Grammarly

[Beco]

does anyone pay for the subscription? I would, but I don't have enough stop to warrant joining for $25 a month.

Who edits your stuff? I find that I need to go back to 8th grade and learn English all over again.

 

[litfan10]

does anyone pay for the subscription? I would, but I don't have enough stop to warrant joining for $25 a month.

Who edits your stuff? I find that I need to go back to 8th grade and learn English all over again.

Hey Beco. Don't forget - we're writing fiction which means dialogue, thoughts and pacing - all very different from nonfiction.

I think Kate DiCamillo is one of the best living writers today, and in her first book which won the highest possible award in American Children's literature, the Newbery Award, she had the following sentence: "And ugly." Talk about breaking so many rules. Thing is, she wrote it and left it, her editing team at Candlewick Press, which are very good, left it, and the entire panel of the ALA and ABA read it and still considered it the best thing written the year it came out.

We have STANDARDS of English usage - not so much verbatim rules. Of course, some things are so standardly used that it can be a matter of right or wrong.

8th grade? Common American English is actually at the 6th grade level according to the most recent studies and have been for quite some time. The current occupant in our Oval Office has been well documented for generally speaking at a fourth grade reading level.

Use the editor forum or find people you know and trust to at least read here or in real life. Another great trick is to read aloud from a printout - makes a world of difference.

Trust your own reading skills. Anne Lamott says she writes hours of utter crap and then spends many more hours chipping it down to decent stuff.

Good luck and happy writing!

 

[litfan10]

Sorry, after I got off my soapbox I realized I didn't answer your question.

No, I don't pay for grammarly. I do pay for the latest MLA Handbook, the APA Publication Manual, the Associated Press Stylebook and the annual Writer's Market.

The important thing is not to let them collect dust on your shelf but to actually read through them.

 

[sr71plt]

No, I don't pay for grammarly. I do pay for the latest MLA Handbook, the APA Publication Manual, the Associated Press Stylebook and the annual Writer's Market.

None of which, going back to your first post, are for fiction. These authorities are all for one form of nonfiction or other only.

 

[litfan10]

None of which, going back to your first post, are for fiction. These authorities are all for one form of nonfiction or other only.

Good call Pilot!

I guess the correct answer is I don't pay for any. Although the Writer's Market does help with fiction writing, beyond places to sell, in the articles in the front.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Llearn grammar, and keep in mind most characters are semi-literate.

 

[Beco]

None of which, going back to your first post, are for fiction. These authorities are all for one form of nonfiction or other only.

actually, good point, I hadn't thought of that.

 

[Beco]

Hey Beco. Don't forget - we're writing fiction which means dialogue, thoughts and pacing - all very different from nonfiction.

I think Kate DiCamillo is one of the best living writers today, and in her first book which won the highest possible award in American Children's literature, the Newbery Award, she had the following sentence: "And ugly." Talk about breaking so many rules. Thing is, she wrote it and left it, her editing team at Candlewick Press, which are very good, left it, and the entire panel of the ALA and ABA read it and still considered it the best thing written the year it came out.

We have STANDARDS of English usage - not so much verbatim rules. Of course, some things are so standardly used that it can be a matter of right or wrong.

8th grade? Common American English is actually at the 6th grade level according to the most recent studies and have been for quite some time. The current occupant in our Oval Office has been well documented for generally speaking at a fourth grade reading level.

Use the editor forum or find people you know and trust to at least read here or in real life. Another great trick is to read aloud from a printout - makes a world of difference.

Trust your own reading skills. Anne Lamott says she writes hours of utter crap and then spends many more hours chipping it down to decent stuff.

Good luck and happy writing!

I just remember my 8th grade English teacher for some reason... I'm not sure I learned all that much, but its her I rememberr, older gray haired lady....go figure

 

[litfan10]

I just remember my 8th grade English teacher for some reason... I'm not sure I learned all that much, but its her I rememberr, older gray haired lady....go figure

Why do I see plot bunnies in the mature category from that answer?

 

[Beco]

Why do I see plot bunnies in the mature category from that answer?

Not in my erotica writings, but perhaps a plot in my other nonfiction. I didn't like her. She was old and mean....although she did like my fictional writings

 

[litfan10]

Not in my erotica writings, but perhaps a plot in my other nonfiction. I didn't like her. She was old and mean....although she did like my fictional writings

Certainly worked well for J.K. Rowling.

I also remember a certain classic rock group who named themselves after a high school Phys ed teacher they hated who constantly told them they would never amount to anything. His name was Leonard Skinner.

 

[sr71plt]

Good call Pilot!

I guess the correct answer is I don't pay for any. Although the Writer's Market does help with fiction writing, beyond places to sell, in the articles in the front.

I overlooked the reference to Writer's Market. I'm not sure what helps it gives on grammar, either fiction or nonfiction, but that may mean that I don't check on that.

 

[litfan10]

I overlooked the reference to Writer's Market. I'm not sure what helps it gives on grammar, either fiction or nonfiction, but that may mean that I don't check on that.

Depends on the year and the topics in the articles. There almost always is at least one article on improving writing skills including grammar understanding.

Actually, thinking about it, the front sections of the MLA and APA keep me up on the standards of American English usage. But as you said, mostly from a 'rules to be followed for nonfiction' perspective. But man, talk about dense reading.

Happy Sunday and happy writing! You should have the U.S. Open coming before too long.

 

[lovecraft68]

None of which, going back to your first post, are for fiction. These authorities are all for one form of nonfiction or other only.

So in your opinion what would be a good fiction guide?

Also...at what point does the 'well, it doesn't apply to fiction" begin to apply? In other words there has to be a point where bad grammar can't be covered by its fiction we do what we want...

Or is fiction that lawless?

 

[sr71plt]

The best guide, I think, is to read best-seller fiction and absorb usage. The reason the nonfiction guides don't help is that commercial fiction is far more forgiving in what can be a sentence and how it can be constructed than nonfiction is. If you followed nonfiction grammar style for fiction, your work would come out woefully stilted when laid beside a commercial work of fiction. All of your dialogue would come out in one voice--that of either a Microsoft techie or a government bureaucrat.

The authority for fiction in U.S. publishing, is the Chicago Manual of Style. Until the most recent edition of that, though, it didn't have a grammar section. I've been using other fiction grammar guides (in addition to just watching what best-seller fiction is doing with grammar) because the CMS has come so late to having a grammar section, like Fowler's Modern English Usage, Zinsser's On Writing Well, Bernstein's The Careful Writer,and the American Heritage Book of English Usage.

Because I can be dense about the fine tuning of grammar in specific cases, I frequently consult two work books I had sent out to the field for nonnative English-speaking editors abroad when I was managing editor for an international new agency, which provide basic grammar explanations that are good for both fiction and nonfiction: Davie and Barbara Daniels' English Grammar (from the HarperCollins College Outline series) and Ehrlich's Punctuation, Capitalization, and Spelling (from Schaum's Theory and Problems series, McGraw-Hill).

 

[quietlylooking]

I use Grammarly at work, as my current job involves a lot of nonfiction writing. It's helped me learn to avoid certain pitfalls in my writing, but I'm not a slave to it. It might be good to to try for a month; it's a good refresher on basic grammar and style. However, it doesn't always catch everything, and sometimes its suggestions are flat-out wrong.

 

[SimonDoom]

So in your opinion what would be a good fiction guide?

Also...at what point does the 'well, it doesn't apply to fiction" begin to apply? In other words there has to be a point where bad grammar can't be covered by its fiction we do what we want...

Or is fiction that lawless?

For a short and sweet guide to good writing style I think it's hard to beat Strunk & White's Manual of Style. It's not a comprehensive style guide, and it's no replacement for the various guides Pilot lists, but it's remarkably thorough for being so brief, and it's short enough that an amateur writer reasonably can read it cover to cover. If a writer takes the time to learn its rules and follow them, he/she will rid his/her writing of a large number of the problems that plague amateur writers and that get brought up in this forum from time to time.

The reality is that the bulk of grammar/diction/usage rules apply to fiction and nonfiction alike. There's no legitimate creative purpose served in fiction, any more than in nonfiction, in confusing lie and lay, it's and its, your and you're, or in carelessly mixing up tenses, or flip flopping unconsciously between first person and third person point of view. Writers of all kinds should understand the basic rules about how to use commas, even though in fiction the application of those rules may be looser than in nonfiction. Writers of all types can profit from avoiding the excess use of passive voice.

There are some rules for nonfiction that can and often should be loosened up for fiction. The example cited above of the sentence "And ugly." is an example. Fiction writers often use sentences without verbs, and there's nothing wrong with that. Dickens did it. Or contractions -- in nonfiction writing they often look too informal, but in fiction they are used a lot more, and appropriately, especially if the story is narrated in first person.

I would agree that the best guide is reading lots of commercially successful published fiction. It won't necessarily expose a writer to the "best" prose to emulate, but it will give a writer a good feel for what works and what doesn't.

 

[LIVINRFANTASIES]

Denny

I read topics like this and am ashamed.
Both my wife and I add our short true stories to Lit. Neither of us are writers and don't attempt to be. In fact my wife got pregnant, dropped out during her Junior year of high school, and has short term dementia. She has to read my notes or ask me for details. I didn't do bad in high school English or Drama class.

We don't read books and haven't been to a movie since the drive-in theaters and X-rated movie houses. So we have no idea about different writing styles. I did try an editor for a few stories early on. He/she was helpful but now I mostly just read the stories over a few times and make changes. Lots of changes and admittidly usually still not enough. Yet our stories have amused half drunk perverts for years. Hopefully there are a few here.

Mostly my writing is in the style as the stories were actually told around the campfire or in small local smoke filled bars. Much of the adult language and slightly graphic detail is added just to make a few Lit readers happy.

There are two reasons we joined Lit. People repeatedly told me to write a book or go on an adult site to share our stories. The other reason is we hope at least a few others will read our stories and try a few of the embarrassing things we've done in the past 60 years.

We have more stories but feel it's all been a waste of time. We aren't very grammarly.

 

[litfan10]

I read topics like this and am ashamed.
Both my wife and I add our short true stories to Lit. Neither of us are writers and don't attempt to be. In fact my wife got pregnant, dropped out during her Junior year of high school, and has short term dementia. She has to read my notes or ask me for details. I didn't do bad in high school English or Drama class.

We don't read books and haven't been to a movie since the drive-in theaters and X-rated movie houses. So we have no idea about different writing styles. I did try an editor for a few stories early on. He/she was helpful but now I mostly just read the stories over a few times and make changes. Lots of changes and admittidly usually still not enough. Yet our stories have amused half drunk perverts for years. Hopefully there are a few here.

Mostly my writing is in the style as the stories were actually told around the campfire or in small local smoke filled bars. Much of the adult language and slightly graphic detail is added just to make a few Lit readers happy.

There are two reasons we joined Lit. People repeatedly told me to write a book or go on an adult site to share our stories. The other reason is we hope at least a few others will read our stories and try a few of the embarrassing things we've done in the past 60 years.

We have more stories but feel it's all been a waste of time. We aren't very grammarly.

Ashamed? Oh. Hell no.

Are you having fun?

Do you have readers enjoying, if not even getting off on, your work?

If the answer to both of those questions is "yes" than you my friend are a writer with nothing to be ashamed of at all.

I've seen you post but haven't read any of your stuff, that changes now and I bet you are going to entertain the hell out of me.

Write on!

 

[litfan10]

So in your opinion what would be a good fiction guide?

Also...at what point does the 'well, it doesn't apply to fiction" begin to apply? In other words there has to be a point where bad grammar can't be covered by its fiction we do what we want...

Or is fiction that lawless?

It's a mixture.

"And ugly." is about as lawless as you can get.

But as SimonDoom points out some things are just plain wrong. Homophones for example (I didn't just say 'things are plane wrong.') Verb tense is another. Usage of good/well, lie/lay (and I'll admit I still screw those two up especially in the other tenses) affect/effect. 'Irregardless' - it ain't a word.

Basic punctuation (end punctuation and commas) for sentence structure should be followed but that quickly gets into gray territory for pacing or dialogue purposes.

I think lawlessness comes into play when we do something because it sounds good rather than looks correct.

My two cents, and I've rarely been paid for my two cents.

 

[SimonDoom]

I read topics like this and am ashamed.
We have more stories but feel it's all been a waste of time. We aren't very grammarly.

Waste of time? Not at all, if you are getting something out of it and enjoying it. Your enjoyment shouldn't depend upon what other writers say is the "right" thing to do or not.

Sometimes I think there's too much false either/or thinking in this forum: either you are a grammar fanatic who thinks people who don't care about grammar are lazy, bad writers, or you think anything goes and those who think otherwise are uptight grammar Nazis.

We don't have to choose one or the other. It's possible to care about what others have to say about grammar, to learn from them, and to want to improve one's writing, while being tolerant of others and letting others enjoy this site for whatever they get out of it.

A lot of the most popular and highly-rated stories on this site would flunk a basic high school grammar/diction test. That doesn't mean they are a waste of time. Obviously, a lot of readers enjoy the stories. And if you enjoy writing yours, you should feel free to keep doing so.

 

[sr71plt]

Although better than nothing, Strunk & White was written to support high school themes, not much commercial fiction being written in high school. One step up from there, Turabian's A Manual for Writers is there to support college research papers. Not much fiction being written in the form of a college research paper.

 

[lovecraft68]

It's a mixture.

"And ugly." is about as lawless as you can get.

But as SimonDoom points out some things are just plain wrong. Homophones for example (I didn't just say 'things are plane wrong.') Verb tense is another. Usage of good/well, lie/lay (and I'll admit I still screw those two up especially in the other tenses) affect/effect. 'Irregardless' - it ain't a word.

Basic punctuation (end punctuation and commas) for sentence structure should be followed but that quickly gets into gray territory for pacing or dialogue purposes.

I think lawlessness comes into play when we do something because it sounds good rather than looks correct.

My two cents, and I've rarely been paid for my two cents.

I suppose any conversation like this these days has to bring up that which should not be named written by she who should be sued.

50 Shades read as if a thirteen year old had written it. It was bad even by my grammar standards which are admittedly low.

Didn't stop sales in the least, however and must have been a serious blow to the pockets of editors as anyone who read it had to come away thinking "Shit, this sold millions? I can write better than this."

 

[SimonDoom]

Although better than nothing, Strunk & White was written to support high school themes, not much commercial fiction being written in high school. One step up from there, Turabian's A Manual for Writers is there to support college research papers. Not much fiction being written in the form of a college research paper.

Let me ask it this way: what, specifically, is different? As I pointed out in my post, the basics of grammar and usage are the same for all written English. One wouldn't want to follow a manual for college essays slavishly to write fiction, obviously, but the basics are the same -- essential punctuation, knowing verb tenses, noun-pronoun agreement, etc. Fiction and nonfiction differ a lot in the finer points of usage, but when you've got writers who need to know the basics it may be more helpful for them to have any guide so long as it's something they can master as opposed to a more on-point guide that's too formidable for them to get through. The Chicago Manual of Style, for example, is much, much longer than Strunk and White -- so much longer that a lot of inexperienced writers will look at it and throw up their hands.

But getting back to my first question, I'm curious what, from your perspective and experience, are specific ways in which the usage for fiction differs from that for nonfiction.

 

[SamScribble]

Among my favourite writers are Anthony Burgess, Graham Greene, James Joyce, and Dylan Thomas. I’m pretty sure that Gammarly would have lots of suggestions as to how they could ‘improve’ their prose. But then their prose would not be the prose of Burgess, Greene, Joyce, and Thomas.

If I was starting out again today, I would just make a point of reading the above-mentioned gentlemen, along with the works of Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Epstein, and a few others.

Grammarly? Schmammarly.