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

[Naomasa298]

The biggest thing I notice about a lot of writing is not whether the grammar is correct, but whether the dialogue sounds natural and native. So it is related to grammar, but not everyone speaks correctly. So when I hear "If you would have done this", it grates, but it is believable that someone would say it. I can even just about, through gritted teeth, allow "could/should/would of" in *dialogue*. Not in the narrative, except maybe, just maybe, in first person POV. Just don't do it if your character is a pirate, yarr.

 

[Homer Potvin]

I fall on the side of if you don't practice competent grammar you sound like an idiot and your writing most likely sucks.

 

[Dante Dases]

The biggest thing I notice about a lot of writing is not whether the grammar is correct, but whether the dialogue sounds natural and native. So it is related to grammar, but not everyone speaks correctly. So when I hear "If you would have done this", it grates, but it is believable that someone would say it. I can even just about, through gritted teeth, allow "could/should/would of" in *dialogue*. Not in the narrative, except maybe, just maybe, in first person POV. Just don't do it if your character is a pirate, yarr.

Dialogue is a killer for grammar, both in written works and in real-life. I come at it from a teaching perspective. You shouldn't write the way you speak, as a rule, and this is something which causes endless stress in a classroom. This is particularly true on full sentences and pronouns. We're using various strategies to combat the general literacy weaknesses seen as a result of covid disruption - I really enjoy using kernels of sentences and expanding them as a pedagogical method which encourages better writing - but some issues will always remain. You might say a thing one way, as I will remind my students, but when it comes to writing it down it's a quite different matter. It means that dialogue should always buck the general trend. You may have a writing voice, but your characters should also have individual, identifiable voices portrayed through dialogue.

I have to confess: my grammatical knowledge is limited at best. If someone came up to me and told me I'd used a dangling modifier, I'd blink at them owlishly for a second and then ask them whether they've had something to drink. Don't ask me about fronted adverbials. Don't ask me the actual rules of writing. As has been said, I'm a native English speaker and reader. I've imbibed rules of good grammar without necessarily being explicitly instructed in them and being able to name them. Linguistic osmosis and exposure to a vast array of writing has given me what I hope is a good sense of what is right and wrong. When speaking like Yoda you are, notice I do. And the same goes for mixing tenses.

Rigid conformity to the rules is fine in technical writing. I will add that rigid conformity to the rules in more creative pursuits can stunt the writing itself. I think that's one of the reasons I've never learned the rules of grammar in full: as someone with autism, breaking the rules is near-impossible and I don't want to lose my love of wordplay, messing about with phrasing, and toying with acceptable grammar.

 

[THUNDAIR]

When i critique, I hardly ever correct grammar for grammar's sake. I will read it out loud and give it some thought in context to see if it makes sense. Of Mice and Men, ... is a good book for dialog and grammar.

 

[Also]

I have to confess: my grammatical knowledge is limited at best. If someone came up to me and told me I'd used a dangling modifier, I'd blink at them owlishly for a second and then ask them whether they've had something to drink. Don't ask me about fronted adverbials. Don't ask me the actual rules of writing. As has been said, I'm a native English speaker and reader. I've imbibed rules of good grammar without necessarily being explicitly instructed in them and being able to name them. Linguistic osmosis and exposure to a vast array of writing has given me what I hope is a good sense of what is right and wrong. When speaking like Yoda you are, notice I do. And the same goes for mixing tenses.

So use a good editor — not a schoolmarm type, just one who'll keep you from embarrassing yourself while keeping you sounding like yourself.

 

[JLT]

Note that if your character is narrating the piece, it's important that the piece use that character's dialect, to give a certain flavor to the description. Tom Berger did this masterfully in Little Big Man, where the main character, raised on the American frontier in the nineteenth century, uses the dialect of the English he would have learned. (The "preface" is written by a more scholarly gentleman in painfully proper English, who apologizes for the coarse speech of the main character.)

But the writer can be on perilous ground here by overdoing it to the point where it interferes with the flow of the narrative. I try to give just enough to add that flavor without overpowering the reader's patience. Kind of like chili powder in a Mexican dish: adding too much won't make it "more Mexican," it will just make it unpalatable.

One more thing: I think I've posted it before, but Mark Twain's comments on dialect in Huckleberry Finn bear repeating:

"In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary “Pike County” dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.

"I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding."

 

[alzie]

Oh for God's sake...just tell the story. You are the master of grammar in your tale.

 

[defaux]

I fall on the side of if you don't practice competent grammar you sound like an idiot and your writing most likely sucks.

I tend instinctively towards this too. If a piece of writing is riddled with technical issues, grammatical or otherwise, or is unable to string a coherent sentence together, I assume it is low quality.

That said, if it demonstrates proficiency and readability, I will readily accept what might be considered stylistic breaking of rules. The rules themselves are less important to me than the effects they afford - that being, understanding the text.

Personally, I try to be as technically correct as possible, however I do play with stylistic misuse of certain things for effect, sometimes. Sometimes it is just a mistake. I'm also a repeat offender of the comma splice. And fragment sentences - though I think in modern writing this tends to be largely forgiven, for voice.

 

[Louanne Learning]

If you are consistent in the proper usage of the language, it makes it easier for the reader to follow along. This is important to me.

 

[Homer Potvin]

stylistic breaking of rules

For sure. That's totally different. Have to know the rules to break the rules.

 

[Naomasa298]

I avoid the use of nouns as verbs. So no burglari(z)ing, homiciding etc. That's my commitmentisation.

 

[Masonic Mallam]

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

So you didn't made her pregnant. Got it.

 

[Naomasa298]

So you didn't made her pregnant. Got it.

I didn't make her pregnant, no.

 

[JT Woody]

How serious are you?

not really at all.
I've gotten way too sloppy over the years... especially on here and in my writing. I call it a bad side affect of grad school. Having to be "on" all the time and remember all of it!
Writing has always been my outlet. Where i didnt have to really think about being technical. Where i could just write and not feel like im being graded.

When I joined the OG writing forum, i was in grad school. and I feel like there was a significant difference in how i typed than there is now. I just dont care anymore lol.

But i know it makes going back and editing my stuff really hard because there is so much of the technical stuff that needs to be addressed that i've saved all for the end. and even then, i miss a ton of stuff.