In (questionable) honor of grammar trolls.

www.grammarly.com

Alert hearth/myth readers will notice that I'm posting a day early this week. That's because today, March 4th, is National Grammar Day, and I promised the fine folks at Grammarly that I would give y'all a heads-up about it.

The topic for this year's observance is the grammar troll, as you can see by the graphic at the left.

If you've spent any time at all on social media, you've seen them: those all-knowing jerks who spring into action whenever they spot someone using to when they meant too. Or their when they meant they're. Or...well, you get the idea. It's embarrassing enough to be corrected in public, but the grammar troll kicks the correction up a notch by making sure you feel like an idiot.

The thing is, a lot of times trolls don't know grammar rules half as well as they think they do. For instance, there's no actual rule that prohibits a sentence from ending with a preposition. I know, I know -- you learned it in school, so it must be true. Except it's not. This so-called rule is a holdover from Latin grammar, and it doesn't really work in English. Consider this example:

Me (looking at the bottom of my shoe): "Eww!"
You (attempting to speak "correctly"): "In what did you step?"
Me (looking at you funnier than I just looked at the bottom of my shoe): ...

Yeah. Doesn't really work.

I attracted a grammar troll on Facebook a few years ago. Well, technically, I guess he was a punctuation troll. Another author had challenged me to post a few paragraphs from my current work-in-progress -- you know, one of those "turn to page 7 and post 7 lines starting on the 7th line down" exercises. I don't remember what the rules of the challenge were, and anyway, it doesn't matter for the purposes of this story. I duly went to my WIP -- a first draft which, as writers know, is often full of half-readable stuff that's pounded into shape during the editing process -- and copy-and-pasted the requisite number of lines to my Facebook page. And a fellow I barely knew took me to task for a misplaced comma. The sentence looked fine to me; it looked fine to a number of other authors, some of whom are professional editors (as am I, by the way); but this guy was sure he was right. He was, in fact, so sure he was right that he began insulting the people who disagreed with him -- especially when it became apparent that he had no professional writing or editing credentials and yet he kept arguing with us.

I ended up recasting the sentence in the final draft for other reasons. As for the troll, I booted him off my timeline. It's one thing to inquire politely after a perceived grammar or spelling infraction, and quite another to become insulting and abrasive in the process.

So a word to the wise on this National Grammar Day: If you're going to correct someone's grammar/punctuation/spelling, be kind. But first, make sure you're right.

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These moments of imperfect blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

"Use adverbs sparingly," she advised editorially.

This coming Wednesday, March 4th, is National Grammar Day, so I thought I’d celebrate by writing a post about grammar. Although it’s not really about grammar. It’s about one of those rules for good writing.

I learned a lot of writing rules back in broadcast journalism school: write short, uncomplicated sentences; don’t put more than twenty words in a sentence; write in present tense; don’t use the word “yesterday,” lest your listeners think you’re running old news; and on and on.

These particular rules are pretty much useless for fiction writing. Most novelists don’t write in present tense (although I hear it’s a thing in some circles) and nobody cares whether you mention “yesterday” in your novel or not. But among the rules that have stuck with me is this: Don’t use adverbs.

As I’m sure you know, adverbs are modifiers. Whereas adjectives modify nouns and pronouns, adverbs modify verbs (and adjectives, and sometimes other adverbs). Adverbs come in many flavors, including in conjunction with other words in adverbial phrases and clauses. But your garden-variety adverb is easy to spot: it’s an adjective with –ly tacked onto the end.

Right about now, you’re probably saying, “But why such prejudice against the poor adverb, Lynne? It never did anything bad to anybody, did it?”

Well, no. But it’s weak. If you dropped that adverb and used a different verb, your sentence would be stronger. Let me show you what I mean. Let’s say you wrote this:

Fred moved quickly across the field.

That’s an okay sentence, as far as it goes. But how did Fred move quickly? Let’s look at a few possibilities:

Fred hurried across the field.
Fred darted across the field.
Fred streaked across the field.
Fred galloped across the field.
Fred careened across the field.

See the difference? In each of these sentences, Fred is still moving quickly. But depending on the verb you choose, your reader will draw a slightly different – and more descriptive – picture.

Sometimes in writing fiction, though, you don’t want your verb to quite so obvious about pulling the action along. Sometimes you want your verb to fade into the background. Yes, I’m talking about dialogue tags.

Some people just hate the word said. It grates on them. The repetition makes them crazy. If you’re one of those people, I apologize, because I believe said and its cousin asked are critical tools in any fiction writer’s toolbox.

If you use strong verbs for dialogue tags, you run the risk of taking attention away from the dialogue. Plus, it’s too easy to stray into the hyperbolic (ranted? cajoled?) or the physically impossible (I’m sorry, but nobody can shriek through an entire sentence).

But if you’re going to use plain-vanilla verbs in your dialogue tags, you need to do something else to give context to your characters’ words. You can describe their body language – crossing their arms, tapping their feet, looking away, and so on. Or you can describe what they’re doing as they’re talking – peeling a label off of a beer bottle, making an omelet, cutting flowers for a bouquet. Or you can use an adverb:

“Is Fred going to be all right?” Sadie asked hopefully.

“He’ll be fine,” the doctor said briskly. “Just don’t let him careen into any more fences.”

I wouldn’t go overboard on putting –ly words in dialogue tags; I’d use them sparingly, and intersperse them with the other methods I mentioned. But my point is that adverbs do have a place in fiction writing. Just not a huge one. And do take care that you don’t stray into Tom Swifty territory with them – unless, of course, you want to.

Happy National Grammar Day!

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(This post was originally published at Indies Unlimited.)

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These moments of Tom Swifty blogginess have been brought to you, as public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

Punctuating dialogue.

Two bits of business before we start:

1. I'm honored once again to have one of my books nominated for a Big Al's Books and Pals Readers' Choice Award. Tapped: Book Three of the Pipe Woman Chronicles is up for the award in the category of Fantasy this year. As the name of the award implies, there's a popular-vote component. Coincidentally, voting opened today -- and there are prizes in it for you!  If you're reading these words, would you please click here and vote for my book? (Rafflecopter gets testy with Internet Explorer, so if you have another browser available, it's best to use that one.) A number of other nominated books -- many of them Rursday Reads -- are also worthy of your vote. I'd like to draw your attention in particular to Laurie Boris's Sliding Past Vertical, K.S. Brooks's Night Undone, Carol Wyer's Just Add Spice, D.V. Berkom's Yucatan Dead, and the Brooks/Hise/Mader humor pastiche called Bad Book. Consider giving them a little love while you're at it. Then come on back. I'll wait. And thanks!

2.  Keep an eye on your inbox (or spam filter -- I have no illusions) for a newsletter from me. There's info about the Undertow launch and a special feature or two. I'll be putting most of it on the blog eventually, but newsletter recipients will get it first. Not on my mailing list yet? That's easy enough to remedy -- just head on over to the left and sign up.

Now then. In advance of National Grammar Day, which is coming up on Tuesday, I offer you this post that I wrote for Indies Unlimited. I'm re-running it because the topic keeps coming up -- mainly, I suspect, because schools don't bother to teach this stuff any more. (Don't get me started.)

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“There was something I was going to write about for my Indies Unlimited post this week,” I said to my daughter Kat. “Do you remember what it was?”

“Hmm. Maybe it was punctuation in dialogue,” she said.

“You’re right!” I said. “You were saying that your teachers never went over it in school.”

“Yeah,” she said. “We concentrated on learning the rules for writing essays, because that’s what kids need to know to pass the state-mandated tests.”

I interjected, “Which the kids need to do so the teachers can keep their jobs.”

“Exactly. And there’s no dialogue in an essay.”

“Gotcha,” I said. “So here’s how I think of it. Dialogue is a sentence inside a sentence.”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” she said. “I think you’ll need to give some examples.”

“I was just about to,” I replied. “Let’s use the phrase, ‘do you remember when.’”

She shrugged. “Sure. Whatever.”

“If you’re asking a question, the question mark goes inside the quotes: Do you remember when?” I said. “Same for an exclamation mark: I do remember when!”

“But what if the sentence inside the quotes ends with a period?” she asked.

“That’s a little trickier,” I said.

“I knew this was going to get complicated,” she muttered.

“Nah, it’s not that hard,” I said. “You just have to watch where your attribution is.”

“Your what?”

“Your ‘she said’ or ‘he said.’ If the attribution comes after the end of the sentence, like I’m doing right now, then you replace the period at the end of the sentence with a comma,” I explained. “And the comma stays inside the quotation marks.”

Then I said, “But if the attribution comes first, like in this paragraph, then the sentence inside the quotes gets a period at the end. And just like with the comma, the period goes inside the quotes.”

“And if there’s no attribution?”

“The stuff inside the quotes gets a period – like this.”

“Hmm.”

“And if,” I said, “your attribution comes in the middle of a sentence, you need to put a comma before the first close-quote mark.”

“I think I get all that,” she said. “But it’s punctuating the attribution that seems to trip up a lot of people.”

“That’s because they’re not thinking of dialogue as a sentence within a sentence,” I said. “The attribution frames the quote – it’s all one sentence. I’ve seen what you’re talking about, too; they hang the ‘he said’ or ‘she said’ out there as a separate sentence.”

“Yes, like this.” She said.

I said. “Or like this. But it’s wrong. You need to use a comma to tie the quote and the attribution together.”

“Okay. But there are times when you can end a quote without tying it into the next sentence.” She smirked at me.

“Wipe that smirk off your face, missy,” I said. “That second sentence of yours isn’t attribution – it’s a stage direction!”

“Yes!” she cried. “And now let’s talk about a pet peeve of mine, and it’s something I’ve caught you doing.”

“Oh,” I groaned, “I know where this is going.”

“See? See? You just did it again!” she crowed. “There is no way you could have groaned through that whole sentence!”

I hung my head in shame. “You’re absolutely right,” I said. “I should have put a period after ‘groaned’. That’s another reason why ‘said’ is the safest verb to use for attribution. It sure is a good thing you’re one of my beta readers, huh?”

"It's a good thing for you, yeah," she said, smirking.

(This post originally appeared at Indies Unlimited on September 13, 2013. Happy National Grammar Day!)

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These moments of bloggy dialogue are brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell

Between you and me, grammar matters.

First, a couple of bits of housekeeping: You'll notice a new book cover added to the slide show on the left, and a new video trailer on the Book Trailers page.  Yes, the clock is ticking down for publication of Gravid.  We appear to be on track for the scheduled release on March 20th -- which is also the first day of spring.  I expect there will be a contest involved again, although it won't be a three-week extravaganza because, oh haha, I'd have to start it this week and I'm not ready.  Anyway, stay tuned for more details.

Also, Read an Ebook Week starts today, and in observance of the week, all my titles at Smashwords are discounted.  Seized, in fact, is free.  Feel free to send your friends and neighbors to my Smashwords author page -- or, heck, head over to Smashwords and pick up a book for yourself.  I know for a fact that at least one of my Rursday Reads books is on sale. (Hint: it's Drawing Breath by Laurie Boris, and it's free!)

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If ever a genie wants to grant me three wishes, I am all set.  First, I would wish to always stay at the perfect weight, no matter how much I ate.  Next, I would wish for financial security, so that I could quit my day job and never have to take another one.  And my third wish would be for Amazon and Smashwords to insist that every indie title be vetted by a competent proofreader before they will publish it.

I admit it:  I’m picky about this stuff.  It’s probably because I internalized grammar and spelling rules early. Please don’t hurt me, but I was one of those annoying kids in school who always got good grades on her English papers.  I was a spelling whiz, too.  One of my college journalism professors gave his classes a test on commonly-misspelled words at the beginning each semester. I had two classes with him, so I had to take the test twice.  When I aced the thing for the second time, he wrote on my paper, “People in radio don’t need to know how to spell!”  I’m still not sure whether he was trying to recruit me for the student newspaper.  (If so, it’s clear that he never saw my grade in photography.)

Anyway, my point is that sometimes these days, reading is almost painful for me.  Writers drop so many commas that someone needs to start a home for orphaned subordinate clauses.   Writers also use bad grammar or the wrong words – many times without realizing what they’ve done.  

Sometimes, the result is really sad.  I happened to look at some of the posts on the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards discussion boards after the first round of cuts this year.  Submissions in the first round are judged not on the book itself, but on the pitch – the advertising copy, if you will, that goes on the back cover of a paperback and in the “book description” of an e-book listing.  It’s also sometimes called a blurb.  In one of the discussion threads, some of those who didn’t win had posted their pitches for critiques.  Should they cut the sentence at the top?  Maybe move paragraphs around? But to me, it was clear what was wrong, and it wasn’t anything that moving the furniture would cure.  One poster’s pitch had her main character quitting her job to “attend” to her ill husband; the verb she wanted was “tend.”  Another pitch included a sentence whose syntax was so mangled that I couldn’t tell who was doing what with whom – nor, I suspect, could the ABNA judges.

What’s so sad is that these authors didn’t know they were doomed.  An e-book is judged not only by its cover, but by its blurb.  Your blurb must be perfect.  It’s your potential readers’ first opportunity to see your writing.  If what they see is that you can’t write a couple of paragraphs without a mistake, they will pass you by.

Indie authors already face an uphill battle for respect.  Granted, the hill has recently begun to level out, but for goodness’ sake, don’t make things any harder on yourself.  Don’t just rely on Word’s spell checker and grammar checker.  Look stuff up if you’re not sure.  Alert readers of this blog know that one of my go-to grammar sources is Grammar Girl.  I like her site because she's very clear about when something is a rule and when it's simply a style choice.  Sometimes my "rules" turn out to be style choices, which annoys me.  But still, it's good to know. 

Grammar Girl sponsors National Grammar Day, which this year is tomorrow, March fourth.  How about if we all agree to observe the day by checking and double-checking everything we write for errors, and by recruiting competent proofreaders to back us up?  

I can’t tell you how happy that would make me. I’d really rather spend my third wish on a hot guy.

This post appeared, in a slightly different form, on IndiesUnlimited.com on March 1, 2013.

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These moments of bloggy writing precision have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.