Govinda's Guide to Grammar, Punctuation and Other Stuff

[Govinda]

Because this has been pissing me off.

Section One: The Basics

Here is how we format dialogue:

Commonly used wrong way of doing it: "I'd like to pick up my new boots please", said Mary.

How it is in books: "I'd like to pick up my new boots please," said Mary.

Or, if you want to stop in the middle of a sentence:

"I'd like to pick up my new boots please," said Mary, looking at her watch. "Oh no!" she exclaimed, grabbing her bag. "Forget the boots, sorry, I really have to go! Sorry," she muttered, scuttling to the door.

Brackets work like this:

She turned to the door (which had since been replaced by Jack) and sighed. It would be a long time before anyone told her how it had happened (she always felt left out).

Colons, Semi-Colons and Hyphens

A colon (one of these : but you knew that) is used to expand on a point directly, or in ye olde Englishe, to make a list of some kind. It is more commonly found in non-fiction.

'The features of the modern housecat include:
Fur
Four legs
A tail.'

Or, we can bring the semi-colon in there. The semi-colon is more commonly used in prose and fiction to expand a point.

He read the back of the packet skeptically. "The features of the modern housecat include: fur; four legs; a tail."

However, the semi-colon can do much cooler things than that. It is probably the single most useful piece of punctuation available to someone writing prose beyond old classics like 'the comma' and 'apostrophes'. The semi-colon can let you get all stylistic and sexy.

He was walking towards Central Station, by way of St Enoch Square. He knew he was quite close to it; he could see the taller, newer buildings with too few lights in their square windows standing like teenaged guardians over the railway bridge, just as he could hear the inhabitants of that same railway bridge clacking their way towards the South, their slim little lights snaking along, intersecting one another, in and out, the perfect harmony of machinery; trains never bump into one another unless we make them, he thought, they never throw coffee over other trains that they've never met before by accident.

Look at that massive sentence! Whoo boy. All made legtimate by the inclusion of a few semi-colons. Now, don't go chucking them in everywhere and replacing commas with them. They are special weapons to be used wisely. Your own voice and the pace of that voice will guide you. When writing, if you find yourself stopping for a moment to explain something to yourself, explain it to us with a nice little semi-colon. You might even get poetic, who knows. Used right they can speed up or slow down anything you do with far more style than a comma ever could.

Section Two: Crappy Prose and What It Means

Ever get to sentences that make your eyes cross for some reason? Most of the time they're not written by you. You inherently know what you're writing about, so you can cover it in fifty layers of horrible words and still be able to discern what's going on. However, the rest of the population will face problems. This is called your own WTFery, or Writer WTFery (what-the-****ery).

For purposes of illustration, I have gone to The Pit (otherwise known as fanfiction.net) and picked the first Simpsons story as I assume pretty much everyone on here is aware of what the Simpsons is about. I swear to God I just picked this from nowhere. FF.net is a mine of such wonder. Also, please investigate Godawful Fan Fiction.net for MST's and antidotes.

Let's take this inauspicious paragraph.

"Bart! This is an ouiji board! Throw this out!" Lisa yelled. "Ahh! I touched it! I'm cursed!" She yelled. She took the board and she threw it. She told Bart, "Let's continue so we don't get in trouble." Lisa said. Bart sighed and turned around. He opened a soggy box from water leaking out into it and threw it away. Lisa kept turning to the board. When they finished, she snuck upstairs, the board hidden in a box of books she found, to her room.

There are a lot of things that make this crap. Let's run through them so that we don't repeat them.

1: Lisa Yelled, She Yelled

There are only a few ways of describing what people have said and the ways in which they have said them. The fact that this author has managed to write 'yelled' twice in the same sentence in an exaggeration.

It can be easy to fall into a 'he said, she said' trap. Everyone does it. Just try and pay attention to what you are writing. Repetition can be a useful device, but unless you're going totally Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, nobody needs the word 'said' or 'yelled' over and over. Try making gaps in the middle of your characters' dialogue to describe what they are doing, or thinking. Read dialogue-heavy books to see how proper writers achieve speed. Another good tip for maintaining snappy dialogue is to reduce the conversationt to two characters, and remove 'saids' and 'whispereds' altogether; just be sure to remind us who's who from time to time.

2: And Then She Threw It - Explain Yourself

'She took the board and she threw it.'

This reminds me of sentences like 'His hands flying everywhere as he spoke.' WTF? Where are the hands going? In our little story, where is Lisa's board going? Why is it going? Where has it landed? Has it indeed landed, or is it being magical and floating around? I'm sure the auteur had a clear idea of where the board went. They've just chosen not to let us in on the secret.

3: Yodaspeak - Always Trust Your Mother Tongue

"Bart sighed and turned around. He opened a soggy box from water leaking out into it and threw it away."

Otherwise known as:

"Bart sighed and turned around (where or why, we are not to know). The water leak they'd found earlier had spread, but he needed a box to put the board in. He grabbed at the one closest to him and found it to have been waterlogged and destroyed by the water, and threw it away." (extras added by me to reduce WTFery)

Also:

"When they finished, she snuck upstairs, the board hidden in a box of books she found, to her room."

Otherwise known as:

"When they finished, she snuck upstairs to her bedroom. She scanned the room quickly and brought out an old and hidden box of books, and placed the board in the box."


Now then. James Joyce was pretty neat and throwing in backwards sentences and making us question our metaphysical selves. However, none of we reading this (unless something highlighy ****ing up has happened) are in fact James Joyce. We are different from him. Nor are we Shakespeare. We live in a different era and write in a different way. Backwards sentences are hard to do, as the saying goes. It can sometimes work:

Dropping her bag, she turned to the door, jumped over the counter, and ran.

-Yodafied:

Quickly she jumped the counter and ran for the door, dropping her bag seconds before her feet left the floor.


Make sure what you write feels right to you. The second version does appear more stylistic, but takes more work. If you want to do that, it's up to you, but it can easily go wrong. Your clauses are your daily bread and they are your friends. Respect them with proper orders. In English, we go:

SUBJECT > VERB > OBJECT

Ie.

The cat (subject) climbed up (verb) the tree (object).

But it wouldn't be art if we didn't **** about with it. Just watch out. It can go horribly wrong, because you may not see it and, as we have already noted, it is extremely easy for you to miss your own WTFery.

If you are writing in English, you should know what feels right. Always write in your mother tongue. Hell, someone out there must read the same language as you. Trust your instincts. You were born speaking this language. Remember, the main point of a story is to get an idea across. Sure, your writing style can be used as a symbolic tool, but if the way you're writing makes people's eyes cross, it's gone wrong somewhere. And no, I am not of the 'OMG Ulysses is a CLASSIC!' school.

Christ it's late now.

Tune in next time for Purple Prose and Why It is Often Worse, Shitty Dialogue and How to Avoid It, What Makes a Crap Title and Pacing, But Not the Walking Kind.

[Rocky]

Great post Govinda, I think at some point in time later on this thread should be stickied, because everyone could make some improvements to their writing skills and more topics could be added into it later on upon request.

Speaking of request, could you explain how to properly use Passive and Active voice to me? I haven't been tested on the whole passive/active voice thing since my senior year of high school, but I was screwing around by then and failed to learn it, and it came back to haunt me in college. So, teach me plz prof Govinda kkthx?

[Govinda]

Certainly.

The Passive Voice - Otherwise Known as Grammatically Correct Yoda Formation

As said above, clauses in English mostly go thus:

The cat (subject) climbed up (verb) the tree (object).

This structure is in the active voice, because the subject (our cat) is acting upon the object (the tree) in the way prescribed by the verb (climbed).

In the passive voice, it would read thus:

The tree (object) was climbed up (verb) by the cat (subject).


So, as opposed to the subject acting out the verb, the subject recieves the action prescribed in the verb in the passive voice.

Another example:

ACTIVE - Rainforest loggers have destroyed many of the habitats of indigenous species.

PASSIVE - The habitats of many indigenous species have been destroyed by rainforest loggers.


In the Active voice, the rainforest loggers are doing something - destroying habitats. They are the subject of this sentence, and they act upon the objects, the little mystery species.

In the Passive voice, they are recieving the action - the fact that the habitats have been destroyed comes first, and then we find out that it is the rainforest loggers who have done it. They have recieved the verb action rather than having performed it directly.

One of the major problems with the passive, and one of the reasons why it's one of the fastest ways to lose writing marks in an essay, is its inherent tendency towards ambiguity. This is where the WTFery comes in.

Take this sentence, in the Active Voice:

Scientists have conducted experiments to test the hypothesis.

In Passive:

Experiments have been conducted to test the hypothesis.


The passive one leaves us asking just who was responsible for said experiments. But it is as it should be in passive; the subject is receiving the action of the verb. It would be easy to add in a 'by scientists' to the passive sentence to answer that question, but it can be easy to forget when you're writing in passive.

Try this. You, o Native Speaker of your mother tongue, repeat these two sentences to yourself and decide which one sounds more normal:

The sound engineer will cue the music as the director takes the stage.

As the director takes the stage, the sound engineer will cue the music.

The first is Active, the second is Passive.

An easy rule of thumb is that if your subject ends up in the second half of the sentence, you've gone passive.

Well, that was Quite Serious. The only reason I can remember crap like this is because I study foreign language, and without a grounding in grammatical terms you're screwed.

As an aside, French voices are mental. They have at least 5, and they have moods too. Maybe one day I'll get into their subjunctive. My my, that is funtimes to the max.

I shall return after lunch. Lunch is important.

[DragonHeart]

Great thread idea, I second the sticky vote.

I'd just like to add that any and all of these rules can be and are broken by writers. The caveat is that you must understand the rules and why they are rules before you can break them. Far too often people break them for the wrong reasons, most of said reasoning involving some version of "stylistic" and a bunch of BS.

~DragonHeart~

[Govinda]

Dialogue - Guess What, It's Meant to Sound Like People Talking

Let's take a quick jaunt to The Pit. Two seconds.

Okay! Today we're looking at something about an anime called Naruto. We will be coming back to anime when we discuss purple prose, simply because it has far and away the highest number of 'fics' written about anything in the whole of The Pit, and therefore the highest concentration of crud. A lot of it is meant to be romantic, which is an added bonus on the crap-finding front.

Ohoho, I knew this would be good. My bits will be bold.

"What makes you think I was mainly talking about you?! You always think everything is about you!" said Naruto. "That's why I ended up with her and y-"

"Shut the hell up you stupid blond idiot!" said Kiba angrily as he got ready to pounce on Naruto. Insult of the century? I think not. Note here: for some bizarre reason, mince writers have an annoying habit of identifying people by their hair colour. 'The raven-haired hoe' and so on. When was the last time you referred to anyone by their hair colour in reality (gingers excepted)?

"Naruto-kun!" said Hinata as she got out of his grasp. "Why must you always do something like this to Kiba?" Is she meant to be talking in Engrish? She sounds likes she's just come out the back of freetranslation.com. You Are Not Microsoft Sam. Writing dialogue in formal tones can often come off sounding like an Engrish declaration if you don't watch.

"He started," answered Naruto. "He really does think that things are always about him, cuz honestly, I was mainly talking about Gaara," Cuz?

"Yeah, right" hissed Kiba sarcastically. "You know Gaara wouldn't go get into a real relationship. There are only whores after him, and he's too stubborn anyway! Obviously, you were talking about me!" Getting a teeny bit overexcited here. This has officially turned into a San Fran argument, if you catch my drift. I assume they are not meant to be sounding like teenage girls, yet they are.

Here's why:

Two boys are fighting about who is more ready for a relationship. When was the last time you heard teenage boys fighting about this particular subject?

Also, they're fighting like bitches.

"That's enough," ordered Gaara in that deep voice of his.

So we see that while reality might suck most of the time for most of the people, we need the chats found within reality to base our dialogue upon. Let's talk humanising.

'Oh no, I can't find my boot. Where do you think I left it?' said Jane.

'I don't know, Jane. Perhaps in the cupboard under the stairs?' replied Jack
.

Will now put it through Humaniser. Like a blender, but better. Spot the difference.

'Oh sugarlumps, I've lost my stupid boot. D'you have any idea where it is, Jack?' asked Jane.

'I'm not sure,' replied Jack. 'Did you try the cupboard under the stairs yet?'

One tip oft cited by How To Write books is to draw heavily on who and what you know, since that will naturally be the most plausible and recognisable thing to read. This even applies if you're writing SciFi. While your planets and monsters and stuff might be crazy and on some serious shit, what about your character's personalities?

We learn an awful lot about your characters through dialogue. Inner monologue is neat, but not if overused. Your reader wants to meet this person, to find out what they are like, to hear their voice. Are they funny? Think of a funny person you know and imagine them speaking. It only has to be a little bit. Every person on this earth is composed of about a million little quirks and traits, and a few outstanding ones (the purpose of your novel may even be to highlight these biggies). If you know this person, you'll know how they talk. Their words don't have to be ground in reality, but it helps them to sound human.

Imagine you and your character meet for the first time, through friends or something, and start chatting. How does the conversation begin? How would you go about asking this person about their life, what questions would they baulk at? Play with it. Flesh out your character by imagining what their chat would be like in a variety of situations and settings. Not only does it stop Microsoft Sam Syndrome, it also helps you with characterisation.

The best dialogue I've ever seen was written by Douglas Coupland in Girlfriend In A Coma. The dialogue was quick, stylistic, realistic - the characters grow older as the book progresses, and their chat changes accordingly. Coupland's dialogue really does have the speed and spontenaety (I have never been able to spell that word, not about to start now, sorry) of REAL CONVERSATION carried by genuine people. And whether you are writing a chat between people, hamsters, dragons, supermarket staff or whatever, that is what you want. Let us know your character.

If your character actually is Microsoft Sam you can discard this entire post. And then start writing something new.

How To

Let's assume for a second that you're not writing a courtroom scene or the enuciation of a government declaration, okay?

Try to keep it snappy, and real. Especially if you're writing a tense scene. Most people are lazy and unwilling to draw out a conversation if they've just met at a bus stop.

Let's see.

Jane was standing at a bus stop in the rain, looking out across the street. The water was pooling around her feet, and she was watching it when suddently she heard a voice behind her.

'Jane! Could it really be you?' Jane instantly recognised the voice of her old school friend, Jack.

'Oh Jack!' she said, turning around to hug him, 'It's been so long since we met. How are you?'

'I'm just fine, thanks. How about you?'

'Well I've been better. Today I'm going to a job interview and I hope it can help turn my life around.'

'I'm sad to hear that,' Jack said. 'I had had high hopes for you back in school, and so did the teachers.'

Humaniser Blender:

Jane was standing at a bus stop in the rain, looking out across the street. The water was pooling around her feet, and she was watching it when suddently she heard a voice behind her.

'Jane! Jane? Is that really you?' Jane instantly recognised the voice of her old school friend, Jack.

'Jack?!' she said, turning around to hug him, 'God, it's been years! How are you?'

'I'm alright, you know. Easy come easy go, same as always. You?'

'Well, to be honest, things haven't been that great since school. But I've got a big interview today, I'm pretty nervous, I need this one to work out.'

'You don't need to be nervous! I remember you in school, always top of the class,' Jack said. 'Everyone always said that it'd be you that made it.'

The main difference there is the volume of information.

Don't be scared to abbreviate. People, in reality, are often lazy, so they cut things down. If something is playing on someone's mind, they'll talk about it more, looking for opinion.

Say it to yourself. If you sound like a twat, it'll read like it's being said like a twat.

Happy writings. Time for pilates. Pilates are important, but less so than lunch and naps.

[Victoria]

Honestly, I didn't think anything was wrong with that one line of Hinata's dialogue, because she does talk formally. Sure, if you say that line kind of slowly, it sounds like shit, but if you say it like it's meant to be said, well.. it doesn't sound that bad. ^^;

But that's the only thing I questioned. Everything else was spot on.

[Govinda]

Honestly, I didn't think anything was wrong with that one line of Hinata's dialogue, because she does talk formally. Sure, if you say that line kind of slowly, it sounds like shit, but if you say it like it's meant to be said, well.. it doesn't sound that bad. ^^;

But that's the only thing I questioned. Everything else was spot on.

Oh. I don't know who Hinata is. Maybe I should pay more attention, haha. Sorry about that. If it's her voice, it's her voice, and that should be left as that.

[Fate]

Govinda, in section one: Colons, Semi-Colons, Hyphens, you only explained how to properly use the first two; the hyphen is nowhere in there. Did you forget that part?

Also, I have a question regarding the word please.

"I'd like to pick up my new boots please," said Mary.

From everything I've learned, they've taught me that it is necessary to add a comma before the word please if it is at the end of the request. But you don't need one if it's at the beginning of the request. So, according to what I've been taught, the line would go like this: "I'd like to pick up my new books, please," said Mary. Is the rule of the comma before the word please a necessary one, or is it an optional one? I just wanted to clear that up. Thank you.

[RagnaToad]

From everything I've learned, they've taught me that it is necessary to add a comma before the word please if it is at the end of the request. But you don't need one if it's at the beginning of the request. So, according to what I've been taught, the line would go like this: "I'd like to pick up my new books, please," said Mary. Is the rule of the comma before the word please a necessary one, or is it an optional one? I just wanted to clear that up. Thank you.

I thought the same thing. It's not an adjective or adverb or anything really, so in some way it's not part of the clause "I'd like to pick up my new boots". The word "please" is something added in spoken language (or a representation there of), so I assume a comma would be in place.

You don't say "I'd like to pick up my new boots, John" without a comma either. But then again that's a totally different issue.

I'd say it's not wrong to not use a comma before "please", but I recommend to always use one.

[Alpha]

That "I'd like to pick up my new books please," really screamed at me back there. Without the comma, it seems as though you would like to pick up your "books-please", whatever those are. Sure, a reader can pick up on the meaning, but there is a natural pause in speaking this phrase, and, in the interest of clarity, it really needs to read "I'd like to pick up my new books, please,".

This is a great thread

[Govinda]

I did indeed miss out a comma. Even the great can fall. And yes, Fate, I forgot hypens. Sorry. The whole thing is a first draft written in a fervoured hurry.

Remember kids, I before E except after C! Except that sometimes doesn't work because English is one of the messiest languages out there. Sovereign. Foreign. Their. Weight. Height. And so on.

[Govinda]

Hi y'all. Been a while. I found something today which triggered my gag reflex (read: purple prose reflex) and was reminded that before my to-do list took over my entire life I'd been meaning to come up with an effective way of avoiding purple prose. So I went to The Pit for a little scout, my first foray in months. Oh, how I had missed the Mountains of Roflmao! I found a Bleach/Twilight crossover and thought that nothing could ever be more purple. I then twigged, and dared investigate the actual Twilight section.

OH MY GOD. Over 102,000 entries. That's more than all my old bad example hunting grounds combined.

A cursory look leads to a quick extra: How Not To Summarise a Story.

Basically, just do not do this:

Edward left Bella turned into the zombie then left met Lucas vampire is now a vampire goes by the name of Marie Masen now and is now in a band but shes running from something. The cullens go to where Marie and Lucas are playing band Can she forgive him

Do you see, TFF? Do you see the lengths I go to for you, so that you can format your stories nicely? I was going to go through the above quote, dissect it, to highlight where it goes wrong. This is not required; just highlight the entire thing in your mind and don't do it.

A more succinct and generally intelligible way of phrasing this person's summary:

Edward has turned into a zombie and left Bella. Since his departure, Bella has been living by the name Marie Masen, and has joined a band with a vampire named Lucas; but she's running from something. At her concert, can the Cullens convince Bella to forgive them?

See, I like summaries. I'm a fan. The most important part of them is what is called (at least by me) the hook; the thing that makes you want to read more. Can you spot the hook in the above summary? I've decided to say that it's not Edward being a zombie (almost as insane as a Bleach fanfic I found which began with the sentence, 'Rukia has been framed for armed robbery'. Something like that could be really original and cool if it wasn't merely an exercise in how to maul the English language).

In my humble opinion, the hook here is that the Cullen family are going to look for her. You could think it's something entirely different. With a bit of cleaning, the original summary reveals a host of things which might interest your average Twilight fan: 'Why's Edward a zombie? Who's Lucas? Why has Bella changed her name? Ooh, the Cullens are going to her gig to beg forgiveness, what for? Exciting!' Well, that's how I imagine Twilight fans think, anyway. We The People have to use our imaginations here for a moment; we know that, based on the summary, the actual story is just going to make our eyes cry.

Get the people to want to read. This is a really important part of any writing. Don't give your plot away; allude to exciting or thought-provoking events. This can even be used in RPs, though obviously it'd be a lot longer. Summarising your plot well is key to selling any story to anyone, be it a publishing house or people who read fanfiction for reasons other than the lulz. You want people to read your shit, yes? Get summarising!

Of course, if your story isn't up to scratch, then no summary can really help it. Writing out your own little summary can help you to see if you know where you're going. Sadly, some stories were just never meant to be:

Sequel to "With Summer Comes Swimming", you don't have to read it to understand. Edward and Bella spend a romantic week together, with the requirement that Edward can't spend any money!

LOL of the Day Award!

The story is about Edward and Bella. Bella and Edward have cancer. They live at the hospital.

Salty tears of woe, I cry them.


Purple Prose - Just Say No

There are few things which I hate more than purple prose. For those not in the know, purple prose is the antithesis to WTFery; we are told, in minute, overflowing, usually saccharine, too long, ****ing annnoying-ass language about a very small thing. Either that or a bigger subject will be lovingly mauled with more useless adjectives than old JJ (James Joyce, yo) could get through in an average week. Oddly, the very worst of purple ends up back as WTFery, having completed some kind of horrible circle of drivel.

As I suspected, Twilight fanfiction writers are especially endowed with purple power. After all, they are led by Stephenie 'My Novels Aren't Christian Propaganda, They're Mormon and Sparkly!' Meyer, the woman who somehow managed to gain international acclaim for repeatedly describing a teenage boy as being 'sparkly'.

When Bella was a girl, she thought that love was a flash of lightning, a sudden revelation that woke you one morning with the knowledge that oh, I am in love. With Jacob however, there had been no blinding flashes of light illuminating her heart, no sudden aha moment. She hadn’t woken up to find that her world had suddenly changed around her without her realising it.

Now then. I am going to go to the balcony for a cigarette, and then I am going to return and edit the living daylights out of this paragraph. Though it is masquerading as ok writing, the above is ****ing atrocious. Once I return, I'll explain why.

When Bella was a girl, she thought that love was like a flash of lightning; that it was a sudden revelation that made you think oh, I am in love. Though with Jacob, there had been no blinding flashes, no sudden aha moment. She had barely noticed the change.

I don't know about you, but I feel a little less sick now. Notice how much of it has gone, but that all the information remains?

No, (the no here is pointless) if she had to describe the process, she would call it a journey. Not a fast journey in a flashy car down a paved highway (there are other kinds?) with the wind blowing in your face and your heart pumping with exhilaration. Those journeys were fun in the moment, but at the end your hair was tangled and your eyes were smarting and it was all over too soon. No, she had lost her taste for adrenaline. This was a trudging journey on foot (we still talking about love here or what?), down a secret grass-covered pathway which was tucked away from the world, surrounded by trees and foreign scents and quiet whisperings (the purple, it HURTS ME).

At first it seemed slower, less exciting, the destination was too far away and it felt like she would never get there (syntax, hoe. You've gone from overusing it to forgetting it. Consistency, pets, is key). But then, as her senses became attuned to the world around her, to the sound of trickling water in the distance, of birds humming in the trees, of little animals tripping agilely through the fallen leaves (what. How can you fall over in an agile manner? See, this is common trap found when wandering through purple: the quest for millions of unrequired words inevitably leads to crossed paths which should never be), and the smell of pine and grass and rain, she realised that the destination was only part of it. Half the fun was getting there.

When Bella was a girl, she thought that love was a flash of lightning. Now that she was a woman she knew that it was the sunlight, which whilst temporarily outshone by the blinding flashes (whoa, Betty, what in the hell is this garbled nonsense? Bet it sounded nice and, most importantly, impressive in your head, yeah? Well, it makes my head hurt, and it's not needed. Play with English, throw it around; your words don't sound right, do they?), ultimately burns brighter, hotter and longer with no fear of thunder to follow.

We've looked at the symptoms. We've made the diagnosis. Here's the prescription:

1. Words, and the sentences they create, can be some of the most beautiful things in the world. They way they sound, look, even feel. But it's the same as anything; don't overdo it. Many adjectives does not a wonderful sentence make. You'll even get bitchslapped for it in academic essays. Leave this flowery stuff to your poetry; we're writers, we're cooler, we're Kurt Vonnegut and Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Margaret Atwood. We've got a message to get across, a hundred million stories to tell; we don't need to drown them in pointless words and daisy chains. Stop wanking over your own knowledge. Tell us a story.

2. Always be mindful of who you are. Do you talk like you're raping a thesauraus, or do you just say what you want to say with a touch of flair, style, and individuality? Some books are hard to read because the auteur has chewed one dictionary too many; but the best are hard to read because the writer doesn't waste time and paper on being a showoff purple twit, but wraps their story, their metaphors, their symbols, around everything they feel is pertinent to their message. Or they spend inordinate amounts of time describing things in minute detail to give a clear picture of a world they've made in their head; but they don't maul our precious language en route (well, at least not most of the time. I'm talking about sci-fi here).

3. Always read what you've written. Yes, I know it's obvious. The difficult part is going at it like you've never seen it before in your life. By the time you've written and edited a short story, you'll probably know it inside out and back to front; so switch the computer off, put away the notebook, and leave it damn well alone until tomorrow. Go through it again, and try to think of all the possibilities; could this sentence be improved? Why doesn't this sound right? Does this plot make sense?

4. Never publish too soon. Garcia Marquez (Nobel Prize for Literature, heads up, yo) said that one of the biggest mistakes he made early on was showing people work that he wasn't completely happy with yet. Keep it to yourself until you've exhausted all avenues of possible improvement.

5. Don't take yourself too seriously. Writing, of course, is Serious Business; writers, accordinly, tend to be Serious People. But keep yourself in check. What I'm getting at here is that what is essential to good writing is the pleasure, the fun, the enjoyment. Yeah, we're trying to say serious things here, but hell, look at what we can do with words! Look at the hours of funtimes to be had here, and keep them in your mind.


Some people actually like purple prose, usually because they don't know better. I hope I haven't offended anyone; but ridiculous frippery is something that really makes me feel sick.

The Master of Beauty in words is, as far as I am concerned, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. You'll notice he's popped up here quite a lot. Well, ol' Gabriel isn't much into changing the world with giant theses and metaphors; gorgeous writing and captivating stories are his stock in trade, and he is an unequivocal master on the subject. Read One Hundred Years of Solitude, and then you'll understand how we can be beautiful without having to spend ages on words that we don't need. I refuse to accept criticism for my stance on purple from people who haven't read this book, or The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood, which is an utter masterclass in how to blend poetry and prose without killing kittens in the process.

Read them, pets, and be enlightened. In the meantime, keep those apostrophes and commas in their places, and keep it cool.

[Govinda]

The next time I see 'should of' instead of 'should have' on this forum I am going to begin reporting the culprits to the mods for excessively irritating behaviour.



Also, I've seen some people messing this up quite a lot lately, people I would never have expected. No naming of names, but hell, guys, come on!



Its, It's

'Its' is the shortened form of 'belonging to it'. 'It's' is a literal abbreviation of 'it is'.

The rainforest is essential to our planet. It's really important that we start respecting its significance.

It's a pretty cool theory. I mean, if you really look into its ideas, it's such a well-thought out explanation...

The significance belongs to the rainforest and the ideas belong to the theory. So we use 'its'.

Meanwhile, I'm reading Imperial Life in the Emerald City and it's the single best piece of non-fiction I've ever read. Except that anthropology thing where the middle class guy went and lived with Puerto Rican crack lords in East Harlem. Anyway.

[Andromeda]

Hey Govinda, I've got something I want to run by you since this is the thread for addressing things needing to be improved in writing. The matter on my mind is something that I see when I'm reading stories online and I wanted to know if you think this is a problem or if I'm just being weird. It is a writing style that I've come to call Pronoun-phobia.

Simply put, I notice that writers have a tendency not to write a characters name or he/she when they are either doing dialogue speakers or just character actions. They'll go into physical descriptions of the character as though they feel the need to repeatedly re-enforce the appearance of a character in every single paragraph.

Examples:

"What are you doing," said the dark brown haired boy.

The effeminate boy laughed slightly seeing their friend fall in the water.

The emerald eyed girl smiled back.

I can understand them wanting to infrequently remind readers what their character's appearances are, but I see this sort of pattern throughout an entire chapter. Thankfully, some of the cases I've seen they at least vary up the descriptors, but even still it's the same pattern (I have literally seen someone repeatedly use "effeminate" to describe someone like twenty times in a chapter making me cry almost). It is like they are afraid of saying their character's name or he/she as though it is overused or something.

I think some of it may stem from the mind set of trying not to repeat one's self too much in a chapter. There is the case of not starting every sentence with the same word or paragraph. So I think it may come from the notion that saying he or she too much is a bad thing. However, they go overboard and end up doing the same thing, but with heavy amount of descriptors.

So what are your thoughts on this Govinda? Do you think this is a problem or I'm just being too picky?

[Govinda]

I absolutely agree with you. I think I mentioned it earlier, when one of the crap pieces of fan-fiction I found identified a speaker by hair colour. There's a lot of it on the internet and it annoys me to no end. When was the last time you heard an actual person refer to someone by citing their eye colour?

I'd put money on someone being able, right now, to head on over to the fan-fiction Pit and return with an example of this wtfery in about three seconds, depending on connection speed. It's prolific.

To be honest, I think it just stems from laziness. A lack of willingness (or perhaps ability) to create full characters, ones that can be recognised without needing to mention their body type or hairstyle.

I think the best way to avoid it is to work on the voices of your characters; that way, whole parts of conversations can be left he/she/it/them-free and thus completely devoid of references to 'the raven-haired girl' and 'the violet-eyed boy' and other such examples of laziness. (Speaking of which, someone really needs to sort out the way internet-people write about eyes. I remember once reading the sentence, 'her chocolate orbs sparkling in the light' and think that there was no hope for humanity. Orbs? Chocolate orbs? Srsly.)

So no, I don't think you're being picky, and yes, I do see it as a problem; laziness, probably. People who are so keen to get their next bit of work finished that they resort to having to identify people not by their actual personalities but by their magical 'chocolate orbs' and 'effeminate' manner.

If you ever get the time, I'd recommend reading an extract of conversation from Coupland's Girlfriend in a Coma. He shows everyone that there's no need to either overuse he/she/it/them or start getting awkwardly creative with descriptions of eyes. He's clearly on our side too. I'd like to do a section in this thread about this problem, it'd be fun, just for the trips to the Pit. I should have time next week.

[Andromeda]

I couldn't remember if you had mentioned in here or not before. I had read your posts so long ago and skimming through quickly at two in the morning apparently missed it. Sorry about that.

Laziness...that is a curious way to look at it. I think I can see where you're coming from with it. I hadn't thought about it being seen as laziness since they are making the effort to change things up. The ultimate in laziness would be just endlessly using their name and never saying anything else.

I end up reading fiction rather than fan fiction, so I don't know how terrible things get in the fan fiction. I think it might be a little better in fiction, but it is definitely a problem that people identify visually and not by personality. A part of that could be society itself as well since so many people read another based on their appearance rather than their words or personality.

I actually had someone review one of my stories suggesting that I start using visual descriptors for my characters rather than their name. It just flattened me to hear someone actually going around suggesting that style of writing. Because I agree with you that characters should be able to hold on their personalities just as well as their appearances. In a good conversation one should never be confused who is speaking because their speech or the things they're saying should make it pretty clear who the speaker is.

Chocolate orbs sounds like they're getting desperate. You can at least give them credit for being creative if nothing else.