Agatho's Grammar Tips

I never thought I'd be blogging about grammar (I think of Mysterious Matters more as a "big picture" blog), but I suggested that someday I might, and I got a number of emails asking me to do so.  As an editor, it is my job to give the people what they want, so here goes.

Some of these are probably not so much grammar tips as they are style tips. Remember: Your editor may have a different opinion.

1. Using semicolons sparingly. The semicolon is probably the most misunderstood piece of punctuation in the language. Many voracious readers couldn't even explain what it does. A semicolon usually leads to a sentence that's much longer than it needs to be. 

2. Avoid "There is / There are."  This is an old one - rather than saying "There were three cows in the field, it's better to say "Three cows stood in the field, chewing their cuds."

3. Use interrogative verbs in interrogative dialogue.  I can't tell you how many times I see the following construction:

"How did you know the murderer had a tattoo on his left butt cheek?" she said.

That drives me nuts! Aren't these better:

"How did you know the murderer had a tattoo on his left butt cheek?" she asked.

"How did you know the murderer had a tattoo on his left butt cheek?" she wondered.

4. Never use the same adjective or adverb more than once in a paragraph. Using the same descriptive words too many times looks lazy.

5. Vary paragraph length. I recently finished a book that I could swear was composed of nothing but three-sentence paragraphs. Not a very good book for a lot of reasons, and the programmed approach to the paragraph didn't help matters. We're not writing haikus here, folks!

6. It is perfectly all right to end a sentence with a preposition, if doing otherwise would hurt the ear or cause the head to cock.

7. Beware of hidden plural subjects - look for the word and, which is usually the clue to plural.

NO: Your love and honor sustains me.

YES: Your love and honor sustain me. 

 

8. Set your ellipses correctly, with a space before and after. There's a shortcut on most keyboards to create an ellipsis. On the Mac, it's Option + semicolon.

9. Let's say you are writing dialogue, and one character is speaking for several paragraphs. Use open quotes at the beginning of each paragraph in which dialogue continues from a previous paragraph, but use closed quotes ONLY at the end of that person's multi-paragraph dialogue.

10. Research which words go in italics (book titles, movie titles, names of sailing vessels, etc.) and italicize accordingly. If you don't know the rules, a copy editor can fix these problems, but it's better if you know the rules.

(And 11... proofread your work, something I occasionally forget to do on this blog. Thank you to Pepper.)

 

Comments

[Pepper Smith]

#8 is definitely a style issue. My editors have always wanted no spaces before or after the ellipsis.

#10--an episode of word substitution. Being an editor, you should be able to find it.

Thank you for the tips. After 40 years of writing, most of these are second nature to me, but it never hurts to be reminded.

[Jersey Jack]

He asked? He wondered? Elmore Leonard says both of these constitute author intrusion; "said" is the only dialogue tag. Maybe that's why you see it so much.

AGATHO RESPONDS: I don't care for Elmore Leonard. Maybe this is one reason.

[Lexi Revellian]

I too would take issue with 3. I don't like 'she wondered' at all - it is clear from the dialogue she is wondering. It's too like that quote from 'Twilight': '"I'm sorry," she apologized.'

Speech tags are less necessary than new writers think; there are better ways of indicating who is speaking. I hardly use them, except in scenes with several characters in conversation. I'm currently picking them out of the first novel I wrote.

[Jersey Jack]

I am shocked and appalled.