Author:
Blog About:
Once again I've noted a couple of frequent grammatical errors in stories and thought I should try to help folks avoid them.
First off we have the "[person] and [pronoun]" construct.
For example "Shelly and I went to the store" or "The boys threw something at Shelly and me".
Note that the [person] always goes first. But getting that backwards is a minor error. More common (and jarring) is using the wrong form of the pronoun. In the above examples, that would be: "Me and Shelly went to the store" or "The boys threw something at Shelly and I".
There's amazingly simple rule to figure out which form of the pronoun to use. Simply drop the [person] and the "and". Choosing between "I went to the store" and "me went to the store" is a lot easier.
Likewise for "The boys threw something at me" versus "the boys threw something at I".
The second one I'm seeing a lot of is confusing "passed" and "past".
"Passed" is the past tense of the verb "pass". "Past" is a location in space or time.
So you passed the other car while driving. But you drove *past* it.
In the first case the action is "passing". But in the second, the action is *driving*, and past is *where* you drove.
Likewise you drove past Joe's house (as opposed to driving *to* his house or away from his house).
Hope these tips help.
Comments
One thing to remember about grammatical rules
Is that they can and should be broken during a character's dialogue if in fact the character's speaking voice would normally use that style of 'bad' grammar.
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
One large problem with that
One large problem with that is that people think that _bad spelling_ is necessary for a character's dialogue. It isn't, unless you're mangling a word to try to get the right pronunciation, or your 'dialogue' is what the character is doing. (If you're doing first person POV, and that's how the character would spell things, in a journal, for example.)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
I agree that spelling and grammar are important
There is a very big but here.
As far as I know, NONE of the authors here who share their work with the world are professional writers. Very, very few of them have serious problems with spelling, grammar, or word choice.
IMHO the story and how it is told is far more important than making sure that our writing meets the standards established in Strunk's Elements of Style. As long as we know what the author is trying to tell us, isn't that more important.
Everyone should keep in mind that the stories offered here are free. If we were paying for these stories, I think that we could expect perfect writing. As far as I am concerned, I am very thankful for the stories I find here.
This is advice, not shaming
You don't have to be a professional writer to get it right. Heck, *pros* make mistakes, too. That's why they have editors and proofreaders at the publisher.
But grammar errors can jolt a reader out of the story. So can spelling errors. Getting it right is a way to avoid distracting ther reader from the story.
BTW, several writers on here *are* professionals. At least by the usual standard of "people will pay for their work". Or have you missed the ads for Amazon and Doppler Press, etc?
Even the a lot of the non-pros use editors and proofreaders. Volunteers, true. But they still use them.
I'm not trying to shame anybody. I'm just putting tips out here so their writing less likely to distract readers from their *stories*.
Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks
Very True
I was actually agreeing with you, but also pointing out that when many are speaking, proper English is rarely used. Depending on the background, level of schooling attained and the area in which the person is from, English can sometimes sound like another language.
A great example of this was when I was in military bootcamp.
While I grew up in southern Florida, my family moved us back to my parents original home when my father retired. This was deep in the smoky mountains. It took a bit of time but I got used to the dialect and slang used.
In boot camp there was one other boy from those mountains and unlike me he had never stepped foot out of them prior to joining the military. Our drill instructor couldn't understand a word the boy was saying and used to have me translate for him.
While we should never write our character's dialogue so mispelled that the reader can not understand it, using words like 'yer' in place of your or you're for a character from the deep south helps paint the character in the reader's imagination. Other words like yo'uns, y'all, w'all, young'uns, are more often heard in the deep south than the correct counterparts.
Although when you get into the totally butchered slang words you need to tread carefully. If my character was talking about "Haints" in a story you would have no idea he or she was speaking about ghosts without another character or narrative foretelling that fact.
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
Mostly Correct
Example related to "Haints" and ghosts: In "The Song of the South," the very first time Br'er Rabbit greets Br'er Bear as "Brother Bear".
About words like "yer" for "your" or "you're", or "uv" for "of", or "wimmin" for "women": those are dirty tricks. Those are reasonable standard pronunciations of the words, written out phonetically to make the speaker sound like a bumpkin.
I assume readers and writers here know the standard pronunciation of "victuals". (Compare with "critter" for "creature".)
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
Poor writing habbits.
While I do agree there is a time for proper pronouns, pronunciation and so forth, many of the misplaced, misspelled words are placed not in the sentences of speech, but in the story itself.
And while many are not professional writers and so forth, where do you stop using the excuse that this is a non-profit site for those wanting to tell stories. Yes we can politely tell others where mistakes are but many tell others 'Oh what a lovely story' or 'This story was marvelous' but don't want to point out the mistakes of misspells and so forth.
To me it's like giving out an award for just showing up. You don't learn nothing but praise for just showing up. Yes, I know I'm not perfect in my stories in both grammar or spelling, but as I continue to write I 'need' to put more work in the editing process and so forth and so should others else they learn nothing but how to tell mediocre stories that turn off potential readers as they can't or wont' get past the more common errors.
I, as with any other writer, need to step up my game of better writing instead of wanting to instantly publish because I think its ready for prime time.
Not everyone is a professional, but as any teacher teaching a student in wanting to not just write but progress, they need to put in just as much of an effort to learn structure as well as gain better writing skills as with word structures.
I don't expect a person raised with a 4th grade education to write Shakespeare, I hope they learn from previous writing to expand on their writing skills.
True enough. But it helps to
True enough. But it helps to know the "right" way.
If you do, then your mistakes will be *deliberate* ones.
It's a similar thing with actual facts. *You* may know that Paris is in France. But a character may think it's in Spain. And say so.
Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks
perfect!
I think you could not have said that better Brooke!
Yes it is very important to know the correct way! Mistakes should be intentional.
Oh and please keep the tips coming, even if some of us already know them a reminder is always welcome!
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
I get involved with SF a lot
I get involved with SF a lot (I'm a beta reader for one published author) and one bit of advice I have to give other folks a lot is that you need to either know the science or have someone check it for you so that you only break the laws of physics when you *intend* to.
That way, if you do something that violates the laws of physics, the readers can properly expect there to be an explanation somewhere down the track. As opposed to eagerly waiting to find out how it was done only to find that the author didn't know any better.
An interesting example from a fantasy story (yes, science can matter in those too). The author had a half-moon rising *at sunset*. A half moon is because the moon is 90 degrees ahead or behind the sun. So it *can't* be a half moon if the sun is setting. Has to be full or nearly full.
It's the little things that'll trip you up. :-)
This kinda thing is why a lot of writers have tons of background that may never show up in a story, but is *necessary* so that they can keep things consistent if the characters decide to drag the story off on a tangent.
Heck, I'm trying to draw up a floorplan for that "fort" in my Finders Keepers stories. Why? Because I suddenly realized that it was likely to be an issue a bit farther down the road.
But the reader likely won't see any of that other than maybe a mention of something being off to the right or left at some point.
Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks
Language and history
I've been inventing a language and history for my world in Bian. It's part of the fun of doing the story but a lot of the history is not going to matter to anyone in the story, but I need to know it so I know how things got the way they are.
Like, there's mentioned the Yezite Empire and the city of Yezbuul and a hint is dropped that Yezbuul is where Constantinople/Istanbul/Byzantium would be in our world. But it's only a peripheral fact, the characters are not going to go to Yezbuul. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
This Happens Often
Science fiction writers like to throw in jargon, regardless of its need, and regardless of its meaning. One can read certain things that seriously yank one out of the story. If the story is written in first-person, or third-person limited, one can sometimes justify it as ignorance on the part of the viewpoint character -- but only sometimes. Hopefully, one can distinguish between the viewpoint character's ignorance and the author's ignorance.
I've heard of things such as "north-south geosynchronous orbit", an "inverse square" force that gets stronger as one gets farther from the source, dodging laser beams, many other things. I remember reading a story that speculated about the cause of a certain global transformation. The possible causes were things with no evidence of actually having occurred.
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
Improper grammar is sometimes a writers tool.
Improper grammar can be used within dialog to make it more realistic. Even people who know "proper" grammar do not always use it in everyday speech.
_Bev_
priorities
If the boys is throw some things at Shelly and you I say you got more bigger problem then grammer
What borders on stupidity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
it's a joke, son
feller's about as sharp as a bagful of hammers :)
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
I happen to be one of the unfortunate
ones to whom improper spelling, when done unintentionally, can take me right out of a story... sometimes to the extent that I have to stop reading. I can tell, most of the time though, when it's done intentionally as opposed to unintentionally.
I proofread and "edit" occasionally for a few writers. When I say "edit" I mean that I go through a story, word for word, correcting mispellings as I find them. I never alter or attempt to alter anything as regards character, plots, or content... only mispellings catch my eye.
I don't pretend to be perfect, and I don't expect anyone else to be perfect. Almost all of us are amateurs, or semi-professionals at best. There are, however, some common errors that should never be done.
Heels for heals... waste for waist... collage for college... my latest find, virginia for vagina... gentiles for genitals... crouch for crotch... cloths for clothes... breath for breathe All of those can completely alter the meaning of a sentence and thus, the story.
Allowing for regional differences doesn't bother me so much. Was/were, is/are, etc, are the ones which pop up all the time and knowing for whom I am proofing, I can spot them easily and either correct them, or ignore them if the author is using colloquialisms.
What drives me up a wall though, are the words which are difficult to spell, but easily corrected by using a dictionary. Typos are one thing. Spelling a word incorrectly without checking it by looking it up if one is unsure their spelling is correct is a whole different fettle of kish.
When I write, I try my very best to be certain my spelling and usages are correct, but as I stated above, I am not perfect... no one is. In point of fact, when I used the word colloquialisms above, I had to look up the correct spelling only to find that I hadn't spelled it correctly.
Speaking only for myself, I feel that if I spell correctly, it points out that I care about how I am thought of intellectually by my readers. YMMV!
SPELL CHECKERS ARE NOT ALWAYS CORRECT! and neither am I.
Catherine Linda Michel
As a T-woman, I do have a Y chromosome... it's just in cursive, pink script.
yeah
Wot she said
Madeline Anafrid Bell