How serious are you about grammar and the technical side of writing?

[Madman Starryteller]

Do you read all the available grammar books or have a favourite and stick with that? Do you research the language with notes on advanced usage?

Or do you enjoy the craft from the education you already possess? Improvise the rest?

On my end, in the beginning of this writing journey, I kinda went all in and decided on an education in English at university (which I had to abort). I wanted to know all the ins and outs of the language I was going to use for my stories. But now I feel like I've become lazy. I just go with what I know and improvise. And hope I do not abuse the language too much.

What are the benefits of knowing the language in great detail? I mean in great-great detail, so you can deconstruct every sentence into their grammatical pieces and such.

Are there any benefits to being a more laid-back writer who may not delve deep into the technical?

How serious are you?

 

[Also]

I write and edit entirely by ear, yet I have not met an editor who is more grammatically correct. I don't care much for writing that is conspicuously correct (and likely stilted) and nothing else, and I'm perfectly willing to bend supposed rules in service of tone or authenticity.

I'm quick to adopt good innovations I see fine writers using. Examples:

"I can't." A hesitation, a flash of resolve. "I mean, I won't."

"I just..." shaking her head vaguely "... I can't bring myself to tell him that."

And for instance, there's no rule of grammar or even "rule" of style to say that if you must use an -ly adverb, it should usually go after the verb it modifies, not before. But it's a simple fact that readers ignore or heavily discount any such adverb they see before they know the verb. And it's a fact that "very" and other stale, say-nothing noise words diminish whatever they apply to rather than strengthening it.

I enjoy books like Dreyer's English, mostly because we agree on nearly everything but he states it so refreshingly. Or really just because it's so refreshing to "meet" someone who also knows the things he writes about.

I haven't taken a grammar or writing course since the 10th grade. And I don't think (or explain) in rules or grammatical vocabulary but in paradigms, the way we all originally and organically learn our native language(s). Instead, I've read tons of fine fiction that was contemporary when I read it, plus a reasonable amount of literature. They have been my teachers.

 

[Naomasa298]

Do you read all the available grammar books or have a favourite and stick with that? Do you research the language with notes on advanced usage?

No. Forgive me for saying so, and this is not meant as a criticism of you, but I'm a native English speaker (I believe you aren't? If you are, forgive me, I may be confusing you with someone else), so the way we learned English was different. I absorbed it from my surroundings, which you may have had fewer chances to do so. However, I mostly learned how to use it in writing from reading, not from class. Most of my writing is done "by ear", like @Also, not by consciously thinking about it. I'll think more carefully during editing, but not while I'm actually writing it.

 

[Trish]

Like @Also I write by sound and feel. Do I know grammar? Sure. Do I care about the specifics? Not at all. If it sounds stilted and weird, makes me trip over words, etc. it's wrong - regardless of how correct it is. Could it just be the style? Of course it can, and that's fine for others, but I have zero desire to do it. Reading is primarily what taught me to write and that works perfectly well for me.

 

[Seven Crowns]

I'm big on grammar. I have many, many books which I've read. But like everyone else has said, you don't really think about it as you write. You've already internalized the structures your voice needs. Your words had better be grammatically correct when you finish though, so it takes many careful passes to ensure the final draft doesn't sound off.

When I revise it's with a heavy hand. Almost every correction I make is to address a style error. It's not really about grammar. The revisions get to the point where I'm just trying to make the paragraph flow and and have a forward momentum. That's not really grammar either. Well. I suppose the pieces need to be grammatically nice (mostly, since style can override grammar), but it seems as if 95% of my edits are to shape an effortless voice. That's a lot of work to show no effort, haha.

I feel like everyone else does this too and just calls it "grammar." It's as if they're saying: "That's not a good sentence. It must be bad grammar." (sic: "poor" grammar, haha.) But the real problem isn't grammar at all. The pieces of the paragraph need to fit together just so. We're rewriting sentences trying to get the perfect effect, but it's not because the sentences are gramatically wrong. They just don't belong together.

 

[Madman Starryteller]

@Naomasa298
The rumours of my Swedishness are true.

I learned a lot of English by playing online games when I was a child. And now more from books as an adult.

@Seven Crowns
Interesting, it's like each author has their own grammar, also known as style, that if they don't adhere to, then things feel wrong.

 

[CatrionaGrace]

Everything after Strunk and White's Elements of Style is just commentary.

 

[Naomasa298]

Interesting, it's like each author has their own grammar, also known as style, that if they don't adhere to, then things feel wrong.

Style is more than just grammar. Grammar forms a part of it, but it's also down to your choice of vocabulary, constructs and other elements. Two sentences can be grammatically correct, have exactly the same meaning, but have completely different flavours.

 

[Louanne Learning]

The basics are important. I've read quite a bit of writing from new writers, and some don't have the basics down. I think finding out how to structure a sentence properly should be part of the learning curve. Things like dangling modifiers, comma splices, improper punctuation, sentence fragments, and not putting descriptor phrases with what's being described, for example, are marks of things still be to learned to graduate from being an amateur to a more serious writer.

 

[Trish]

The basics are important. I've read quite a bit of writing from new writers, and some don't have the basics down. I think finding out how to structure a sentence properly should be part of the learning curve. Things like dangling modifiers, comma splices, improper punctuation, sentence fragments, and not putting descriptor phrases with what's being described, for example, are marks of things still be to learned to graduate from being an amateur to a more serious writer.

Except that all of those things can arguably be used to strengthen writing when done for effect instead of in ignorance. Particularly in dialogue and thoughts. I know very few people who speak or think in perfect grammar (I'm being facetious, I actually don't know any). When it's written that way and the characterization doesn't support it that's a sign of an amateur to me.

 

[CatrionaGrace]

Most readers can tell the difference between a writer who manipulates the language for effect and a writer with an inadequate education.

Style and voice. I've listened to students excuse everything from lousy sentence structure to terrible cliches as "my voice... my style... how dare you try to tell me how to write." Um, because I'm the teacher and you signed up for my basic writing class. Angst about developing one's voice before one can write a declarative sentence is misplaced, to say the least.

Grammar, punctuation, and the technical side of writing count. Climb the learning curve or crouch at the bottom of the slope, but don't try to convince the world that a poor grasp of language mechanics is an asset.

 

[Also]

Things like dangling modifiers,

They're incredibly annoying, aren't they, and relative newbies pick them up from newscasts all the time. There's hardly a network news show that goes by without dropping several. To me, they're not like technical fouls or subtle building code violations, not about following arbitrary rules just for the sake of being [hyper]correct — they're more like open pipes ending in mid-air, unconnected to anything. They simply make no logical sense. I can understand if someone starts with one kind of sentence in mind and later changes the main part of it, forgetting to revisit the beginning. But how people write them that way from the get-go is a mystery to me.

"The kind of woman who made men stop what they were doing and turn to watch her sashay past, Jonathan considered that God had answered his most fervent prayers the day he'd missed the bus and had to sit fifteen minutes at the stop, texting Simon to begin the meeting without him, before Tina came along and asked if he could make room on the bench for her to sit beside him."

It's also annoying when someone thinks using "her something" instead of an implied "she" makes a phrase no longer dangle.

I make it as simple as possible. I say, "if you begin the sentence this way, the first word after the comma MUST be "he" or "she" — not "his" or "her" — or the character's name. It's not strictly true, but it gets the point across memorably.

 

[Also]

I've listened to students excuse everything from lousy sentence structure to terrible cliches as "my voice... my style... how dare you try to tell me how to write."

But I've always spelled hampster with a P, because that's the way I say it. Why should I change, just because you don't agree.

Uh, yes, that reason is a start.

 

[Also]

Style is more than just grammar. Grammar forms a part of it, but it's also down to your choice of vocabulary, constructs and other elements.

Indeed it's more even than linguistic elements. Style includes the kinds of things you habitually observe and mention — expressions, details of the setting, movements, distractions...

Do you bring a scene or conversation to a neat conclusion, or do you trail it off or end it abruptly? Do you even write in scenes at all?

Does one chapter lead to the next, or do you write more episodically?

Of course, this started out being about grammar, so it's natural that most of the focus on style has related to grammatical / syntactic style.

 

[JLT]

And for instance, there's no rule of grammar or even "rule" of style to say that if you must use an -ly adverb, it should usually go after the verb it modifies, not before.

Well when Shakespeare wrote "How slow this old moon wanes" he cheerfully broke that rule.

I enjoy books like Dreyer's English, mostly because we agree on nearly everything but he states it so refreshingly. Or really just because it's so refreshing to "meet" someone who also knows the things he writes about.

Dreyer has my vote as well. And Dreyer himself thought much of Emmy Favilla's A World Without Whom, even if he took issue with some of her opinions.

Which brings me to my next point:

No. Forgive me for saying so, and this is not meant as a criticism of you, but I'm a native English speaker (I believe you aren't? If you are, forgive me, I may be confusing you with someone else), so the way we learned English was different. I absorbed it from my surroundings, which you may have had fewer chances to do so.

Exactly. And what we hear may not be standard English. It may be a dialect with its own rules of grammar and syntax. African-American dialect, in particular, differs from standard English in its stress on aspect rather than tense, a concept which users of standard English find hard to grasp.

My father grew up in a family of Italian immigrants, and didn't learn to speak English until he got to public schools in Syracuse, New York. but when he got to college after World War II, he found that Syracuse University would give him full credit for a course, even if he didn't take it, if he could pass the final exam. So Dad took the test... and failed. It was then that he realized that first language he learned was not Italian but Barisi, a dialect of southeastern Italy. He had to learn standard Italian to pass it the second time he took it.

His ear for languages was excellent. When I grew up in Germany, he would point out when people were speaking not in standard German but in the Hessian dialect of Frankfurt am Main, where we lived. (I must admit that the German I learned to speak could best be described as "Straßdeutsch" or "Street German" which was a sort of pidgin German that was spoken by a number of immigrants to Germany. I associated with a number of Italian and Turkish and Eastern European workers at the time, and this was how we communicated.)

 

[Naomasa298]

My father grew up in a family of Italian immigrants, and didn't learn to speak English until he got to public schools in Syracuse, New York. but when he got to college after World War II, he found that Syracuse University would give him full credit for a course, even if he didn't take it, if he could pass the final exam. So Dad took the test... and failed. It was then that he realized that first language he learned was not Italian but Barisi, a dialect of southeastern Italy. He had to learn standard Italian to pass it the second time he took it.

Reminds me of one of my Japanese teachers who had learned her Japanese in Osaka, so she had a distinct Osakan stress on syllables and often lapsed into the dialect. Osakan is an accent and dialect strongly associated with comedy - had I continued with her, I might have ended up sounding like a hick.

She gave up teaching when she fell pregnant after our second lesson. No, that wasn't my fault.

 

[Also]

Osakan is an accent and dialect strongly associated with comedy - had I continued with her, I might have ended up sounding like a hick.

Or a stand-up comedian?

 

[JLT]

Osakan is an accent and dialect strongly associated with comedy

Sort of like the Cockney accent and dialect in British English. Or the "hillbilly" dialect in American English (think of Jim Nabors's Gomer Pyle character).

 

[Naomasa298]

Sort of like the Cockney accent and dialect in British English. Or the "hillbilly" dialect in American English (think of Jim Nabors's Gomer Pyle character).

More like the farmer/pirate/Black Country accent, I think.

Or Austrian accent to a German (which was, apparently, the reason Schwarznegger wasn't dubbed in the German version of Terminator by Arnie himself).