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.

Position: On vs. To

     As she walked down the sidewalk, Leslie noticed a small kosher deli to her right.

     As she walked down the sidewalk, Leslie noticed a small kosher deli on her right.

The only visual difference between these two sentences is the words to and on. But can you tell me how the two sentences differ in meaning?

Trick question—they don’t. Oh, it might be possible to argue that the word on implies a slightly closer proximity than the word to in this usage, but that’s a flimsy difference. Really, these two sentences mean the same thing.

It’s probably because on and to can be used interchangeably in a case like this that I see them so often mixed up in a similar case:

     A narrow, weathered wooden wardrobe stood on the right of the room.

     A narrow, weathered wooden wardrobe stood to the right of the room.

These two sentences do not mean the same thing. The first one implies that we are in a room, and a wardrobe is standing in the room on the right side, perhaps against the wall or something. The second sentence implies that there is a room, and outside the room on the right there is a wardrobe.

What changed? Why are on and to interchangeable in our first example, but not in our second? The difference is the object of the preposition. In other words, what are these objects located to the right of?

In our first example, the deli is to the right of Leslie—a person, a thing. In our second example, the wardrobe is on (or to) the right of the room—a place, a location in its own right. Because there’s little to no chance that a deli would be located on Leslie’s person, on and to can both be used to mean beside or somewhere on that side of. Because the room could easily contain the wardrobe, however, we have to be more specific—on the right means it is located inside the boundaries of the room, while to the right means it is located outside those boundaries.

This photo is for educational and illustrative purposes only and is not intended as endorsement or approval on the part of The Story Polisher or any of its affiliates of the practice of dressing dogs or any other animals in clothing of any sort for the purpose of taking humiliating pictures or any other purpose.

Note that Leslie could serve as a location. For instance:

     The purse hung on Leslie’s right.

     The purse hung to Leslie’s right.

The second sentence clearly means that the purse is hanging on something beside Leslie, whereas the first sentence is a little confusing—is the purse hanging on Leslie’s right shoulder, or is it hanging on a peg on the wall to her right?  Usually, when you use on to indicate that an object is located within the boundaries of a location, you’ll want to be more specific:

     The purse hung on Leslie’s right shoulder.

Bam. Clear as can be. Even our earlier example can be made clearer this way:

     A narrow, weathered wooden wardrobe stood on the right side of the room.

Much clearer, no? A little specificity can go a long way. But in the long run, just remember: when denoting location, on and to cannot be used interchangeably if they are relative to a place.