posts than they do in either email or social media. There’s also a prime time for blogging if you want to write more accurately—between 1:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. During that period, blog writers made just 3.7 errors per 100 words.

Writers made more mistakes in emails than in blog posts (11.8 per 100 words for the early birds, and 14.3 for the night owls.) The next time you’re firing off an electronic missive, pay attention to spelling. Spelling errors accounted for over half of the mistakes made in email communiques.

It’s probably no surprise that people make the most grammatical gaffes in social media, where communication tends to be more casual and writers often use slang and, particularly on Twitter, abbreviations or text-speak. On average, writers make three times as many mistakes in social media posts as they do in email.

In each online writing category, early birds wrote with more accuracy than their night owl counterparts. Night owls who want to hone their abilities should consider learning the differences between commonly confused words. In fact, night owls confuse words 66% more often than early birds. If homonyms and other mistakes trip you up, here are a few articles to help you sharpen your skills:

• Apostrophe Mistakes (e.g. let’s vs. lets)
• Too vs. To
• Everyday vs. Every Day
• Than vs. Then
• Of vs. Off

Night owls have smarts

The circadian rhythm is the biological cycle of activity and rest that nearly all animals have. In the time before electricity and technology, we human animals were primarily diurnal—active during the daylight hours, when we could see well and heed the proverb to make hay while the sun shines. But as we developed technology that allowed us to be active and even productive into the hours after dark, some of us adopted the tendency to stay up late, becoming night owls.

In a 2009 study, evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa hypothesized that humans who developed a tendency to be nocturnal were adopting evolutionarily novel values. As technology advanced, night owls advanced to do something their ancestors hadn’t—stay up later and wake later. That evolutionary step, Kanazawa believed, could predict that people with higher IQs were more likely to be nocturnal than those with lower IQs. Kanazawa’s research, using a large sample of young Americans, bore out this hypothesis—children with higher IQs grew to be more nocturnal adults.

Although night owls may need to be more careful while writing during the evening hours, science shows that innate intelligence probably isn’t a factor.

Good writing can happen at any time

When do you do your best writing? Whether or not you’ve noticed a tendency to be sharper by day or night, one thing’s for certain—good writing depends on proofreading. Take a moment to double-check your blog posts, emails, and social media shares so your writing will shine at every time of day.

Commonly Confused Word Pairs

By Laura Wallis for The Stir by CafeMom

Words that sound alike but have different meanings and spellings are called homophones, and especially for kids who are just learning to spell, they can cause trouble every time. There are some rules to help budding writers remember the trickiest homophones, but in many cases it’s just a matter of memory. There, their . . . they’ll get them in time.

Its and It’s

This pair is tough because apostrophes are often used to denote possessives—but not in this case. It’s is short for it is. So, “The dog wags its tail because it’s time to eat.”

Your and You’re

Kids (and even some grown-ups) get caught on this pair a lot, and it drives grammar-loving parents nuts. Your is possessive, while you’re is short for you are. “You have to know your rights,” but “I know, you’re right.”

There, they’re, their

The first of this trio is the easiest to remember: Just start here, then go over there by adding a T. They’re is short for they are. The last one, their, is possessive and you just have to remember that you add an I in the middle: “They got their ball and went home.”

Close and Clothes

You could clean up the clothes from the floor, or just be lazy and close the door. Reminding kids that clothes means clothing can help them keep this pair straight.

So and Sew and Sow

Only in The Sound of Music is sol(silent L) “a needle pulling thread.” The right way to spell what you’re doing when you stitch on a button or fix a seam is sew. If you’re outside spreading seeds or planting, you’re sowing. So, you’ll just have to commit these to memory.

Complement and compliment

This one is more challenging than some other examples here. You use complement when talking about things that go well together, like “That shirt complements your skin tone.” It can also be a noun, referring to a complete set. A compliment, on the other hand, is a nice thing to say. To remember the difference, think “I paid you a compliment.”

Through and Threw

“He threw the ball through the window.” Remind yourself that threw is the past tense of throw, and they only vary by one letter. If you’re walking through a tunnel, or something is flying through a window, it is traveling—and the longer word fits.

Affect and Effect

These words are similar in usage and meaning, so are extra tricky. But in most cases, one is a noun and the other a verb. Think the effect to remember that effect is the noun form.

Of course, you add an extra wrinkle when affect is a noun (She has a false affect) and effect is a verb (We are working to effect a change), but those usages are less common, especially in kids’ writing.

Accept and Except

To accept something is to agree to it. To except is to rule something out. “I accept that you’re a better speller than I am.” “I love all of my classes, except gym.” Think ex for things you want to get rid of.

Knew and New

“You knew these already, but to kids, they’re all brand new.” Early writers commonly misspell knew, because of that pesky silent k. But once they remember that it’s the past tense of know (which is different from no) they won’t mess it up again.

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Laura Wallis is a freelance writer and editor specializing in all things family, home, food, and health. She currently lives in New Jersey with her husband, two children, and dog—none of whom take grammar as seriously as they should. She writes for The Stir by CafeMom.

3 Ways to Save Time on Social Media

Your alarm rings. You roll over, grab your phone, turn off the alarm, and immediately start scrolling through Instagram. Then you move to Facebook. Then Twitter. Then your work chat and email. Next thing you know, you have to rush through your morning routine and head to work.

Sound familiar?

If you’re wondering how to save time on social media, you’re not alone. Multiple studies have linked high social media use and negative feelings like dissatisfaction, disconnection, and even loneliness.

1 Save Time by Protecting Your Time

When I asked myself “how do you save time on social media?” one answer immediately popped into my head. You save time by conquering the need to respond and instead taking control of your time and energy. The dopamine surge you get from responding to social messages right away is real, and the red badge of doom haunts us all. But you can conquer the need to respond in real time, every time.

As someone who does social media for a living, I know it can be hard to disconnect. Earlier in my career, I tried to respond to every message, every tweet, every time, on time. I watched every trend. I liked every meme. And at the end of the day, I was exhausted, demoralized, and unsure of whether I had actually made an impact.

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Over time, I’ve learned that disconnecting from social media is as important as following it. In my professional life, I check certain channels at certain times, and build in certain nights and weekends when I am truly offline.

2 Establish a Social Media Routine

Once you understand which times you don’t want to be online, you can optimize the time you do spend on social media. I’ve found it’s helpful to have a routine, where you check the same channels in the same way every time. That way, you can save time by slowly chipping away at inefficiencies in your routine.

Personally, I’ve found my commute on public transit a great time to check up on social channels in the morning. As an example of a possible routine, here’s my morning social media protocol:

• Quickly scan push notifications, which I only receive from my calendar, work email, Slack, and Asana. Respond to anything I deem urgent.
• Check Twitter for any urgent mentions or DMs.
• Check Facebook for similarly urgent issues or emergencies.
• Quickly check LinkedIn for messages.
• Scroll through Instagram and Snapchat for the rest of my commute, saving ideas for future memes.

3 Get Lazy, Copy Others’ Tricks

Sometimes saving time on social media is as easy as finding tactics that work for others and copying them. If you have someone in your professional or personal life who seems like they’re always tweeting or snapping, buy them coffee and ask them how they balance their real life with their social media mavendom. You can also build a list of accounts you love, to get a sense of the number of posts they send per day. Either way, find some heroes, borrow their tactics, and go forth to build your own social media empire.

The Inaugural Guide to Writing the Perfect Tweet

Today marks the fifty-eighth United States presidential inauguration. As the US swears in Donald Trump as their leader, the world will watch not only the proceedings but also the new president’s active Twitter account. President Trump’s Twitter usage has been unprecedented compared to previous candidates and has put the social network squarely in the headlines for over a year.

Since the new leader of the United States loves Twitter, what better way to honor this inauguration than with an extensive guide to writing the perfect tweet? Check out our tips and leave your own in the comments below. Happy tweeting!

Discover Your Voice

.@aboymadeofsky No, Jonathan, I've never made a single decision in my life on the basis of whether it was cool.

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 9, 2014

All tweets are written by someone (or some bot). But the best tweets reflect the unique voice of their author in as few characters as possible. Although defining your voice can be difficult for longer-form content, you can easily choose from your own personality attributes and apply them to your tweets. Just ask yourself whether you are fun, sassy, humble, aggressive, etc. It might take a moment of soul-searching, but your Twitter followers will thank you for writing something beyond “RT.”

Don’t Forget Visuals

A recent cartoon for @newscientist: pic.twitter.com/UCR9YvtINh

— Tom Gauld (@tomgauld) December 12, 2016

Instagram may be the social network for the image-obsessed, but Twitter still loves a good meme, gif, or video. If it’s relevant to your tweet and in line with your voice (see the tip above), share that Kermit meme! Attach that dancing man gif! Live your best life on Twitter, in photos.

Give Credit Where Credit Is Due

When advertisers don't understand that you can't just take an image off the internet, chop the artist's name off & add their logo �� pic.twitter.com/yRjvMdu1xM

— Gemma Correll (@gemmacorrell) January 18, 2017

Found a cartoon you love and have permission to share? Great! Just make sure you @ mention the author, or link to their website. Appreciating others’ work is great (we do it all the time), but stealing is not.

Keep It Short

Guilt is a dish best served by Mom.

— Dan (@Social_Mime) January 8, 2017

Twitter is the network of as few words as possible, plain and simple. Even if you’ve figured out how to write a novel in 140-character segments, that doesn’t mean you should. In fact, the ideal tweet is only 100 characters, so keep your amazing #MondayMotivation brief.

Keep It Clean

All this lead-up and I still need spellcheck to get INAUGURATION right. Thank god for @Grammarly (totally helped me with the hyphen too)

— Matt Portman (@Portations) January 18, 2017

Through our extensive grammar research (and all those tweets you keep sending us), Grammarly has found that social media is rife with writing errors. Don’t be the Twitter pundit whose salient points about current events are overshadowed by an easily avoidable spelling or grammar mistake. Clean it up!

Present Continuous

The present continuous verb tense indicates that an action or condition is happening now, frequently, and may continue into the future.

The Present Continuous Formula: to be [am, is, are] + verb [present participle]

Aunt Christine is warming up the car while Scott looks for his new leather coat. They are eating at Scott’s favorite restaurant today, Polly’s Pancake Diner.

Key words: Verb, present participle, tense, dynamic verbs, stative verbs

The present continuous (present progressive) tense is a way to convey any action or condition that is happening right now, frequently, and may be ongoing. It adds energy and action to writing, and its effect helps readers understand when the action is happening. Imagine Aunt Christine has surprised her nephew Scott for his birthday and is going to take him out to his favorite restaurant, Polly’s Pancake Diner. If I wanted to tell the story after it happened, I’d use the past tense:

They waited at the red light, and Scott worried they might miss their reservation. (Past tense)

But what I really want to convey is how the event unfolded, showing the action as it is happening:

They are sitting at Scott’s favorite booth, the one with the sparkling red plastic seats.(For how long? We don’t know, but we do know they are sitting there now.)

The waiter is standing behind the counter right now with a notepad in his hand and pencil behind his ear. (Will he ever make it over to the booth? Probably, but not now.)

“Are you waiting to open your presents after you eat your pancakes?” said Aunt Christine, taking a sip from her root beer. (Here the present continuous is being used in question form.)

From this narrative point of view, the action is immediate and continuous; there’s momentum. Sometimes writers use this tense to add suspense or humor in fictional pieces. What kind of pancakes will Scott and his aunt order? The suspense is killing me!

The Present Continuous Formula

To form the present continuous, follow this formula:

To Be [Am, Is, Are] + Verb [Present Participle]

When to Use the Present Continuous Tense

Use the present continuous tense with the appropriate “to be” verb and a dynamic verb. A dynamic verb shows action and/or process. For example,

Scott’s little sister is arriving at the diner two hours late because her roller-derby team, Chicks Ahoy, won the national championships early today. As she is walking into Polly’s Pancake Diner, she is yelling goodbye to her friends outside, and Scott hopes she doesn’t cause a scene since she is always embarrassing him in public.

When Not to Use the Present Continuous Tense

Do not use the present continuous tense with stative verbs. Stative verbs show a state of being that does not show qualities of change. These verbs can stay in the simple present. For example,

Aunt Christine is preferring the maple walnut pancakes over the banana peanut butter ones that Scott loves.

Aunt Christine prefers the maple walnut pancakes over the banana peanut butter ones that Scott loves.

Here, the stative verb to prefer shows opinion, and therefore should not be conjugated into the present continuous. Stative verb categories include emotion (to love), possession (to belong), and thoughts (to recognize), and none of these should use the present continuous form.

The Exception to the Rule

Some verbs can be both dynamic and stative! Think about the verbs to be and to think. In its dynamic form, the verb to be can show action:

Sarah, Scott’s little sister, is being bold by ordering the jalapeno-chipotle pancakes.

But in its stative form, the verb to be is awkward if conjugated in the present continuous.

Sarah is being a tall teenager, who loves her food spicy and her sports dangerous.

Sarah is a tall teenageer, who loves her food spicy and her sports dangerous.

Here are some more examples:

The waiter thinks Scott should save room for pumpkin pie. (Stative and in the simple present)

The waiter is thinking about getting a new job that requires less human interaction, like a veterinarian. (Dynamic and in the present continuous)

Idiomatic Expressions and Style

English can be confusing; what is grammatically correct isn’t always what you might hear in music, in advertisements, or during regular conversations. The present continuous is often used incorrectly. Consider the the popular slogan for McDonald’s: “I’m Lovin’ It.” This is a grammatically incorrect sentence because to love is a stative verb, so why would McDonald’s use it in their advertisements?

This marks the difference between grammar and style. Using the present continuous as a means to exaggerate is a stylistic trend, and as such, it would not be surprising to hear this conversation:

Scott, glazed with a chocolate mustache, looks over to his aunt and says, “I’m lovin’ me some of these chocolate peanut butter banana pancakes!” “I’m hearing what you’re saying!” she replies, sprinkling powdered sugar atop the stacks on her plate.

Here Scott and his Aunt display their excitement in a silly way, emphasizing their feelings. On the other hand, you would never hear a native speaker say these sentences:

Scott is loving his Aunt Christine, a self-proclaimed pancake connoisseur. (People would simply say “Scott loves his Aunt Christine . . .”)

Sarah is hearing the music from their table-top juke box and resists the urge to dance on the table. (Sarah hears the music. . .)

The Final Say

If you are teaching English or learning it, I’d recommend simply sticking to grammatically correct constructions and leaving the idiomatic expressions to the creators of advertisements and song lyrics. In formal writing, the experts recommend that when you can use fewer words to express a thought, you should, so use the present continuous sparingly—short and sweet can’t be beat!

Common Construction in the Present Continuous Tense

 

Common Dynamic Verbs that USE the Present Continuous

Common Stative Verbs that DO NOT USE the Present Continuous

The State of Writing 2016

The first sentence can’t be written until the final sentence is written. — Joyce Carol Oates

With 2016 coming to a close, Grammarly’s team of writing analysts took a look at the biggest trends in writing in English this year. And we found some fascinating results! Below are the grammar and writing trends that dominated 2016, as well as our predictions for the next year in written English.

First, we looked at where we write, and found that this has changed significantly over time! We wouldn’t have all these newfangled typing machines without a long history of making English writing faster, easier, and more efficient.

Don’t remember when the printing press was invented? Check out this blog on how we’ve written since writing became a thing.

From Pens to Keys—The Complete History of Writing Tools

Our team also looked at some “trendy” words in 2016, and related them back to linguistic traditions. Old linguistic traditions.

Don’t know why “verbing” is such a big deal, or why “tweens” are their own age group? Check out this blog on how old words are being used in new ways.

New Uses for Old Words

2016 was a rich year for the growth of writing online. The best part? Our users wrote more in 2016 than ever before! If you’d like to find out more about the best times and places write, check out this blog on writing productivity.

10 Habits Today’s Writers Share

In 2016, Grammarly checked more than 31 billion words! As we analyzed various types of writing, we found that a few different trends emerged. Check out this blog to find out which grammar mistakes ruled the year, based on our user data.

Here Are the Top 10 Grammar Mistakes of 2016

Although we saw millions of very real grammar errors, we also noticed that some grammar rules may be going out of style. Check out this blog if you want to know which rules are in danger of extinction, based on data from our users.

Which Grammar Rules Are Dying?

We also recognized that writing as a profession changed in the last year, with the ever-increasing consumption of content and the difficulty of making a living creating it. Here are some of the trends we observed in the professional writing space.

Writers on the State of Professional Writing

Slang and text speak usage continues to rise with the popularity of messaging apps on more devices, in more places. Whether grammar pedants like it or not, it appears that slang is here to stay, so we have outlined some of the most popular slang words of the year.

Here Are the Top 10 Slang Words of 2016

Want to know which trends will dominate online writing in 2017? We have three ideas about how English writing will grow and change in the next year. (Don’t panic, grammar pedants!)

3 Trends That Will Dominate English Writing in 2017