Blah Blah Blah: A Guide to Writing

SECTION ONE: Grammar

Section One: Grammar

In this section, we are going to cover a few grammar disasters and how to fix them. What, was that too straightforward? Well, let me rephrase.

Many people tend to overlook the fact there are grammar rules, and unless you know them 100%, you have no right to break them because you really aren’t breaking them on purpose, and therefore, if you’re trying to reach an artistic style, it will look like you have no idea what you’re doing. Trust me, I’m a doctor/lawyer and I know a lot about these things.

So, let’s say you have an absolutely fantastic idea. It’s the best thing ever. City girl meets country vampire amidst the apocalypse, a stereotypical step-father gets in the way of their relationship, aliens take over the oceans, and trees with gills are going out of their way to kill them. City girl has to make the choice between survival and love. You already know the twist ending: city girl was actually a vampire all along, and the country vampire was the one hiring the trees to go after them . . . only so that she can fall in love with him. City girl rises as the leader of the rebellion, country vampire falls to the slumps, and the father is executed publicly. The story finally ends with a cliffhanger—city girl is falling off a cliff. You even know the last line of the story: my feet slip off the edge. You know that this is going to be on the Hot List as soon as you post it, and you know that once you get enough feedback, you might turn this into the best freaking manuscript ever and get all the literary agents at your feet—the words “movie” and “deal” are escaping all of their lips

But there’s this one little problem: can you even write it well? Can you write it so that the reader falls in love with not only the story, but with the way they can read it effortlessly? Half of this basically depends on your style, but before I even get to that, I wanted to address grammar first. The rules that you follow and the rules that you choose to break—both of them could be both good and bad decisions—are a big part of the deal that a lot of writers on this site tend to overlook.

There are a lot of disasters to cover. If you get through this section, the rest of the book will be a breeze! But if you want to read this book, do not skip the grammar section. Everything else will just mess you up.

(And yes, we will use that plot for all of the examples).