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.

Subject-Verb Agreement, Part Two: Collective Nouns

Last time, we discussed a few common things that cause writers to make mistakes with their subject-verb agreement. Today we’ll discuss a few more.

Collective Nouns

A collective noun is a word that defines a group as a single unit—words like team, family, staff, crowd, audience, band, and so forth. Technically speaking, such nouns are singular and can be pluralized like any other noun: teams, families, etc.

When it comes to subject-verb agreement, however, collective nouns don’t always act singular. Take these two examples:

     The jury is delivering its verdict.

     The jury are taking their seats.

In the first example, the word jury is singular; in the second, it is plural. Why the difference? Well, in the first example, we’re referring to the jury as a single unit doing one thing—we’re focused on the action of the group, and not the individuals in the group, so jury is treated as a singular noun. In the second example, we’re thinking of the individuals within the group—several people taking several seats, rather than one unit taking a seat. In this sort of usage, it is acceptable to treat the collective noun as a plural. Here are some other examples:

     The audience is losing its energy.

     Remind the audience to look beneath their seats to see if they won a prize.

     The class is behaving well today.

     The class are preparing their presentations for tomorrow.

Now, if the examples of collective nouns used as plurals seem odd, that’s because they are—in the United States, at least. Many of them would sound more natural if an actual plural noun were substituted for the collective noun:

     The jury members are taking their seats.

     The students are preparing their presentations for tomorrow.

Proper collective nouns

A proper noun is a name or title of some sort; a proper collective noun, therefore, is a name or title that refers to a group.

Bands and other musical groups: Generally, musical groups should take the form of verb and pronouns that suits the form of their name.

     The Red Hot Chili Peppers are amazing in concert.

     Queen is still my favorite band.

Companies and other organizations: The names of companies should generally be treated as singular.

     Marvel has announced its next few movies.

     General Motors hasn’t sold as well as expected.

Note, however, that it is not uncommon to use plural construction with companies whose name is a series of names (with or without a word like “associates” at the end).

     Williamsen, Ovard, and Associates have had a great year.

Sports teams: Generally speaking, sports teams are treated as plurals, no matter the form their name takes.

     The Utah Jazz have been performing well since they changed their lineup.

But when we refer to a team by the location where it resides, however, it usually takes the singular:

     Chicago is just destroying anyone that comes against it on the court.

(Note that these guidelines are for US usage. In the UK and many other places, it is more common to use the plural whenever the actions of a group are being described.)

Also note that these guidelines are for existing collective nouns; if you're writing speculative fiction that delves into the notion of collective in a far more literal or complicated manner, then you're on your own when it comes to figuring out how to properly determine where to use the plural or the singular. Good luck.

Calm Down About "Whom"

I’ve gone over what makes a sentence quite a few times lately (subject + verb + direct object if needed), so now seems a good time to go over who and whom, since those two words are closely related to sentence structure.

The question of when to use who or whom is one of the most common grammatical questions in the English-speaking portion of the world. 

(Toby was right, naturally.)

The explanation is actually pretty simple: use who when the word is the subject of the sentence (or an embedded clause—more on that in a moment) and use whom when it isn’t the subject.

     Who      bought    these cookies?

   Subject     Verb      Direct Object

        To whom              should          I           give       the cookie?

   Indirect Object         Verbal      Subject     Verb         Direct

(i.e. not the subject)   Auxiliary                                    Object

An embedded clause is basically a sentence within a sentence—it has its own subject and verb:

     We       need to find out         who bought these cookies.

   Subject         Verbs             Embedded clause with who as its subject

I could go on for much longer about how to properly use who and whom, but I’m not going to; Matthew Inman has already done a great (and much more entertaining) breakdown of that over at The Oatmeal. What I would like to delve into is why—why whom is so tricky, and why you should (or shouldn’t) use it.

Why Whom Is Tricky

(This section is pretty in-depth, so if you’re just interested in advice on using whom, skip to the next section)

There are quite a few pronouns that have both a subjective form and an objective form. For example:

I and me, she and her—we’re all used to these pronoun pairs, right? We don’t have to stop and think for a moment to figure out whether to say they or them. So why are who and whom difficult to keep straight?

Part of the answer is that who is different from the other pronouns shown in that chart. I, you, he, she, and they are all personal pronouns. Who, on the other hand, is what we call an interrogative pronoun—a pronoun that asks which person or thing is meant. Let’s look at who and whom on a chart with other interrogative pronouns:

Notice how who stands out? It’s literally the only interrogative pronoun in the English language that changes depending on how it is used. No wonder it’s so hard to use, when every similar word works in a completely different (and far simpler) manner!

So why is who different from all the other interrogative pronouns? Well, language is constantly evolving—new uses for words develop while old ones fall away and disappear. All those other interrogative pronouns probably used to have objective forms that fell out of use long before the language began to form into what it is today. The same thing happened to you. Take a look at that first chart up above—notice how you is the only personal pronoun on the chart that doesn’t have a distinct objective form. But that wasn’t always the case.

There was a time when you not only had an objective form, but also had a separate singular form that declined into its own objective. So our chart above would once have looked something like this:

Over time, thou, thee, and ye all fell out of use; these days, we use you in all of the instances where we would once have used those other words. Imagine if English teachers around the world suddenly began to demand that we all resume using thou, thee, and ye. It wouldn’t go well—it would be confusing and irritating if people tried to force us to use words that don’t improve or enhance our ability to communicate. But, for some stubborn reason, that’s exactly what people do with whom. We don’t need the word; it doesn’t improve the language. But people just won’t let it go.

Why You Should Use Whom and Why You Shouldn’t

Whom is on its way out—give us another century, tops, and it won’t really be part of the language anymore. It’ll be an abandoned, archaic word like thou or whence; a word we all know used to be part of the language, something we can find in older books, but not a word that even the most demanding college professors demand we use. And good riddance to it.

Most of the time, my advice to new writers is to pay attention to all of the rules of grammar—don’t risk looking inept because you don’t care about comma splices or the difference between amused and humored. Whom, on the other hand, is one of the rare bits of grammar that I feel beginning writers can safely ignore. In fact, you'll look worse if you use whom incorrectly than you will if you don't use it at all!

Generally, whom is not a word you should bother with unless you have a specific purpose in mind. If you are striving for an intellectual and formal tone to your story, than go ahead and whom it up. If you have an educated or pedantic character, you can pepper their language with whoms. But if you want your dialog or your prose to feel more relaxed and natural, then get rid of the word. It’s not something that most editors will be bothered by—if they really feel that you need to use whom, then they’ll tell you; but they won’t reject your manuscript because of it.

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.

Pronoun Confusion, Part Two

Earlier this week, we discussed pronouns and unclear antecedents. Today I’d like to show you another way that pronouns can cause trouble, a problem I like to call the “antecedent switch.”

Now, quick review—a pronoun is a word that stands in for a noun or noun phrase, such as he, she, they, or I. An antecedent is the noun or noun phrase that the pronoun replaces:

     Joseph knew all the answers to the test because he had studied.

(Antecedent)                                                      (Pronoun)

Pronouns are simple enough to use when you only have one character in a scene to whom each of them can apply. For instance, if your scene features one man and one woman and no other characters, then you’ll always know who the pronoun he refers to and who the pronoun she refers to. But if your scene features two women and two men, then it will suddenly become a little trickier to keep track of who is he and who is she.

You should probably hold off on your novelization of 12 Angry Men until you're absolutely certain that you've mastered your clear pronoun usage.

A good rule of thumb is that a pronoun will generally refer back to the last applicable antecedent. For example:

     Sophia hated the color green because she had spent years trying to get grass stains out clothing. Mary, on the other hand, loved the color green because she loved the outdoors.

In the first sentence, the pronoun she refers to Sophia. In the next sentence, however, the exact same pronoun refers to Mary instead. This is acceptable prose because Mary was the most recent possible antecedent in the second sentence.

There is a very strong exception to this rule, however: do not switch antecedents in the middle of the sentence. For example:

     Sophia finished reading. She handed the book to Mary so that she could read the passage too.

At the beginning of the second sentence, she referred to Sophia. Later in the same sentence, it referred to Mary. This is a no-no. Do not use the same pronoun twice (or more) in one sentence to refer to two (or more) different antecedents. If you want to use your pronoun in place of a new antecedent, then you should either begin a new sentence or re-word your original passage to remove one of the pronouns.

     Sophia finished reading and handed the book to Mary so that she could read the passage too.

Bam. No antecedent switch in the middle of the sentence; there is only one pronoun, and it is clear what its antecedent is.

So that’s a solid rule to help you keep your pronoun usage clear. Plus, while writing this post I came up with about three other pronoun problems that I’ll want to mention, so look out for plenty more on this topic in the future.

Pronoun Confusion, Part One

Let’s talk about pronouns; specifically, personal and possessive pronouns.

It’s nearly impossible to write a story without them. These are words that substitute for names or other proper nouns and for their possessive forms, respectively.

Personal pronouns. The person you’re talking about is one of these:

     Christopher, writers, readers, Korey, Belinda, the car, the Inklings

But the word you’re using is one of these:

     I, we, you, he, she, it, they

And here’s an example of a personal pronoun in use:

    Belinda loves to dance even though she isn’t very graceful.

Possessive pronouns. You’re talking about an object that could be described with one of these words:

     Christopher’s, writers’, the readers’, Korey’s, Belinda’s, the car’s, the Inklings’

But the word you’re using instead is one of these:

     My, our, your, his, her, its, their

And here’s an example of a personal pronoun in use:

     Korey has to pick up his sister from school today.

You can see how prose would get very tiring without any pronouns, right? It would get cluttered with proper names and placeholders and the like. Pronouns make language prettier. But they are also a cause of common mistakes. For example:

     Dan needed to talk to Hector before he went to the movie.

We know that he is a personal pronoun that stands in for someone’s name, but to whom does it refer in the above sentence? Does Dan need to talk to Hector before Dan goes to a movie, or does Dan need to talk to Hector before Hector goes to the movie?

In many situations like this, it’s possible to figure out the meaning from context, from the things that were said in the sentences before and after this one. That’s not good enough—you don’t want your readers to have to waste time on figuring out what you’re saying when they should be busy trying to figure out what’s going to happen next.

Keep an eye out for sentences like that, where it is unclear to whom the pronoun refers (it's called an unclear antecedent, by the way). When you come across one, rewrite it so that the confusion is removed. Our example sentence above could be easily fixed:

     Dan wanted to get to the movie, but he needed to talk to Hector first.

     Hector was headed to the movies, but Dan needed to talk to him first.

See? Easy fix. Sometimes it won’t be so easy, but it will always be possible. You’re a writer—you have complete control over the story and the prose, so use it well.

There are other ways for personal and possessive pronouns to go wrong, so stay tuned for more tips on this in future posts.

Proper Nouns and Information Overload

A proper noun is a title given to a specific item or entity in order to distinguish that item from others of the same class. Essentially, a proper noun is a name. (There is a whole, deep linguistics debate about the exact difference between proper nouns and proper names, but we don’t need to go into that. For our purposes, the simplified definition proper noun = name is adequate.)

So, for instance, Canada is a proper noun that is used to distinguish one country from all others. To Kill a Mockingbird is a proper noun that identifies a single book out of all others. If you were describing a group of girls, you could distinguish them by their names; Elizabeth, Meghan, and Catherine, for instance—all proper nouns.

Every story contains proper nouns: names of characters or places, titles of companies or ships or official positions, or even just names of ideas and theories. Some will have more than others, of course; the number will depend on the size and needs of the story. A short story that takes place in one location with only two characters will need far fewer pronouns than a trilogy of novels that visits a dozen locations with fifty characters.

The important thing to remember about proper nouns is this: they are difficult to remember. The more you give to your reader at once, the more confusing the story will become. This doesn’t mean you can’t have a story full of all sorts of interesting pronouns—it just means that you need to learn to pace yourself. Arrange your story so that you can start with just a few new pronouns; once the reader has those down, you can give them a few more, and then a few more.

Here are some things to keep in mind regarding pronouns:

Avoid using pronouns where a common noun will do: If the main character of your novel will only speak with Brian Elmson the security guard once, then Brian probably doesn’t need a name. He can simply be “the security guard.” If your character loves guns, it might be good to describe their handgun as a “Glock 30SF”; otherwise, you can just call it a handgun.

This is a particular problem in fantasy and science fiction, in which authors often have to come up with numerous pronouns to describe the various non-existent magics, technologies, and alien races that they’ve created. Don’t add any more then you have to—for instance, don’t call your character’s knife a Dalkirk when it could just be a dagger.

Common names are easier to remember than unfamiliar names: Again, this tends to be a problem in fantasy and science fiction, but it is not limited to those genres. If you’re writing in English, most readers will remember “Matt Davidson” and “Tyler Smith” more easily than “Yeon Gaesomun” or “Vyachislav Dimitrovitch.” That doesn’t mean all of your characters should have common English names—it just means that if your readers are already trying to remember “Yeon” and “Vyachislav,” it might be a good idea to name the next character “Matt” to give your readers a break.

Short, easily-pronounced names are easier to remember than long, tongue-twisting names: Even if your reader is not reading out loud, they’ll still have an easier time if they can hear the word in their head. So if you’ve got a Russian character, it might be a better idea to name him “Dima” than “Vyachislav.”

First letters of pronouns can be used to help readers remember: If you have several characters whose names all start with the same letter, it will be harder for the reader to keep track of them. Sean, Saladin, and Soo-mi are going to be harder to keep separate than Mike, Saladin, and Bo-yeon.

When creating new terms, incorporating familiar words can help your reader remember what the new term refers to: When Brandon Sanderson put magical swords into his Stormlight Archive series, he called them “Shardblades.” He could have called them “Trevinoagiki” or some other completely-made-up term, but it would have been harder to remember. Even if the reader forgets how Shardblades work, they’ll never forget that they’re swords, because the word “blade” is right there in the name.  

This can also be used in non-fantasy works. Say your story takes place in the fictional town of Oakdell and the fictional city of Davis. If readers are having trouble remembering which place is the town and which is the city, just change the name of Davis to “Davis City.” Bam. Problem solved.