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I know i should put my intro into the Introductions section but its short. I joined the young writers board, and it wasn't what i needed. I have read some of the critiques here and thats what im loooking for. But i am only 15.... Anyway onto my questions. 1)Should i be paying attention to grammar at school? Is it really that necessary? 2) What is the normal wordcount for a short story ( to appear in a magazin)? 3) What is Liberty Hall!??!
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SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc.) word count lengths *Novel -- 40,000 words or more *Novella -- 17,500 - 39,999 words *Novelette -- 7,500 -17,499 words *Short Story -- 7,499 words or fewer
Posts: 270 | Registered: Jan 2005
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Buy "The Elements of Style" by Strunk and White and sleep with it under your pillow. Read it. Come to love it. Ignore others who don't understand it. Let them drown in commas, alone in the dark.
You might also read "Eats, Shoots and Leaves". I'm sure there is a copy at your library. That is one killer panda!
Liberty Hall is no panacaea, nor is it a hangout. It is an attempt to get people writing on a regular basis. It is not a substitute for Hatrack and it never will be. If you get involved there, spend twice as much time here.
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If you write for your own pleasure and never care if other eyes read your work, you can write in evil robot monkey code if you like--with or without the grammar module.
However, if you plan to write for humans, you need to consider grammar and spelling to be the tools of your art. Just as a painter wields a brush or a violinist coaxes a violin to sing, the writer conjures pictures in the mind's eye of complete strangers using only the magic of his or her narration. Grammar and spelling are your creative instruments. Learn to use them with a master's touch.
[This message has been edited by Elan (edited July 19, 2005).]
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If you want to write in evil monkey code, you should at least know what rules you are breaking. Read Strunk and White, then just pretend to burn it.
Posts: 2 | Registered: Aug 2010
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I thought grammar was totally useless while I was learning it.
The entire time I was learning it.
After all, who cares what the names are for parts of speech! Nomenclature's for organic chemists and cockatoos! As long as I can write well (well, I guess that's for others to judge), why do I need to learn how to name the words in my sentences?
Turns out that I had entirely the wrong focus. The "useless" parts of grammar curricula, (like nomenclature, etc.) sure don't do a thing for your writing style...but without them, you can't DISCUSS writing style. Learning grammar gives you a metalanguage, a shorthand with which you can speak about language and be immediately understood. This is VITAL for anyone who takes writing (or even literature appreciation) seriously.
Also, if you don't have a good language flow already, paying a little extra attention to grammar sure won't hurt you. Critiquing a story full of grammatical errors is practically torture! Try it sometime and see.
So pay attention, even to the useless-seeming parts of grammar. It really sucks to have to try and figure out what a critiquer is saying about your awkward over-use of gerund clauses, if you have no clue what a gerund clause is.
(I took a workshop class in college, and I was the only student who had ever had any formal grammar training. It was so frustrating!!!)
[This message has been edited by Jeraliey (edited July 19, 2005).]
quote:Why doesn't OSC like the Elements of Style book?
Further to what Elan said, my understanding is that OSC believes if you read it, you will feel that you have to follow all the rules, all the time. That is not the point of writing.
"If you break the rules without knowing what they are, it is ignorance. If you know the rules and break them on purpose, it is art."
(I don't know who said it first, but I like it. So, learn the rules. And if you want an idea of what Strunk & White have to say, "Elements of Style" is in public domain and available to read at Bartleby.com: http://www.bartleby.com/141/ )
[This message has been edited by Robyn_Hood (edited July 19, 2005).]
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I'll add my support for that point. There is nothing wrong with breaking the laws/rules of grammar - as long as you know that you're breaking them and know WHY you're breaking them. I'm fairly cavalier in my style with a few things (I start sentences with "and", while dropping it in other places it's supposed to live when conflating simultaneous actions or parallel descriptions), but it's a deliberate stylistic choice on my part. If you know what the rules are, then you know which ones you can break, and why (break them for effect, but never break them if clarity suffers - and most effective grammar, ultimately, is about clarity).
One point - in the UK, I think Fowler, rather than Strunk and White, is regarded as the "bible" of grammar.
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Historically, it's the U.S. that started spelling things funny. For a while, there was only a British-English dictionary. When Webster went to make an American-English dictionary, he purposely spelled things differently. They needn't have been different at all...but Webster wanted to be all independent. Not trying to be a stick in the mud, I just find dictionary history fascinating, and this was an excellent opportunity to bring it up. Posts: 189 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I was, of course, being facicious, just as I am when I say you speak English funny. i had a good friend from London who lived in the US while in grade school. His sister's teacher was ignorant enough to mark harbour as incorrect on a spelling test. She should have known better than to ask to borrow a rubber, though.
Posts: 2 | Registered: Aug 2010
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I wondered if I was in the right place and now I know I am. I've learned an incredible amount just from reading these posts. I use the Grammix on my computer and it has no feeling at all. It makes no sense to me and I just ignore it if it ruins the idea of what I'm saying. I never paid attention to english in school and still can't tell you what the basics are. I'm hoping I can clod my way through and see if that works. If it doesn't, I've made myself happy and that's what's important to me. It's like someone playing guitar and never intending to become another James Taylor. (I appreciate those who read through what I post in F&F. It's got to be discouraging but it's very helpful)
[This message has been edited by LJConnally (edited July 20, 2005).]
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Someone at bootcamp (not Card) was telling me that they put a published piece of writing though Word's grammar checker and made every automatic change. They repeated the process four times. After the fourth iteration the piece was gibberish.
Posts: 2 | Registered: Aug 2010
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I hate that grammar ck thing. It's always underlining all my sentences in green. Ug!
I only listen to it if it makes the rhythem of my piece better. It usually just has a "sentence fragment" up it's rear.
I wish I'd paid more attention in English class. I just didn't like my teacher because she gave me detention for reading "Interview With A Vampire" in-between classes. The woes of private school.
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> Someone at bootcamp (not Card) was telling > me that they put a published piece of > writing though Word's grammar checker and > made every automatic change. They repeated > the process four times. After the fourth > iteration the piece was gibberish.
Impossible, unless it was gibberish after the first time (or even before.) Making the automatic changes is not going to introduce new grammar errors that Word will detect on a subsequent repetition of the grammar check. Whoever told you that was either making it up, passing on an urban legend, or else leaving out a step in which the content was changed is some way between the grammar checks.
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Impossible? Let's review... isn't this WORD, a MICROSOFT program??? Nothing that WORD does along those lines would surprise me.
Posts: 2026 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Elan, I'm familiar enough with how the Word grammar checker works that I found the story suspicious. I then tested it, and it worked the way I thought it would -- the same way it worked for Beth when she tested it. I wouldn't have made such a positive statement if I didn't know it to be true.
No matter how much you dislike Microsoft, the grammar checker does not work the way it would need to in order for the story to be true.
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There have been times when Word has corrected something only to go and say its own correction was wrong! That typically happens when I start using spurts of Victorian or Old English usages.
Posts: 477 | Registered: Oct 2004
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There are some places where the grammer check will flag a sentance or phrase based on an immediately previous phrase. And if you have a flowery style, the results of repeated trials could get interesting.
And let us all remember, Faulkner's stuff is published. I think it would be gibberish after one pass through a grammer checker. Many others think it's gibberish as is
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