Portfolio Advice

A. In dialogue two things:
1. Limit your adverbs. Avoid the use of 'well', 'oh', 'um', 'so', 'yeah', etc. These words don't mean anything when used to begin a line of dialogue and can be removed.
2. Here's the rule about dialogue punctuation: learn it!

• If you use a dialogue tag you need a comma where you would otherwise put a period.
• "Yes, it looks like this," said the teacher. OR "Yes, it looks like this," the teacher said.
• If you use a question mark, stating ASKED in your tag is redundant.
• If the dialogue is said a certain way by your character, you MAY use a tag in the front of the line to indicate to the reader the nuance or subtext of the line. This is optional, though. 
• Surprise in his voice, Jonny said, "This is what I'm saying!"

B. A hyphen is used to join two nouns (such as the word 'em-dash' or 'two-toned' or 'time-keeping'). A dash (em-dash) is typed as two hyphens. They mean something different, so don't confuse the two.

C. Many of you overuse participles phrases. Participles are verbs that describe actions that are on-going or continuing into the future. Here are just a few examples:

breaking, riding, sparing, snarling, grinning, smirking, glaring, booming, yelling, screaming, shouting, shattering, dancing, sleeping, living, dying, leaving, coming, baking, sewing, watching, drawing, speaking, smiling, whispering, mewing, barking, snorting, chirping, bringing, giving, moving, staying, renting, buying, knowing, snooping, stalking, begging, trying, creating, designing, marketing, reporting, drumming, looking, having, getting, complaining, crossing, busing, featuring, ending, beginning, stopping, starting, repairing, restarting, turning, changing, becoming, transforming, landing, looking, seeing, going, gripping, walking, running, working, jumping, hopping, eating, staring, mowing, pulling, sowing, writing, making, laughing, scratching, ripping, licking, sucking, typing, pushing, bowling, skipping, scanning, climbing, playing, sprinting, snowing, throwing, hitting, drinking... etc.

When you tack them onto sentences, they can provide detail:

• Snarling like a wolf, the boy bit through the steak in two chomps. 
• Putting on her jeans, she sucked in her gut.
• The water swirled around him; he was running out of breath.

If you use too many of these, you reduce the effectiveness of an action, and often create run-on sentences:

• Laughing until his sides burst, hiding behind the wardrobe, his panting long and laborious, he was sneaking a peak at the other boys and girls who were smiling and playing in the hallway, enjoying their conversation and snickering.

See? Too much!

Just like commas, a little goes a long way. Try to reduce participles to one or two at the most in a sentence. Using them in your writing too often is annoying and distracting. Okay, writing is a GERUND, but you get the idea.