I was giving someone a little writing advice last week and
this post came to mind. If you missed it the first time around, hope you'll
find it useful now!
"Devotees
of grammatical studies have not been distinguished for any very remarkable
felicities of expression." Bronson Alcott
When writing fiction, it's okay to break a few rules.
Unlike political incorrectness, grammatical incorrectness harms no one, and in
general is more pleasing to the ear. A narrative should flow smoothly, not read
like a research paper.
I'm not talking about poor grammar, unless your character
comes from that background. Even then, don't go overboard with dialect. A
little goes a long way. In The Elements of Style, Strunk and White say, "The best dialect
writers...are economical of their talents, they use the minimum, not the
maximum, of deviation from the norm, thus sparing the reader as well as
convincing him."
What I'm referring to is all those prickly little rules we learned
in grammar school, such as never end a sentence with a preposition, and never
begin one with a conjunction.
"I can see him, up above," is more likely to be
said in real life, instead of, "Up above, I can see him." And because
of this, I'd rather end that sentence of dialogue with a preposition. But did
you notice how I just started two sentences with conjunctions? If you've broken
a writing rule, but it passes the natural speech
test, you're pretty safe!
Remember, smooth flow and naturalistic dialogue keep the
pages turning! Have you broken any rules of writing lately?
Thanks for visiting and have a great week!
Originally posted 8/16/10
3 comments:
I always break them. When my first book was published, I got a long letter from a grammar cop, pointing out ever mistake I'd made (most of in in the dialogues, which was meant to sound as the characters would speak). I corrected all the errors in her letter and sent it back to her!
That's so funny--I would've loved to have seen the expression on her face when she opened her corrected letter! Realistic sounding dialogue always breaks the rules;).
Realistic dialogue has to break the rules. No one speaks in precise English boarding school style grammar.
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