grammar is perfect or not

After a lot of editing, and I mean a lot, grammar is much on my mind. Perfect grammar doesn't always 'sound' right. Imperfect grammar can lead to confusion in meaning. English is complicated...

there are three lamb faces in this photo-- find the third!

In conversations, people don't talk with grammar in mind; so dialogue is a time out, where I ignore Word warnings, despite it going tsk tsk. Dialogue has each character with different education levels and way of talking. Cannot use a 'big' word for someone who wouldn't know it-- unless there is a special reason for their knowing it.

Prose is where grammar is more of a factor-- transitional, descriptive, and point of view sentences. In point of view, the character is thinking or observing. I don't feel it's needful that it sound like they talk, but it shouldn't have words that don't fit what that character would observe and know. If a character is the type to enjoy a sunset, the descriptive words should fit their nature. Poets sound like poets. Most other people do not. Fixing all of that, making it sound and feel right, is what editing is about.  

My first draft will always be written fast without a lot of concern for the nuances of grammar. Because I grew up when diagramming sentences was part of learning to write, I generally put my sentences together with most of them correct. There are always some where my mind is ahead of my fingers, and the words prove it.

When editing comes along, I read for meaning and feeling and use Word underlining. I like the option of having it check what I most need. Sometimes, even in prose, I ignore the underline. More often I change it-- if not literally as they would suggest, but with a rewrite that avoids the underline. Sometimes it'll start with part of a sentence underlined and the suggestion it needs a comma. As soon as I add the comma, the whole sentence is underlined with a new complaint. Luckily Word isn't a person where we could get in an argument over it.

One of their interesting grammar warnings is-- you're too wordy. Most writers can definitely be that way. Seeing that warning is when I decide if the whole sentence is needed. If it is, I usually break the thought into several sentences. That can lead to a new warning.

The main problem I have with them is when something sounds right but is grammatically incorrect. Dangling prepositions are one example. When we talk, we don't worry about them. In dialogue I don't either. But when I'm writing a transitional or descriptive paragraph, they generally need to go-- not because they bother me, but because they might some readers.

There are some places Word isn't good at catching, and I really have to watch myself. An example is worse and worst. Theoretically, it's simple. Worse is in a chain of bad. Worst is the absolute most it can be... except sometimes either one just does not sound right even when it probably is. When that happens, I grab my thesaurus for an option to avoid fighting with myself over it or annoying a reader where that very word is their pet peeve.

Another place English can get confusing is for the verb was, which must fit its noun. Was is generally used with a singular noun, which means you don't write 'we was going to town' that is unless your character is uneducated and from the hills. But was isn't always correct for a singular noun. It changes when it's in certain clauses, which means were is correct for a singular noun-- even when to me it sounds worse worst worse wrong... If we were going to town, I'd take you along... If I was going to town, I'd take you along. See it sounds right only the second sentence is not. It should be-- If I were going to town, I'd take you along-- if you want it to have proper grammar. Don't ask me why. 

Was or Were

The first times I came across this correction to was, I argued with the program and assumed it was wrong. It was not. In fiction writing, I still though won't use what sounds awkward just to make my grammar pass an English teacher's red check.

Another one, that Word regularly catches, but in a rough draft I often write incorrectly, is the split infinitive. I don't really know why it's so bad (it always sounds fine to me), but I change it when I see the warning. It might bother a reader. As you may have already deduced, editing is really about the reader. I already know what I intended to say.

Word is a great program for helping the editor. Some buy more complicated programs, but I've tried a few. They aren't always better. In fiction, correct isn't always best. If it comes across as awkward, it's not best even if it's most grammatically correct. Who and whom come to mind for that. I get it when whom is the right word to use, but not if it is too highfaluting for a character whose point of view is simple.

I can't emphasize enough how important it is to get point of view right for the character. A simple woman, in her thought life, won't use words she would not use talking to a friend. Writers generally have quite wide vocabularies, but where it comes to point of view, they can't use them all no matter how tempting.

This has recently been my world as I went over my Oregon historical to make sure it passed muster-- which is very important to me. I want my book to go out with zero errors. I am not sure they ever do.

Editing is about a lot more than Word's warnings, but they force me to look at a passage for a clearer way to make my point. I recognize though that sometimes a round about way of saying something is better, when the goal is create a word picture for the reader.

If you didn't get enough grammar yet, give this article from the New Yorker a try--

Comma Queen

hunting down adverbs

the lush season along the creek

Since finishing the last rough draft, I've been engaged in editing, editing and editing again my historic manuscripts. One of my main goals has been the hunt for the evil adverb. 

Now I do not personally see adverbs as that bad but oh my they are such a bad word in any recent discussion of writing style-- while, of course, ignoring all the great authors who did use them. They are a modifying word that help to explain an action and add meaning to a verb. They exist in English grammar. 

So you write 'she walked' and want to indicate the pace, an adverb does it 'she walked slowly' or rapidly... but could have just said strode or ambled. It can also be done without any of that and instead setting the scene. In a rage at what he had said, she walked across the patio determined to explain herself. The reader has no doubt that she's in a hurry and how she walked without any adverb.

Although I cannot say I have had a love affair with adverbs, I have gone through some of the stages of loss and grief regarding being told I should not use them in my own writing. First came denial-- come on, this cannot seriously be an issue. Then anger-- this is nuts. there is nothing bad about adverbs.  Bargaining -- if mine are used well, they are okay even if someone else's are not. I skipped over depression probably because I hadn't had a serious love affair with them-- but I finally did come to acceptance-- if this is what today's experts think and what I will find a manuscript downgraded because, I can deal with it.

I faced a truth that if critics are looking for a bean counting way to assess a literary effort, adverbs are an easy call. I've read several books on style that address this issue. Here are a few of the arguments against adverbs. They get in the way. They aren't pretty. You should show not tell. Or said another way:

The adjective is the enemy of the noun and the adverb the enemy of damn near everything else. Nouns and verbs are the guts of the language.                                            A.B. Gutherie

So, even disagreeing with the premise, I went looking through my own historical manuscripts (the ones I have yet to put out) to see how often I used these bad boys.

The way I did the search was using find for 'ly' words as they are the most commonly used-- rapidly, slowly, etceterly.  Looking for 'ly' words also found overuse of words like probably, clearly, really, or only. Some can be eliminated; but when you are writing one person's point of view, they don't know for sure what someone else is thinking; hence probably pops up. I looked for ways to say that without its use. 

One of the big names out there condemning the use of adverbs is Stephen King, who uses --ly words to illustrate why they are bad. 

I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops. To put it another way, they're like dandelions. If you have one on your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day . . . fifty the day after that . . . and then, my brothers and sisters, your lawn is totally, completely, and profligately covered with dandelions. By then you see them for the weeds they really are, but by then it's--GASP!!--too late.  Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

As I began my search, I did note that often the modifier I thought added something, actually didn't as the dialogue made clear how it would have been said. Whenever possible, I also got rid of he said/she said as dialogue is stronger when it flows right along-- if it's clear who is speaking.

This is not the fun work of writing. Where it comes to adverbs, I have argued a lot over the fact that they're not that useless. I've even found writers who back me up.

from The Language of Fiction: A Writer's Stylebook

But in the end, it didn't hurt me to look for overuse of these modifiers. I suppose somewhere in my subconscious I either didn't like them either (to me too many adjectives become funny also), was taught this by the consulting writer I worked with fifteen or more years ago, or had read about their evils and put them out of my head. There were not a lot.

There are times I think removing an adverb just makes for a more wordy way to say what one simple word would accomplish. There are times an adverb truly isn't needed but just felt pleasurable to the writer (these are the ones that need to go). 

Overuse though of any word can become annoying to the reader, and it's a good reason to use the find tool. Search these bad boys out and do away with them especially really truly honestly leaving behind what is more essential to the sentence likely mostly.

I think this quote says best what I feel about adverbs.

 "At their best, adverbs spice up a verb or adjective. At their worst, they express a meaning already contained in it."        Roy Peter Clark in Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer