#004 The Grammar Police are Coming!

Written by Xavier Zyta

www.hotlitbooks.com

First let me state, that I am not the Spelling and Grammar Police, nor am I the Punctuation Pope.  I am writing this so that it may give other independent or dependent authors the idea to be on the lookout.  

See example below. 

Betty was having a rotting morning. As her coffee pot had died and she needed her fix.  She was having a bad hair day.  It didn’t cooperate either.So it was ponytail day.  The day of catastrophy continued, she couldn’t find a pair of pantyhose, that didn’t have a big ruin in it.  The chase had caused her to be late.  She didn’t really have time to stop for coffee, but she needed it and it was her morning richual.  She felt frazzled, and didn’t have that normal perky feeling.  Her name called for her cup of heaven.  She moved quickly to pick it up, and snatched it off the counter.  As she turned in such a hurry, she didn’t notice Owen awaiting his jafa.  All she noticed was her cup of heaven slip out of her hand.  And turn to a liquid hell on the floor and on Owen’s pants.  The expleteves flew from her mouth, like she was spewing a bad taste in her mouf. 

She then realized where she was and her fast like a thermometer drop in boiling water flew to full red.  “I am so sorry”, was out of her mouth without her even known it could propell so fast.   Owen was trying to pull the legs of his pants away from scalding his legs.  He exclaimed, “It is okay, accidents happen”.    

Can you spot the all the errors in the above?

Amazingly, I read a lot and have been mainly focusing on independent authors works.  Unfortunately, with this I have been noticing a lot of errors.  Let us go over some of the errors that I have read in recent months. 

First of all, there have been the dreaded spelling errors that seemingly pop up.  Words are overlooked for correct spelling and with the simple use of spellchecker in your software this can easily be fixed.  Take your time and do the extra step to use spellchecker, as it is so annoying to read a word and know that it was incorrectly spelled.  Personally, I can overlook one or two but when you have a book that on almost every page there is an error it takes away from the story.  I love a good story and I will finish it even though there are these errors, I know some people will not. 

Secondly, there have been many instances with the issue of grammar.  Grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language.  When you are doing a story that helps you jump out of the normal grammar rules, then that is easy.  These cases are when you are doing a fairy tale, alien story, cultural story etc.  Even though you will have to follow some of the grammar rules, it is best to also use the grammar checking in your software. 

The third issue in this blog is punctuation.    A run on sentence is the killer of telling your story.  Commas are a great thing and sometimes do get used too much.  I think if you are telling the story, the best thing to do is say it aloud and listen to how you are telling it and it will help you to know when to use punctuation. 

Below you will find a website that may help in this but the best thing, I think, is just pay attention to what you are writing.  It will help if you get an unbiased person to look over your work and offer suggestions.  This does not mean you need an English teacher to do this but to have a friend, colleague or someone you trust to go over your work.  This will happen after you run it through your spell and grammar checker.  Also be aware of the correct word to use as there and their have different meanings.

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/

As always keep writing, so we can read your great stories.

X