Unintended meanings are mood-killers. This is as true on the page as is it is in life: you say one thing, your listener hears another, and trouble soon follows. They heard every word you said, and accurately too—but they took those words to mean something very different from what you intended.

Consider the following passage:

“His eyes bounced between Teddy, Mandy, the girl, the geologist, then back to Franklin.” Read literally, this tells us that “his eyes” are flying around the room, bouncing between characters like a pinball between posts. And while it’s true that very few readers are going to take this figure-of-speech sentence literally, many will nonetheless read it the wrong way. When they do, one of two things will happen: they will stop, go back, and read it again to clarify—or they will laugh. The first reaction is never good; it “breaks” the read and kills momentum. In a work not intended to be comedic, the second reaction is also not-good.

Newbie to Twitter? Writing books for kids or young adults? Here are five easy steps to jumpstart your use of Twitter:

1. Join.

I recommend using a real name if possible. Or a pen name if you use one. It's your brand, right?

2. Personalize.

Write a snappy 160 character bio. Link to a website or blog. Use a photo of your real head. If published, upload a .jpg of your most recent book as your background. Don't tile if it gets headachey. If not published, upload a .jpg of something bookish, artsy, or representative of you, either from your own photos or something you find via Creative Commons.