Grammar Basics: What Every Writer Should Know

Like every other vocation, writing comes with a plethora of technical terms—everything from past perfect continuous tense to non-defining relative clauses. Unlike many other vocations, however, writing is a task that can be performed with next to no knowledge of its technical aspects. In other words, you don’t need to know what a grammatical article is in order to use one correctly. Most people do this instinctually.

That’s not to say that a knowledge of the technical aspects of writing isn’t useful and important. Generally speaking, the more thorough a person’s knowledge of grammar, punctuation, and all of the technical details of writing, the more precise, legible, and skilled their writing will be. But such detailed expertise is not necessary to write a good story. That’s why I usually refrain from using technical writing terms in my blog posts: it’s not so important that you know what a present participle or a gerund is, it’s just important that you know how to use verbs that end in –ing.

But there is a minimum level of knowledge that every writer should have if they want to write for a living. You don’t need to be able to diagram a sentence, but most editors will expect you to know at least the following terms and what they mean:

Basic Sentence Structure: Subject, Verb, and Direct Object

I’ve gone over the basics of what makes up a sentence before: a subject, a verb, and (often) a direct object. Every writer should know what each of those terms means and be able to identify them in a sentence.

The subject of the sentence is the thing that is performing an action.

The verb is the action that is being performed.

The direct object is the thing that is being acted upon—the thing that the verb is affecting.

        Koharu         sipped          her sake.

        Subject           Verb        Direct Object

Remember that not all verbs require a direct object.

       Haruto     slept.

       Subject     Verb      (no direct object needed)

If a sentence does not have that central subject and verb, then it (usually) isn’t a sentence—it’s a sentence fragment.

Adjectives

An adjective is a word that modifies a noun, like so:

     Koharu was an intelligent woman.

Adjectives can be colors (the blue car), qualities (the adorable baby), materials (a wooden sword), nationalities (a Japanese car), ages (the seven-year-old girl), and more. The limiting factor is that they will always describe a noun.

Adverbs

Adverbs (the use of which is discussed here) are words that modify pretty much everything but nouns. They can modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, phrases, and even entire sentences. They usually end in –ly, but not always.

     Modifying a verb: Haruto spoke quickly.

                                   Koharu visited yesterday.    

     Modifying an adjective: Haruto thinks that he is extremely clever.

                                            Your overly worried sister doesn’t think so.

     Modifying an adverb: Haruto spoke very quickly.

     Modifying a phrase: Koharu drove us nearly the whole way. (Modifies the phrase “the whole way.”)

     Modifying a sentence: Eventually, we all decided to go together.

Prepositions and Prepositional Phrases

A preposition is a word that describes the location, direction, time, or possessive quality of a noun or action. Some examples:

     Location: Your coat is in the closet.

     Direction: Haruto drove to the store.

     Time: We’ll eat after the lecture.

     Possession: We’re going to meet the President of Japan!

A prepositional phrase is simply a preposition and the words it is linking to the rest of the sentence.

     My book was on the shelf.

     The creatures came from outer space.

     I’ll get this done before I clock out.

     The Queen of England won’t be there, sadly.

Tense and Perspective

You should know which tense and which form of perspective your story employs and be generally familiar with the most common tenses and perspectives. You can find a handy rundown of tense and perspective here.

Pronouns

A pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun or noun phrase. Examples include I, you, she, this that, these, who, what, whose, mine, his, and so many more. There are a good ten or so categories of pronouns, which I don’t expect everyone to learn—just know what a pronoun is and the basics of how to identify them.

Now, again: I’m not saying that you would not be well-served in studying your grammar and punctuation—all the elements of writing, really—to a greater depth than what I’ve covered here. But at the very least, every writer should know the terms above and how to identify the parts of speech that they refer to. Instinct and experience can make up for a lack of detailed knowledge, but they can’t make up for the basics.

Remember what Uncle Iroh taught us all: learn the basics, as they are your greatest ally.

Punctuation Problems: Hyphens and Compound Modifiers

One of the most common uses for the hyphen (-) is to connect compound modifiers. A compound modifier is a mix of two or more adjectives or adverbs that jointly modify the same word. So, for example:

     He is such a well-behaved boy.

The words well and behaved work in tandem to modify boy. Well clarifies the meaning of behaved, and together they carry a new descriptive meaning. They are acting together as though they were a single adjective. Here are some other examples:

     “You think she committed the murder? She’s a ninety-seven-year-old woman, for heaven’s sake!”

     “My hospital takes a very patient-centered approach to healthcare.”

     “The creature had a 50-foot wingspan!”

Note that in compound modifiers that involve numbers, a hyphen is required whether you spell out the number or use numerals (so the last example could also be fifty-foot; but a hyphen is needed either way).

Part of the reason for this rule is to avoid potentially confusing situations. For example:

     “We met an American football player in the pub last night.”

Did the speakers meet someone who plays American football, or did they meet a football player who is also American? A hyphen can add clarification:

     “We met an American-football player in the pub last night.”

The hyphen lets us know that those two descriptors belong together; thus, the answer is that the speakers met someone who plays American football.

"Man eating plant" vs. "Man-eating plant."

Remember that you only hyphenate words that are working together as a single adjective. So the following usage would be incorrect:

     “This might be the most well-thought-out-and-over-detailed plan I’ve ever seen.”

Well-thought-out and over-detailed are two separate descriptions, so the example should instead read:

     “This might be the most well-thought-out and over-detailed plan I’ve ever seen.”

Exceptions:

Sadly, it can’t just be that simple. There are a few exceptions to the hyphenating-compound-modifiers rule.

First exception: If the first word in the compound modifier is an adverb that ends in -ly, it is extremely unusual to hyphenate the two words together.

     He is such a poorly behaved boy.

     Part of the reason for this rule is to avoid potentially confusing situations.

Second exception: This rule only applies to compound modifiers that appear before the word they modify. If they appear after, they should not be hyphenated. Here’s what some of our earlier examples would look like if the compound modifiers had appeared after the word they modified:

     “That boy is so well behaved.”

     “You think she committed the murder? That woman is ninety seven years old, for heaven’s sake!”

     “My hospital’s approach to healthcare is very patient centered.”

     “The creature had a wingspan of 50 feet!”

Word Mix-Ups: "Amused" and "Humored"

Amused and humored are yet another pair of words that I see many authors attempt to use interchangeably, but which are not in fact interchangeable.

To amuse means “to entertain or occupy in a light, playful, or pleasant manner” or “to appeal to the sense of humor of.” In the form amused, it can be used as either a past-tense verb or an adjective:

     Past-tense verb: He amused himself for hours on the internet.

     Adjective: She did her best not to look amused.

Generally, when writers confuse these two words, they are using humored as an adjective where they should have used amused:

     Anya was glad to see Lilia laugh; it had been a long time since she’d seen her sister so humored.

     I chuckled, mildly humored.

The confusion here likely arises because, as we all know, the noun humor and the adjective humorous both relate to amusement—respectively, they designate the capacity to recognize something as silly, ludicrous, funny, or amusing and the state of being silly, ludicrous, funny, or amusing. The problem is that humored is neither a noun or an adjective; it is a verb that means something entirely different.

To humor means “to soothe or content by indulgence” or “to adapt oneself to.” Basically, it means “to indulge someone for the purpose of calming them down or pleasing them.”

     The old woman claimed that there was a dragon in her living room. We humored her and searched the whole house, but of course we didn’t find a thing.

Humor can also mean "bodily fluid." I was going to give you a picture to go along with that little fact, but I thought better of it. Have a picture of an amused baby instead.

You should generally be able to replace the verb to humor with the verb to indulge. If you can’t, you’re probably not using it correctly. So, using our examples from above:

     CORRECT: The old woman claimed that there was a dragon in her living room. We indulged her and searched the whole house, but of course we didn’t find a thing.

     INCORRECT: Anya was glad to see Lilia laugh; it had been a long time since she’d seen her sister so indulged.

P.S.

I have also seen humored used where the author actually meant good-humored. They are not synonyms.

Pronoun Confusion, Part Three

Again with the pronouns. And again with the quick review:

Pronoun: a word that stands in for a noun or noun phrase. We’ve focused on proper pronouns such as he, she, it, we, and they as well as possessive pronouns such as his, her, its, our, or their.

Antecedent: the word that the pronoun replaces. Tamara could be the antecedent to she, for instance, or the magicians’ could be the antecedent to their.

We’ve discussed how important it is to ensure that it’sclear which noun is the antecedent to each pronoun you use. There are few things as confusing to a reader as not knowing which of your female cast members you’re referring to when you say she.

One of the most common causes of confusion in regards to pronouns and antecedents is an old, oft-ignored rule: a possessive noun cannot function as an antecedent. Here’s an example of this rule being broken:

     Violet’s eyes were always downcast because she was so afraid of confrontation.

In that example, she is the pronoun, and it is clear that the she being spoken of is Violet. The only problem is that the word Violet never appeared in the sentence—the word Violet’s did. Why does that matter? Well, because pronouns take the place of nouns, and Violet’s isn’t actually a noun. It’s an adjective describing eyes, the actual noun and subject of the sentence. So technically, the pronoun she is referring back to a noun that doesn’t exist. It’s a problem called a possessive antecedent.

Now, I called this a “problem,” but the fact of the matter is that this is extremely common in both written and spoken English. Everyone does this at some point or another, sometimes very frequently. The reason this error is so common is that it isn’t confusing—look back at that example sentence again. When you read it, were you ever confused about who she referred to? No. You knew that she meant “Violet.”

So while that sentence is technically grammatically incorrect, it’s not that big of a problem. If I were your editor, I would make you fix this sort of error, but many editors probably wouldn’t care about it. You can fix these if you want to go the extra mile.

However. There are two situations where the possessive antecedent should always be fixed. The first is when there is another possible antecedent in the sentence with it:

     Gregorii plunged the knife into Pavel’s leg, making him grunt.

This is similar to the problem we discussed in part one of this pronoun series—if there are two subjects in one sentence to whom the pronoun could refer, your readers can’t be positive which subject you meant. In the example above, it’s pretty clear that Pavel is the one grunting; but grammatically speaking, the only noun in the sentence is Gregorii. Try to avoid this situation. Here is a revised version:

     Gregorii plunged the knife into Pavel’s leg and twisted it viciously. Pavel merely grunted.

The second situation is when the possessive you're referring back to is describing a noun that could also be described by the pronoun. For instance:

     Terrel's son was happy and well-adjusted because he was such a great dad.

Who is he? Is Terrel's son happy because Terrel is a great dad? Because this sentence actually says that Terrel's son is happy because he is a great father to his own, unmentioned son (Terrel's grandson).

The sentence is so vague that it could imply either of these situations. Writers should be more precise than that.

If you wanted to convey that Terrel was the great dad, then you need to rephrase the sentence to something like this:

     Terrel was a great dad, so his son was happy and well-adjusted.

For more information on pronouns and the confusion they can cause, check out Part One and Part Two of this series.

Avoiding Synonyms in Adjective Pairs

Language has a natural flow and rhythm that can be difficult to understand and master. Even when we don’t realize it, this rhythm influences how we construct sentences and what words we choose. For instance, there have been many times where I used two adjectives instead of one simply because the sentence felt better with two.

     Dima was exactly what she’d been looking for—a clever and entertaining performer

instead of

     Dima was exactly what she’d been looking for—an entertaining performer.

You’ve probably had similar experiences. It is very difficult to define why the rhythm of a sentence can be improved with an extra word or two, but it is a tangible and important element of sentence composition.

I’m not going to try to break down the mechanics of sentence rhythm today (if ever, for that matter—that’s a difficult subject!), but I do want to point out a problem that frequently arises when writers adjust sentences for better rhythm. It appears most often in cases like the example I gave above, when writers include an extra adjective in a sentence. Here’s some examples:

     Lucy was always happy and cheerful.

     He’s so quick and speedy.

     You need to be sweet and kind to the patients.

     Look, I’m too tired and sleepy to think this through right now, okay?

What is the point of including two adjectives if they both mean essentially the same thing? It’s redundant and repetitive; and if you’ve been reading this blog for long, you know that we don’t like redundant repetition here.

This pops up in the work of almost every unpublished author I’ve ever edited. If you have two adjectives to describe one thing, make sure they’re not synonyms! Otherwise, there might as well be only one word. Don’t waste space saying something twice when you could be using that precious space to give your reader a deeper, more textured glimpse into the nature of this character, setting, or object.

Which do you think will be more vivid: a costume in crimson red and cardinal red, or a costume in red and blue?

Now, it’s possible to have two adjectives together that are very similar but still technically different:

     The building was dark and shadowed.

     His demeanor is just so serious and grim.

     We have to be smart and clever.

     I think she’s fun and entertaining. 

How similar is too similar? That’s a call you have to make yourself. Personally, I recommend playing it safe and keeping such adjective pairs as different as possible. But if you really feel that the distinction between “dark” and “shadowed” is important and that your audience needs to know that this object or person is both, then go for it. Give it to some readers and see if they understand the distinction (without you having to explain it). If they’re not getting it, then you should probably go for some words that are less similar. If they get it, then you’re golden.

"Looking With Eyes"—Avoiding Redundant Description

Here are some sample sentences from works I've edited:

1. Derek surveyed their surroundings with his cloudy gray eyes.
2. She kissed the envelope with her full lips, leaving a bright red lipstick mark behind.
3. He grasped the sword hilt in his shaking hands.

What's the problem here? Take a moment to look again.

The problem is that each of these sentences contains an awkward, redundant phrase. In example one, the phrase "with his cloudy eyes" is unneeded—how else would someone survey their surroundings, after all? In the second example, of course she kissed "with her full lips." That's the body part that kisses. In example three, we already know that he's grasping with his hands, so telling us that is redundant and unnatural.

So why do writers do this? If you'll look at our example sentences, you'll notice that each of the named body parts is preceded by an adjective: cloudy eyes, full lips, and shaking hands. These adjectives are the reason the authors included the redundant phrase. 

In example one, for instance, Derek is being introduced to the audience for the first time. The author wanted the readers to know that his eyes were a cloudy gray, but didn't simply want to say "Derek's eyes were a cloudy gray."  And that was a good goal—this is a more interesting way to find out what the character looks like—but you can usually do better than an otherwise-redundant phrase.

Here are some examples of how these sentences could be reworked.

Make the body part the subject of the sentence: Just about every sentence needs a subject, after all, so it's unlikely to be redundant.

1. Derek's cloudy gray eyes surveyed the surroundings.
2. Her full lips kissed the envelope, leaving a bright red lipstick mark behind.
3. His shaking hands grasped the sword hilt.

Give the body part something else to do: Add a phrase or sentence that further describes the action of the original sentence.

1. Derek surveyed their surroundings; the blinding light made his cloudy gray eyes water.
2. She kissed the envelope. Her full lips left a bright red lipstick mark behind.
3. His hands shook uncontrollably as he grasped the sword hilt.

Try to work the adjective in somewhere or somehow else: This can be the trickiest solution, but also often the most subtle and graceful.

1. Derek surveyed their surroundings. Lina studied his eyes; they were intense and focused as he searched, the same cloudy grey as the water beneath the boat.
2. She kissed the envelope, leaving behind full red lipstick marks.
3. He grasped the sword, trying to keep the point from wavering. It didn't work.

P.S.

Remember that specifying that a character performed an action "with" something is fine if it wasn't clear how the action was performed. For instance:

He sliced the steak with a worn shark-tooth knife.

This is a fine way to describe the knife. It's not redundant because there is more than one tool for slicing steak, so it's natural to explain what the character is using to slice.