Grammar Pet Hates (a.k.a. Boy Him Card Read Good)

Warning: this is a rant. Look away if you're not in the mood for rantings :-)

Clarity. That’s all writing’s about. Well, okay - not all. But, without clarity in what we’re saying to people, there will never be complete understanding between human beings. That’s an important point to remember about why we need grammar; why grammar’s important to get right.

As a writer, I tend to pay particular attention to the structure, grammar and punctuation of anything I read – there’s an incorrigible editor locked away inside me, I suppose – and when I come across one of my pet hate grammar mistakes, I almost always throw a Trussie and correct the mistake with a big black permanent marker pen. What can I say – I’m human and some things just get under my skin. And just like everyone else, there’s one thing in particular that sets me a-fizz.

I was catching a train the other week, and right on the wall three feet from my face, surrounded by some Troglodyte’s best graffiti ‘art’, was something that that Trog would have sprayed over if he’d known it was stealing his thunder. I don’t want to risk infringing on some advertising exec’s copyright, so I won’t reproduce the error here, but here’s another very similar example from a well-known UK TV cookery show:

Whoever wins, it’ll change their life forever.

It’s on pay TV. It’s played right at the start of every show. It must be right, right?

Wrong.

What’s the problem? Bad grammar. The sentence has an agreement issue. It starts off singular (whoever), changes to plural (their), then sods off back to singular again (life).

Clarity? No chance. How many winners are we really talking about here? One, or many? You may think it doesn’t matter, but I’m asking myself: ‘How many chefs can win this competition? Can there be only one winner, as the sentence starts off suggesting, and which would be far more exciting? Or, will there be many, as the middle of the sentence seems to predict?

Bad grammar = no clarity = lazy speaker = no respect for me as a listener/viewer/reader.

If the presenter really wanted to ‘card read good’, he would have said (for example): We’re about to change someone’s life forever.

What alarms me most is that this obviously incorrect (and often confusing) way of speaking / writing is becoming increasingly acceptable in media – newspapers, TV, radio; and in publishing.

A while back I flirted with a website called authonomy – writers upload their works, whether finished or in progress, and others read and comment. I remember pointing out a very similar agreement issue to one chappie who’d uploaded a sample of his novel, and who wrote for a big-time newspaper. He also claimed to have a qualification in journalism. Good for him – no, seriously; I admire him for caring so much about the art and craft of writing (communicating) that he’d dedicate time and effort to formalising his qualifications.

But this chap almost knocked me off my seat when he said that I was the one who was wrong; that modern teachers actually tell their students that it’s okay to write sentences like that.

What absolute rot. It’s never okay to allow standards to slip. It’s never okay to turn a blind eye to laziness – or encourage it, for that matter - and claim it’s the modern way.

We’re writers. We work to a given set of high standards and we must always maintain those standards. If we don’t, no one will know what the hell we’re raving on about.

If you’re a writer, aspiring or otherwise, read Lynne Truss’s excellent book Eats, Shoots & Leaves. It’s probably the most cathartic text I’ve read in years, and it sets the bar very high. Please, aspire to achieve those high standards.

Oh, and for all the purists out there, I apologise for starting so many of my sentences with conjunctions. Here’s what to do: scroll back to the top of this article so that it fills your computer’s screen, then take a big black permanent marker pen...

Viewpoint Writing

Viewpoint

I mentioned in a previous blog posting that I’d come to talking about viewpoint in fiction one day. That day is here. I don’t intend to delve into the real nitty-gritty of what is one of the biggest (and heaviest) subjects in the world of writing novels. Instead, I’ll give an outline, and I’ll conclude by pointing you in the direction of my favourite reference material.

Viewpoint – or point of view – refers to the eyes through which the reader ‘sees’ a story unfold.

If I told you a story about a trip I made to town to buy shoes with my wife (don’t get me started), I’d be telling you that story from my point of view. In literary parlance, that’s called ‘first person viewpoint’ (FPV): the person who is relating the story is the person who experienced it first hand.

There are a couple of other ways to relate a story, though. One is called ‘second person viewpoint’, (SPV) and the other is ‘third person viewpoint’ (TPV). Just like FPV each has its advantages and disadvantages, and I’ll discuss these briefly.

First Person

We drove to the store, the same store we were in last week, and the week before that, hunting for those God-awful shoes. Sparkly, spangly, patently heeled and winkled. Shoppers jostled me, unaware I was on a knife edge. Just one more pair, one more pair and I’ll...

The big advantage with FPV is that the reader gets into the character’s head almost immediately. That brings the reader closer to the character, and empathy with that character (the holy grail of the fiction writer) follows on pretty quickly. For example, when we read David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, we’re reading the story from young David’s point of view – first person. Almost as soon as we start reading, we begin to get a real feeling of sympathy for David’s plight, and we start rooting for him. Bingo! Dickens has his readers onside and they’re easy meat after that major hurdle is overcome. We care about what happens to David, so we keep reading to find out how he fares.

One major disadvantage with FPV, however, is that writing style is more noticeable. Because you’re getting more personal with your readers, they’ll pay more attention to your ‘voice’ and be less forgiving if they find they don’t like it.

Another major disadvantage with FPV is that the writer must find some credible means by which to keep relevant information from the reader without having that reader exclaim in frustration, ‘But how could this character not know that?’ For example, in a murder-mystery it would be inconceivable to have a scene from the murderer’s first person viewpoint – for where would be the mystery in that? A writer could, technically, keep information back from the reader to increase and maintain the mystery to the end, but would you really want to read another book by that author if your bubble of anticipation was burst with some fact that must have been known earlier on? I doubt it.

Second Person

You drive to the store, the same store you drove to last week, and the week before that, hunting for those God-awful shoes. Sparkly, spangly, patently heeled and winkled. Shoppers jostle you, unaware you’re on a knife edge. Just one more pair, one more pair and you’ll...

SPV is an ‘in-your-face’ way to write, I find, and it really packs a punch when it’s done right. That’s the biggest advantage of writing in SPV – your writing stands out from the crowd... a bit like the stinky kid in the high school playgrounds.

And therein lies the problem. A huge slice of your readership pie won’t like reading this kind of writing because they’ll probably feel like they’re being dictated to by Moses or some snotty TV chef (actually, cook books are a great example of second person viewpoint writing). If you want to write like this – if you really, really enjoy the challenge that’s inherent in writing SPV - then go for it. Be aware, though, that just because you make direct short addresses to the reader (you’ll do this, and you did that...) doesn’t make your writing SPV.

Third Person

Jack drove to the store, the same store he drove to the week before, and the week before that, hunting for those God-awful shoes. Sparkly, spangly, patently heeled and winkled. Shoppers jostled him, unaware he was on a knife edge. Just one more pair, one more pair and he’d...

TPV is where the story is narrated by someone who wasn’t present as a character. There are a couple of ‘sub-modes’ in relation to TPV: omniscient (where the narrator knows and can relate anything that goes on in any character’s mind at any time); and limited (where the narrator narrows what information is divulged by keeping thoughts, feelings and attitudes to one viewpoint character in each scene or chapter.) And in limited, there are even more divisions – referred to a levels of penetration (i.e. how deeply into a character’s mind we can penetrate.)

The great advantage of third person viewpoint is that the narrator can more directly control what information is available to the reader. For example, in first person viewpoint, unless you’re Lwaxana Troi, you can’t usually tell with any great accuracy what’s going on in people’s minds when you walk into a room. But with TPV (omniscient) the narrator can get into those minds and let the reader know what’s relevant. Equally, with careful planning and execution, the writer can hold back information with a higher degree of credibility – and that can lead to increased tension and suspense.

That’s why TPV limited is the viewpoint of choice for writers of mysteries, thrillers and horror stories: readers find out what the writer wants them to find out, exactly when the story needs them to, for best effect. What’s behind the scratched wooden door? What will happen if our main character doesn’t jump off the train right now? Who was it who really planted the bomb? All of those questions can be answered after drawing out the maximum tension and suspense from the story, and TPV limited gives the greatest flexibility towards that end. Better still, in TPV writing style takes a back seat and lets the reader concentrate on the story.

There are disadvantages, of course, to writing in TPV. There’s a temptation to ‘head-hop’ – start a sentence or paragraph telling the story from one character’s viewpoint and end up telling it from another’s. That leads to confusion in your readers’ minds – never good.

The biggest disadvantage, however, is common to both first and third person limited viewpoint: controlling what your characters do and do not know at any given time. For example, if you’re narrating a TPV story using limited point of view, you can’t have that character thinking or talking about something he can’t possibly know about.

Conclusion

Whatever viewpoint you choose to write your story in, make sure it works best for the story you're telling. Try out a few paragraphs, or even a whole chapter, in each viewpoint that takes your fancy and go from there. Some viewpoint modes work best for certain story types – first person for comedy, for example, and third limited for thrillers and suspense. The big question is: what works best for the way I want my readers to enjoy this story?

Reference Materials

I found Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card (ISBN-10: 0-89879-927-9) to be very helpful in demystifying the subject of viewpoint.

Approaching Our Dotage--by KazzaBP

I’ve been pondering age, lately. My age. And I’ve come to realize something.
I’m getting old.

There are all kinds of clues. Wrinkles where there never used to be any. Gray hair that re-sprouts exponentially every time I pluck one. Arms that aren’t quite long enough to allow me to read the newspaper. A child who is approaching thirty.

One of the most telling signs, though, is how I am perceived by others. Young men never, ever flirt with me anymore. Instead, they call me Mrs. Pease. And old men flirt with me all the time. They call me honey, darlin’ and my favorite, which just came my way today: baby doll.

Hehehe. I am so far from being a ‘baby doll’, it’s not funny. Well, it is. Because if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry. He was eighty if he was a day…

Yep, I’m getting old. There’s no denying it. But I find comfort in many things--the first of which is–-my friends are getting older too. In fact, one of my dearest friends is about to catch up with me, once more. Jack Ramsay–-brilliant blogger, author extraordinaire, husband, builder, brother and best friend–-is having a birthday this week. For the next five months, he will be every bit as old as I am.

And I intend to rub it in.

Jack is a strange combination of mature, responsible man, and pain-in-the-ass kid-at-heart. He is full of sage advice one minute; giving words of wisdom and citing common-sense snippets designed to improve the world around him… and the next, he’s spouting potty-mouth and tee-heeing over the asinine and ridiculous.

It’s a combination I love, and one that is bound to keep him mentally healthy for years and years to come.

And that’s a good thing, for his body is falling apart all around him.

Now that Jack is approaching his dotage, there are subtle changes in his life and his life-style. He used to play rugby and tussle with the staunchest of adversaries. Now he watches the game from an easy chair and shakes his fist petulantly when he takes umbrage at a call. His grocery bags used to contain items such as curry chicken, beer and even the occasional bottle of Scotch. Now, he unpacks antacids, prune juice and—dare I say it?

You know… I really don’t! Because Jack–-even as he gets decrepit and stooped, even as his eyebrows begin to resemble thatched eaves and his whiskers get all gray–-is still a spirited son of a gun. He still gets wrathy, still gets wild, still gets EVEN! I’ve learned my lesson there! No way am I going to mention his incontinence pants! No way in hell!

Oh, I could go on and on about the not-so-graceful aging of one of my best friends. I could mention the hemorrhoids, the corns and the bunions and the bi-focals. But I won’t, because that would be mean, and I’ve a strict policy against elder abuse. Besides, I’m about to sneeze. And at Jack’s and my age, that can have disastrous consequences.

Happy birthday, Boy. And welcome. It's not so bad...