I’ve made some other posts complaining about things I notice in a lot of novels around here. Grammar was purposefully skipped in lieu of other topics; however, I can no longer ignore it. That’s right, this is it: I'm going to talk about grammar.

First of all, I’m not saying grammar is more important than a good story. A boring story with good grammar is just that—a boring story. Now, why is grammar important? Grammar is the lens that readers view your story through. Bad grammar is like taking a picture with a dirty lens.

If a reader has to struggle to understand what you are saying because the grammar is poor, obviously that is bad. There’s more that grammar can do for you though! It can control the flow and feel of your prose. Things like pacing and conveying emotion are easier with better grammar.

Here is an explanation and example for just combining two sentences. I should say two complete sentences or two independent clauses. This is called an additive sentence. Using them makes your writing so much more interesting! I’ll use a period, comma and coordinating conjunction, semi colon, and colon.

The two sentences are listed below:

The guards were chasing him.

He ran away.

These sentences can be put one after the other without problem.

The guards were chasing him. He ran away.

However, these are really par of the same action, so maybe you want to combine them. The most common way to do this is with a comma and coordinating conjunction.

The guards were chasing him, and he ran away.

Easy, right? Let’s talk about pacing though. This is a chase scene! We want it to happen very quickly! I can add works like “he quickly ran away” but that doesn’t really make it seem faster. Actually, the world “quickly” just slows the reader down. I want it to FEEL faster:

The guards were chasing him; he ran away.

Yes, that is grammatically correct. That is what the semi colon is actually used for! It basically replaces a period with less of a pause. No, it’s not a fancy comma...

Okay, okay, we made it happen at a faster pace. You just don’t get it shadowdrake27, the part where he runs away is REALLY IMPORTANT. To tell the reader how important it is I should add italics, bold font, asterisks (which look like this *), or the word “importantly,” right? No. No, no, no, no. You should use a colon!

The guards were chasing him: he ran away.

This reads as fast as a semi colon but adds emphasis. Thus, it should be used sparingly. If everything is important, then nothing is. Also, semi colons and colons can only connect two complete sentences that are related. this shouldn’t be an issue. If two sentences are completely unrelated, then they shouldn’t be in the same paragraph to begin with.

There are ways to slow a semi colon down and other uses for all of these punctuation marks, but this crude example was just to give you an idea.

Grammar can actually be fun. It’s an amazing way to covey complex ideas without having to resort to long-winded explanations. You also can use different punctuation to vary your writing and avoid repetitiveness.

Quick example and I am done. In the previous example I showed four ways to combine the same two sentences. If your writing has a bunch of sentences that all look the same, why not mix in a few of these different techniques to make them different? That adds visual appeal and prevents reader burnout.

Hope this helped! I like to help with and discuss grammar to a point, so let me know if you have questions or thoughts on this. Also, no one is perfect (including me), so some mistakes always happen.

    Anya_Nesh

    No problem! As someone who only speaks English, I’ve never had to deal with learning two different sets of grammar rules; however, I’ve heard that English grammar rules are confusing when compared to any other language. My understanding is that the only thing English has going in its favor is consistency (there aren’t many different dialects).

    If English is a second or third language for you, I have a lot of respect for even being able to read and write in it. I’m sure your story is getting better each time you edit :)

        shadowdrake27 I was hoping someone would say something about this. Back when i used to do review swaps, this was a major problem in just about every novel i read. Seriously, English ain't my first language either, but some writing was just so bad it was like a 2nd grader wrote it. Good job on this thread, I hope others will take note of this.

            Snowin

            Yeah, some stories are better than others with their grammar. It’s a headache to read when things are past a certain point though. I’ve noticed that you can find a lot of five star stories made entirely of incomplete sentences.

            Thank you for the compliment!

                shadowdrake27

                I think it's because most of the readers of those stories have English as their 2nd or 3rd language as well. That's why they don't mind the poor grammar. It's enough as long as they can understand the gist of it. Which is a bit sad really.

                I'm also not a native English speaker. But I'm an avid reader. And I want my story to not only make sense plot wise, but also to make sense grammatically. Reading a story with a broken English is just headache inducing. It doesn't matter whether the idea of the story is good. A writer is not just there to give a good idea, they're there to tell a story. How could they do that if they couldn't even convey it properly thru their written words?

                Well, it's just my opinion. I'm sure there will be people here who would say; 'who cares about grammar? as long as the plot is good that's all that matters!'. LOL. 😅

                    Sighgray

                    I totally agree. My opinion used to be that grammar didn’t matter as long as it was readable, but I met some good authors who changed my mind. Grammar can change the meaning, pace, and mood of a sentence so much that it can’t be ignored.

                    Trying to write a better story with bad grammar is like trying to win a race against a car on foot. You might be able to do it, but it isn’t going to be easy. Your plot has to be so much better that I don’t care about the migraine I have.

                      yaoyueyi Em dashes are great!

                      They provide more emphasis than a comma or colon, and can be used in lieu of parantheses (Not that we use parantheses much in stories)

                      As a non-native, I tend to get confused when to use commas or periods. Especially when adding dialogue or action tags 🤣 @shadowdrake27 Maybe that's another topic you can deal with: Formatting Narratives

                          yaoyueyi

                          Ah yes—the em dash. It was explained in the next post so I don’t have to say what it is for, but it is a wonderful punctuation mark. Also one to be used sparingly though. If one were to put it everywhere—and it can go almost anywhere—it would lose its effect.

                          RachelRuth

                          Hmm... I can try. That can be my next post, but I’ll say a few things about speech tags. If I mention an attribution, that is just a speech tag.

                          Dialogue follows some easy rules, actually. I’ll list a few rules below to see if that is easy user than a long paragraph:

                          • the first word spoken is always capitalized
                          • the dialogue tag is attached with a comma (unless the comma would replace a exclamation point, question mark, ellipse, or dash! These character replace the comma)
                          • dialogue tags are always lowercase unless they start with a proper noun (a name)
                          • quotation marks go at the beginning and end of speech
                          • only what is said goes inside the quotation marks
                          • a period always goes inside the quotation marks; however, an exclamation point or question mark are left outside unless they are spoken
                          • if there is a quote within a quote (like a character mocking another character), then the speech is done normally and the part that is quoted is put in single quotes. That is what single quotes are for.
                          • thoughts never go in quotation marks, not even single ones
                          • one speaker per paragraph!

                          Some additional notes

                          • an ellipse (...) means the character paused and their voice trails off. It’s a specific type of pause and is usually only used in speech. A narrator wouldn’t have their voice trail off unless it is a framed story and they are a character.

                          • ending speech with a dash means they suddenly stopped or someone interrupted them

                          • speech tags are not always needed, but it should be obvious who is talking. I do it like this, the first time a character talks they get a speech tag. If two people are talking, then I alternate by paragraph after that and assume the reader can follow. Three or more speakers can be tricky. It is better to use too many tags than too few.

                          • if the character does something while talking, you can break their speech into two parts and have an action in the middle. You don’t necessarily need a speech tag, but only the parts being spoken are in quotes. Only the speech tag is attached with a comma and made lowercase. Everything else is punctuated normally. See my example below.

                          “It’s not that hard,” the man said. “Punctuating speech follows the same rules.” He waved his hand as if to dismiss the subject. “Once you know them, you should be able to do them repeatedly.”

                          Let me know if anything doesn’t make sense. If I do another post I’ll include more examples and such to show how to do this.

                                shadowdrake27 care to link me to your novel? That is, If you're currently writing one.
                                Knowing you clearly understand what you're talking about, I'll wholeheartedly give you an honest review.

                                    Snowin

                                    Sure! I’m not an amazing author, but I love honest feedback! The grammar shouldn’t give you a headache... I hope. Also, let me know if you have a novel you want me to look at. It will be a long time for I finish my review, but I’ll put it in my library.

                                    https://dynamic.webnovel.com/book/16930452606946205?utm_source=writerShare&utm_campaign=4311387755

                                    MintyMintyMilkTea

                                    I’ve never considered doing editing. Pointing out some mistakes during a review swap is as close as I’ve gotten. Being an editor might be fun; however, I don’t know where to even start.

                                          shadowdrake27 i am currently editing my 93k-ish word novel in google doc. I don't post on here, but I would appreciate some feedback on a chapter or two when you have the time. Dont sweat it though. And thx for the novel link

                                              Snowin

                                              Maybe next week sometime you can share it and I’ll read a chapter or two. That is quite a long work! You should be proud of it. I have never written anything that long.

                                                shadowdrake27 this isn't me at all I have brilliant grammar okay I have alright grammar maybe just normal grammar fine I have terrible grammar and English is my first language so I have no excuse it's just I have a bad problem of forgetting i am writing a book remembering that I was supposed to release a chapter last week then focusing all my attention on writing that chapter and then I forget to proof read it so when I release it there so many grammar mistakes that it is hard to read.

                                                    shadowdrake27 Wait, exclamation and question marks in a spoken sentence are placed outside the quotation marks? As in: "I hate you."! instead of "I hate you!" ?
                                                    And how do you show that something is the thoughts of a character instead of general narration, if you don't put thoughts in quotation marks?

                                                        heyitsbluejay

                                                        Rushing always leads to more mistakes. No bid deal, it is easy to update on this website. You can go back and edit for grammar later. Sometimes it’s more important to gets the words down first, then go back and make it look nice. That’s what multiple drafts are recommended when writing something serious.

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