Grammar Un-Schooling: Your 6 Hall Passes
By Kathryn Craft | May 12, 2022 |
photo adapted / Horia Varlan
We were good students, most of us. At the very least we loved reading and writing, and if our interest flagged in other subjects, we were either daydreaming or reading novels hidden beneath our desks.
Complete sentences were our currency. We never started one with a cheap conjunction like “and” or “but,” or ended one with a preposition like “with” or “to.” Each paragraph featured a topic sentence supported by subsequent points.
A truly creative writer knew several dozen alternatives for the word “said” when attributing dialogue and we proved it (she bragged). In our hot little hands, we held fistfuls of hall passes giving us free rein for use of adjectives and adverbs. We believed that older, smarter children used longer, more complex sentences and worked twice as hard to harness the comprehensive effect of their entire adolescent lexicon because none of us would be caught dead saying anything as direct and simple-minded as “Joe loved Mary.”
Rules, glorious rules. When a writer’s confidence flounders, she can always grasp the handrails of her elementary education. Right?
Hmm. Don’t hold on too tightly.
As far as today’s fiction is concerned, your teacher’s name was Miss Information. Here’s a new set of hall passes that will allow you more freedom to explore and make effective use of language.
HALL PASS #1: Complete sentences not required
I could list a dozen reasons why novelists don’t have to be responsible for teaching youngsters the difference between a sentence and a fragment, but the most obvious would be that you aren’t writing a textbook—and heaven help you if it sounds like you are. Your reader will set the book right down and look for a voice that sounds more conversational. Intimate. Real. (See how the stops and spaces here add a certain thoughtfulness to what I’m saying? Sometimes what’s not in a sentence makes more impact than what is.)
Beauty can be found in the concision of image; the way silence is introduced by the systematic stripping away of every unnecessary word; the creative use of punctuation. To be sure, you won’t want to overuse any one technique. You’ll need enough full sentences to support meaning. But unless your goal is military rigidity, you do not want your sentences to be identical, hiking knee and flicking foot at predictable subject-verb intervals, if a purposeful mix of shapes, sizes, and textures will better grab the reader’s interest and underscore your message.
An ear for poetry can provide a lively syncopation to your prose. Certain sentences, while spinning and swirling, will impress with their sweeping grandeur. Others stand stilted. Some stride forth with confidence, then back off. One might gain momentum on an accelerating run across the page that gobbles up space as though it were an unlimited resource—then stop, panting, for breath. Repeated elements, patterned elements, or restated elements can drive home a point.
Let’s edit an example.
John marched across the room, muttering under his breath and kicking the cat out of the way.
It’s the first draft. Your mind is racing through the material and your fingers are flying and you don’t yet know how to manage the actions in the scene so you dump them all into one sentence. In subsequent drafts, think again. The structure of this sentence defeats what the writer is trying to accomplish. (And heaven help the nodding-off reader if the next sentence says, “Mary stormed out of the house, starting the car and backing it through the closed garage door.”) Take a cue from your verb choice: marching. Left, right, left. Chop, chop, chop. Short sentences increase tension. Establish order—after all, John didn’t do all of these things at once, did he? Mary certainly couldn’t.
Better for John:
John marched across the room. Muttered under his breath. Kicked the cat.
Each of these phrases now exudes its own energy. To mix things up, you might choose this counterpoint for Mary:
Mary stormed out of the house with so many unspoken invectives jamming her mind that after she started the car she backed it right through the closed garage door.
This complex, almost run-on sentence helps to illustrate that no two people feel anger in the same way.
Tip: Develop an ear for conscious prose construction by reading your work aloud. Sometimes it’s easier to hear than see the unintentional singsong or soporific rhythms that have seeped into your work, or the way complete sentences may have water-logged your prose. Use contractions; they’ll reduce wordiness and increase intimacy. Don’t fret about “correct comma placement” for now—put a comma where you hear a pause. Put a period where you need a longer pause. This is the work—and if you ask me, the fun—of writing.
HALL PASS #2: “And” or “but”? Your choice
Start your sentences with any word you want. But don’t tell your elementary English teacher I said that.
And at the butt end of your sentence—especially in dialogue—if it sounds natural, end with whatever word you want to. Just remember that the final position has the most power, and “to” is just so…puny. But if your daughter didn’t make the cut at the cheerleading tryouts, and she says, “Mom I just wanted to get in,” that final word carries power we can all relate to. The second most powerful position is the first word, so have a good reason for using the word you choose.
Tip: Make a one last pass to make sure your final words—especially at the end of paragraphs and sections—carry power that can resonate over the space that follows. Also, avoid a disturbing echo (and add visual interest) by checking that the first words in your paragraphs aren’t all the same, unless you purposefully used repetition to underscore the point you were trying to make.
HALL PASS #3: Use “said” almost exclusively
This has changed since the years when my local writing group distributed a handout in every conference packet with synonyms for “said.” These days, publishers would rather see the word “said” used in dialogue attribution for the following reasons:
- The word is common to the point of near-invisibility, allowing it to serve its function without interrupting the flow of dialogue.
- Its usage forces you to achieve meaning through the prose and the dialogue itself.
Tip: If you need to say “demanded” in the attribution, your demand wasn’t forceful enough. If you need to say “demanded forcefully,” you’re in real trouble. Evoke the demand and the force will be with you.
HALL PASS #4: “Simple” and “direct” can get you there faster
I will share a secret: I am predisposed to long, complex sentences. I am predisposed to lecturing. I am predisposed to passive language that does not necessarily deliver the syntax that defines a story. Every day I work hard to break down my writing into smaller, action-oriented sentences that suggest who is doing what to whom.
As to vocabulary, I follow Stephen King’s sage advice: Only use your thesaurus to remind you of words you’ve forgotten. A paragraph is not a canon you must load with big words, tamp with long sentences, and aim at the reader. If you feel tempted to show off your vocabulary and your ability to make love to six clauses per sentence, commercial publication might be a challenge.
Tip: Sometimes “Joe loves Mary” is just the right kind of poetry.
HALL PASS #5: Free use of nouns and verbs
Many writers, diligently pursuing accumulatively startling prose, love their modifiers adoringly. The effect of modifier overuse can be a wall of words that keeps readers out rather than invites them in.
Tip: Never use an adverb/verb combo when a better verb would do (use “crept” over “moved slowly”). Never use an adjective/noun combo when a better noun would do (use “crate“ over “rustic wooden box“).
An even better tip: Sort through your modifiers for those that reach beyond simple description by actually moving the story forward. Keep those; question the others.
HALL PASS #6: Paragraphs still rule!
I’ve written here before about paragraphing as an important storytelling tool and have no desire to repeat myself. Just don’t underestimate the power of paragraphs to organize your fiction. Even where you insert the paragraph break can make all the difference, since readers will assume the writer is grouping her thoughts according to plan. An example:
Jenna shivered. The thin paper gown could offer no warmth, no comfort, no protection against this new, sanctioned violation. “Dr. Jane Smith, Intern” laid a hand on Jenna’s abdomen. “Just a light touch and this will all be over, Jenna. Try to relax.” She kept her gaze on raised knees. Rape. She never thought the word would be part of her experience.
Compare that to the same words, grouped differently:
Jenna shivered. The thin paper gown could offer no warmth, no comfort, no protection against this new, sanctioned violation. “Dr. Jane Smith, Intern” laid a hand on her abdomen.
“Just a light touch and this will all be over, Jenna. Try to relax.” She kept her gaze on raised knees. Rape. She never thought the word would be part of her experience.
In the first example, the paragraphing signals that we’ve remained in Jenna’s point of view. The second example is less clear in this regard—we might have jumped into Jane Smith’s POV to gain her perspective as a new doctor.
Tip: Paragraph with story-specific purpose: Instead of using the once-requested topic sentence, invite the reader to ride toward the paragraph’s concluding line—then beg their interest with the opening to the next.
SO THEN: WHY GRAMMAR?
We learn grammar so communication can be made be clear. Nothing can ruin a fine dramatic moment like lack of clarity, such as when the reader arrives at an emotional peak and thinks, “Wait, wait—which one of them is saying this?” We learned the rules so we can bend them to our purpose—to support the intention of our prose—without causing undue confusion.
I leave you with this thrilling example of what creative sentence structure can do to support meaning, from Salman Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh:
Way up there near the roof of Go-Down No. 1, Aurora da Gama (PH), at the age of fifteen lay back on pepper sacks, breathed in the hot, spice-laden air, and waited for Abraham. He came to her as a man goes to his doom, trembling but resolute and it is around here that my words run out, so you will not learn from me the bloody details of what happened when she, and then he, and then they, and after that she, and at which he, and in response to that she, and with that, and in addition, and for a while, and then for a long time, and quietly, and noisily, and at the end of their endurance, and at last, and after that, until…phew! Boy! Over and done with!
Final tip: When revising, always ask yourself, “What am I trying to say here, and how can I best show it?” Then, see if you can find a way to support that meaning by commanding your sentence or paragraph structure to do your bidding—even if that means breaking a rule or three.
This is what makes our writing “creative.”
What other rules have you broken in the name of creativity, former grammarians? Give us an example of a passage of your writing that you’ve modified in some way to support its meaning. Have you ever had a grammarian “correct” your story to the point that the personality was edited right out of it?
Kathryn Craft (she/her) is the author of two novels from Sourcebooks, The Art of Falling and The Far End of Happy. Her forthcoming book, Crafting Story Movement: Techniques to Engage Readers and Drive Your Novel Forward, draws from decades of experience as both a story consultant and a movement specialist/dance critic. Learn more on Kathryn’s website.
[coffee]
Boy oh boy, Kathryn, is this post a good one. Keeping up with grammar is an ongoing practice and can be so creative. I love your advice here about sentence fragments especially. Your Tip: ‘Develop an ear for conscious prose construction by reading your work aloud.’ really does work well. From Joan Didion: “Grammar is a piano I play by ear. All I know about grammar is its power.”
Thanks for the Didion quote, Paula, I hadn’t heard it before. Coming from the perspective of someone who was never asked to diagram a sentence, I suspect that there are many of us who know grammar intuitively through reading. We just know something feels wrong, like a bad note in a song. Great analogy.
Great post, Kathryn, so concise and practical, echoing many of the ways that my own writing has evolved. You point to the crucial difference between “guidelines” and “rules.” The guidelines you offer are to be employed in the service of the story or voice, rather than the voice having to adapt to the “rule.” Viva la difference!
I love that you shared this, Barbara: “…echoing many of the ways that my own writing has evolved.” So many professional writers (journalists, technical writers, prescriptive how-to writers) arrive at fiction’s door thinking, “Well at least I already know how to communicate my ideas.” Many a developmental editor has had to disavow such a writer of that notion! How you put a sentence or paragraph together can be the most basic way to show instead of tell. I think that being open to the evolution of one’s writing—even when, or perhaps especially when, your experience in another writing field is deep—is key.
Hi Kathryn. I would add that in dialogue, all rules are secondary to capturing the sound of the character’s speech. I know, try telling that to a copy editor trying to “fix” your dialogue. But do tell them. Fight for this. Nothing kills dialogue like grammatical perfection.
However, on the “said” front. It continues to amaze me how much this is an American obsession, one Irish and UK writers find bizarre. But I do agree that it forces you to make the dialogue strong — all the more so if, in the pursuit of limiting its repetition (especially in a multiple-character scene, where speech tags often seem necessary), you have to make sure the speakers are uniquely identifiable by what they’re saying and how they’re saying it. Distinguishing speakers by attitude (angry, confused, calm, evasive) as well as education level, verbal sophistication, comfort or discomfort with curse words, etc., can all be employed to help you eliminate even “said” from your dialogue.
And I’ll second Paula’s remark about reading your stuff aloud. The ear is wiser than the eye.
One last thing (aging myself here): I did learn how to diagram sentences. I found it kinda fun. This will sound rather odd, but it came in handy when learning math. All that structuring, how putting this here instead of there changes things. (Note sentence fragment.)
Thanks for another immensely helpful post.
Totally agree about dialogue! Grammarians, stand back and let us do our thing!
I think certain “said” synonyms have their place, especially when the intent of the dialogue differs from its surface meaning. But this debate always makes me think of an extreme example: Pollyanna, the 1913 novel by Eleanor H. Porter. I had adored this story my whole life, based on the 1960 Disney movie with Hayley Mills and Agnes Moorehead. I finally read the novel a few years ago, as I’d inherited an early edition from my first mother-in-law, who was an elementary school teacher beginning in the 1930s. Porter often used the word “ejaculated” when attributing an exclamation, which, being the mature person I am, would send me into peals of laughter even when it was obvious that this was not the author’s desired reaction. This classic has been cleaned up in newer editions, as you can imagine!—but the emotional power of this story, one I’d always loved, was ruined. My advice would be to use “said” synonyms only when they contribute better to the advancement of story, and not for simply describing the way dialogue is delivered.
The major form of disagreement I get from Brit and Irish friends concerns the US jihad against adverbs — especially in speech tags. But your point about the words being at odds with their intent or delivery makes such things necessary.
“Mother’s here,” he said despairingly.
“I love you,” she said bitterly.
Now, context may make such usages unnecessary. But the universal prohibition against adverbs is just kinda nuts imho.
Kathryn, this is one of your best pieces here. Each of these “passes” is a world of word ideas, and all of them are a pleasure to get lost in, the way you tell them. (Sorry, Miss Information.)
Sentences and paragraphs really are key. Any of either is really half of a scissors — a hunk of weight about to do its real work with the sharp line along the bottom, and where it means the sharp line at the top of the next.
Wow Ken, thanks! Love the idea of sentences and paragraphs working as scissors—the strength of metal speaks to concision, and the edge to creating tension. How could the reader help but be affected?
I too could get lost in the pleasure of any of these “halls” of thought. Fun sharing class with you!
Another exemplary essay, Kathryn!
Once, I was tasked with beta-reading a friend of a friend’s novel. It was nothing but sentence fragments. Nothing else. Fragments! There was no connective tissue that made enough sense to even call it a book. I trudged through a few chapters and said to my friend, “I can’t read this; the entire draft needs a complete overhaul. It’s nothing but random fragments tossed about like pixie sticks.” To which my friend said, “I know. I’ve told her, but she just says, ‘That’s my style. Your edits/suggestions take my voice away. I’m keeping it the way I wrote it.’.” Afterwards, I politely bowed out and told her that, for whatever reason, it wasn’t my cup of tea (seeing as though my friend’s critique had fallen upon defensive ears).
Come to find out she had already self-pubbed the dang thing before ever giving it to me, so my edits wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Sheesh!
Thanks for the hall passes. I’ll stash them away in my MAD SKILLS toolbox with all the other rule-benders.
Oh no Mike!! Talk about the pendulum swinging too wide—that sounds like a nightmare. I will not do a developmental edit on a book that has already been self-published, no matter how low the sales. Despite having this rule from the get-go, two very persuasive writers have talked me into doing it through the years, saying they are now ready to learn what’s not working. Not only did neither utilize any of my suggestions, but the books have remained on Amazon as they were, with fewer than 5 reviews. Once a writer believes their work is ready to be published, it seems little can be done to influence its improvement. Say it with me: “Never again!”
Great post, Kathryn. Evolution in thinking also occurs in writing. Like David, I diagramed sentences and found it interesting to do so. My love of word placement helped me enjoy writers who were so-called breaking rules. They were creative, they were poets within a basic story line. There has always been freedom within the process of writing. Like architects who use some basics to make sure the building will stand, writers do the same. Your examples attest to the importance of experimenting. We are not CREATIVE if we can’t break some rules, or at the very least experiment. Beth PS When student-teaching, my preceptor did not agree with what I just wrote. She sat in the back of the room frowning while I tried to inject creativity into presentation–because I believe that helps us learn. I still cringe when I think of her!
Ugh. Rigid thinking has turned away many a budding schoolteacher, me included. I hope you went on to influence students!
And let’s not exclude the fact that reading can also inspire an evolution in our thinking. As much as I love to gobble up a story I also love lingering over sentences and paragraphs in the books I read, such as Rushdie’s, and allow myself to marvel at the way their arrangement of the same old words I use every day accomplished so much.
Kathryn, thank you for a wonderful lesson on knowing when to break the rules. What I’m hearing is being true to the voices, without sacrificing clarity.
I. Hate. Long. Sentences. But am I making myself clear? “They are an abhorrence,” I once had said in the past perfect tense, having deliberated long and consulted the thesaurus to find, with grateful relief, the exact right word to express my disgust with overly-wordy writing.
However.
There does come a time when a long sentence can serve, perhaps even a compound one. It’s best, I find, in a mix. Long-short-short-long or short-long-long-short. Variety. That’s the best pattern. But then, it depends upon style. Sometimes you want to be friendly, colloquial and natural in your language. Other times you want to be a starched collar.
It all depends. Which is why I like your post today, Ms. Craft. You are saying be free. I would add only, let language serve your purpose.
I think you will agree, yes?
I agree, Mr. Brinks! It’s a delight to see you express this in a way that supports your point. Go, be free, and let language serve your purpose!
Comment didn’t register as a “reply”—please see below!
You’ve got it, Vijaya! That’s the ticket.
Thanks for this, Kathryn, I’m on board with everything here–valuable tips for all writers. As an author and editor, I have found two additional things that can strengthen a narrative. Commas: yes, put one in where you feel a pause, but also take one out when you feel a pause disturbs rhythm and saps strength from meaning. And, on modifiers, I’ve found that adverb/adjective combos can add nuance and flavor to description, especially in terms of characterization of a character or an action. I reject just about all adverb/verb combinations, but an adverb/adjective can sweeten the story, IMO.
Great point about taking a comma out, Ray, thanks for that. And your adverb/adjective point is also well taken. In general, I’m a fan of using modifiers with abandon in first draft writing, but then going back to chose the one (or sometimes two) that best suggests further story. In the manuscripts I see, where someone feels free to use one modifier, they feel just as entitled to use four, leaving me wading through excess verbiage to find the important stuff that it was their job to spotlight.
Yet even a pile o’modifiers can be use creatively, of course—for instance, to evoke a character’s overwhelm. Anything goes if used with intent!
Kathryn, you are singing my song! If nothing else (about writing), THIS I have learned. I love to self-edit with these dynamic rule-breakers. I compulsively edit the submissions of my writer-group colleagues with these sorts of suggestions (not always to their appreciation). I read daily. Part of my enjoyment is peering under the curtain of author techniques. Two old, famous examples:
Nabokov: “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.”
Mann: “On a spring afternoon in 19__, the year in which for months on end so grave a threat seemed to hang over the peace of Europe, Gustav Aschenbach, or von Aschenbach as he had been officially known since his fiftieth birthday, had set out from his apartment on the Prinzregentenstrasse in Munich to take a walk of some length by himself. The morning’s writing had overstimulated him…”
These are great examples, Leslie, thanks! And after having had the pleasure of reading your writing, I know that you are speaking the truth. My three favorite words in your comment: “I read daily.”
Alas, I’m more of a Mann than a Nabokov.
“Evoke the demand and the force will be with you.” Fine line, Kathryn; should go in Elements of Style II.
And the motion and pace and dynamism of your “ear for poetry” paragraph is bracing: that baby flows! Great stuff.
Oh, no one has ever corrected my grammar. Except for those that have. (He muttered, kicking the cat.)
Thanks for your kind words, Tom. Your comment was highly entertaining as well! (She exclaimed while pickup the cat to placate it.)
Kathryn, this is freaking GOLD. Seriously, you just packed more useful writing lessons into one post than I can recall ever seeing.
Well done!
To use an old rock ‘n’ roll phrase, you just blew my mind, Keith! Thank you so much for your kind words.
I’m gonna use all these hall passes! Thanks!
Awesome! Enjoy, Joni!
Kathryn, what a fantastic post. I love not feeling constrained by rules, but then I’m left wondering how you know if you have the right copy editor. If you eschew the conventions and go your merry way like Yannick Murphy (The Call) or Peter Heller (The Dog Stars) both of which I loved, despite Heller’s nonexistent dialogue tags or Murphy’s unusual, staccato phrasing, how do you know whether an editor is making appropriate grammar, sentence structure and punctuation corrections or crushing your creative spirit?
Hi Deborah, wow, this is a great question that might have as many answers as there are published authors who’ve had to tussle with their copy editors. I’m not a copy editor myself, but when I do line edits for people, I always substantiate the change in a comment, such as, “Due to the lack of proximity, this pronoun reference isn’t clear”—that kind of thing. That’s ideal for the author, who can then make a choice toward clarity. But maybe the speaker is hiding an addiction, and the “tell” is that he isn’t clear about anything, therefore your choice was conscious. In that case, write STET (let it stand, implying that this is the author’s choice).
I have a post worth of things to say about this topic though, so it will be my next post. Check back on the second Thursday of June for more!
Hi Deborah the post addressing your questions is live now—thanks for the great comment!
https://staging-writerunboxed.kinsta.cloud/2022/06/09/copy-edits-to-challenge-or-concede/
Using a conjunction at the beginning of a sentence needs no ‘pass’ because there is no rule against it. If teachers are telling students that there is, it is an indication of under-educated teachers. The first thing one has to remember about grammar is to learn actual grammar rather than myths and misremembered ‘rules’. The other thing is that as writers of fiction, we ignore it when ignoring it suits our storytelling purposes but should know that we are doing so.
Hi JR, thanks for setting the record straight! I would have differentiated “grammar” from “what I was taught” if I could, but it was so long ago the two have conflated. 😂