First, know this: Ninety-nine percent of everything I know about grammar and punctuation I learned in high school, not college. Ninety-five percent of that, I did not learn in class. Due to some familial turmoil, I performed poorly during my eighth and part of my ninth grade years, and as a result had to "clep" into college-bound English. At fifteen, I had to sit in a room by myself for an hour a day and read grammar books and take little mini-tests at the end of each hour. My point is that this is not about formal education.

quote:

---

I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here: it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had, you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you're selling it.

---

I often feel that many people take up writing with the desire of becoming the next J.K. Rowling or Stephenie Meyer. They may be well-read or maybe not; either way they enter this with great aspirations and expectations. I DON'T FEEL THERE IS ANYTHING WRONG WITH THIS! However, what many people don't realize is that these two writers, whether they portray it or not, both have bachelors degrees, one in The Classics and the other in English, respectively. Others may desire to become the next Asimov or Heinlein. However, these two had even more impressive educations.

What bothers me is why, after deciding to become the next great fantasy or science-fiction writer, one does not take the steps to learn the fine details. By this, I mean the rules of grammar, capitalization, punctuation, and figures of speech. I hear of individuals reading books about writing science-fiction, world-building, character development, etc., but I rarely hear about individuals trying to improve their literary skills. Even critiques addressing grammar and punctuation seem to be frowned upon, as though this is the editor's job, not the writer's or critiquer's.

Experience, as I see it, is two-fold. First, one gains great knowledge through reading. It is kind of like learning through osmosis - one almost absorbs the use of grammar, etc. And second, one gains knowledge through writing his or her brains out. These methods of becoming a great writer have some validity. However, I also hear of people writing story after story and never getting published.

quote:

---

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

---

I believe experience is invaluable - I have learned a great deal here at Hatrack that I never got (or at least forgot I got) in college while I was an English major for 2 1/2 years. What's frustrating for me is seeing individuals expecting affirmation or making affirmations that are not accurate, that demonstrate no desire to seek true understanding of what is done or said in writing.

I hope this does not come across as a rant. I am not directing this toward any individual. Most every long term member here at Hatrack displays a strong knowledge of writing - people who have "earned the knowledge" for themselves. However, it is "the lack of humility [of those who have not disciplined themselves that] staggers me".

I think one of the reasons I have neglected to improve my grammatical skills (and kudos to you for actually doing it! I don't have that kind of discipline!) is that I think "If I ever get picked up by an editor, that stuff will get fixed in the copy edits..."

In other words, I am punting the ball because I don't think my level of grammatical or punctuation mistakes are bad enough to have my manuscripts rejected outright -- though I surely understand how trained editors would be more willing to toss aside works with blatantly obvious mistakes all over them... I suppose I just feel it isn't my most important issue to grapple with right now.

But because this fits into the realm of "I don't know what I don't know," I could be making many mistakes and not even aware of them.

Furthermore, learning the hardcore technical side first can, in my own opinion, detriment the process. Learning all of the technical rules first can make one write like a robot. Sure, it all sounds great, but where's the heart in it? The soul?

Edit: I'm not saying that everyone who learns the technical side first will experience this. It has just been my own experience

Personally, I'd much rather read an INTERESTING story terribly written, than a wonderfully written piece of trash.

All of that being said, I do believe that everyone should learn the more hardcore rules of grammar at some point. But I don't believe it should be the priority.

Sometimes I'll pick up something, read it, and wonder, "Why did I write something that way?" Recently I've been picking through my Internet Fan Fiction period stuff, all written six to ten years ago, and, all the while, I kept thinking, "I shouldn't have done it this way. I should have done it that way." (Also, "and not just about the grammar.")

quote:

---

I'd much rather read an INTERESTING story terribly written, than a wonderfully written piece of trash

---

I have yet to read "an interesting story terribly written". In my experience, if it's terribly written, neither is it interesting. The idea that there are people out there with fantastically creative imaginations and wonderful story ideas but who lack basic writing skills is not, in my experience, borne out by any evidence whatsoever.

That being said, my husband includes technical editing on his resume and he gets a printed out version of my story before it goes out to mark up. So, I might have a bit of an unfair advantage their since I have someone who is paid to find mistakes reading my work. He is not as good at things like pacing and characterization, but if there is a comma missing, he will catch it.

Grammar is a filter. If it is a misplaced modifier or comma in the wrong place occasionally, it won't matter. But a lot of them will distract editors, agents and slush readers.

However, there are more issues. Point of View, which is a discipline and can be taught. Characterization, which can partially be taught, but is more of an art. Plotting, which is like POV.

Writing smoothly can be taught but it takes a lot of practice. That's where the 'million words' comes in. That's where I, for one, need a lot of experience.

I believe a lot of proper grammar is tied into the desire to want to use it. In posts or e-mails it's easy to shorten or mispell words and not care. That can become a habit. But if you care about what you write, you'll want to make it proper all the time. Or if you have OCD.

If you wait like twelve years between college and deciding hey, I want to be a writer after all - speaking from experience - a lot of the college stuff fades and you have to start over again.

However, since I've always had a desire to speak and spell properly I've maintained what I've learned because I've consistently put that into practice over the years.

Now the question is, how much did I learn in the classroom, and how much did I learn on my own? Or, did I get assignments in class, want to do well and take the time to study the grammar, learn it above and beyond the class setting, and get better at it that way?

Round and round.

While some may argue that academic writing and creative writing stand at odds to one another, I believe that practicing both will help you hone your skill at stringing words together regardless of style or topic. All writing counts toward your tally of hours as you approach mastery.

However, I think it is important to know grammar and to write well. Not only will this help you have a clear lens, so to speak, through which editors and readers can view your story. It will also help you avoid turning a lack of knowledge into bad habits. As Robert aptly points out, after writing for so long habits become internalized and you don't have to actively think about them. I for one have internalized some very bad comma habits. This is why learning grammar and the like well early is extremely important. Otherwise it becomes a recurring problem that will take up your editing time that should be spent refining characters and story.

Philocinemas points out one problem. Today's education system isn't always the best at teaching grammar. In my experience I learned more about English grammar when learning foreign languages than I ever did in English classes. This means that we will often have to look outside of classroom education to get our writing education.

Short of reading through the Chicago Manual of Style (which is a monstrous tome) there are other options. Take a look at some shorter books on writing. The Elements of Style by Strunk & White has been a staple for writing classes since 1918 (it has received its fair share of updates over the years), but it is a good place to start when thinking about the clarity of ones prose style (if not the mechanics of grammar).

Its never too late to learn, it just gets harder. It is still worth it though.

I don't know where I fit in this education vs. experience thing, maybe because I don't see them as separate entities. After drifting away from writing as an undergraduate, I got into the sciences, obtained an MS in Neuroscience, and have worked in genetics for the past nine years and have been fortunate to be co-author in pubs such as Science and Nature. Still something was missing in my life.

I decided I needed a change and applied to several PhD programs. Though I was not accepted into these programs, I consistently received praise for my essays and believe they are what got me to the interview stage in two of the three programs I applied to. This re-awakened the writer in me and for the past six months I have been obsessed with writing. For the first time in my life I feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing and it feels great!

So that is my experience and education, little of it is writing related (outside of a writing workshop I attended). Am I concerned? Not at all, because I find myself learning so much from every critique I receive. I love what I'm doing when I write, and therefore the learning comes easily. And most importantly, I think my science background will be an asset as I mature as a writer.

First I'm not talking about obvious, get in the way of your reading, mistakes. I was responsible for a few really bad grammar mistakes when I started, like completely messing up dialog pucntuation. I'm sure it drove Philocenimas crazy. My only defense is that it had been years since I had learned those rules in high school and in college I rarely ever wrote anything with dialog.

I felt like the rest of my grammar was fine. Professors marked my papers high with only an occasional comma fix here and there. But, that is what really got to me. Everyone had different ideas about the rules. I would learn one professors rules on grammar only to have the next one say it was wrong, especially with commas. My sister in high school has to memorize this long list of rules relating to commas and the last rule was if you feel like it needs a comma then it does.

I find the same thing with getting critiques now. I like it when people find my grammar mistakes and point them out. Sometimes they are things that I just looked over and missed. It makes the story stronger which is great.

In the beginning though I always took their word for it and fixed every grammar mistake they pointed out. Then the next person who read it would say the things I fixed were wrong. I'm talking mainly about punctuation here and it seems to me that the finer rules of grammar and punctuation are far from set in stone and I don't think most people understand them all. I also don't think it's necessary to have a detailed and completely thorough knowledge of it. When I critique I will fix grammar mistakes if they are distracting, which means I noticed it.

This assumes that my story gets past a first reader who is just looking for any reason to reject it. Multiple typos, grammar errors and punctuation errors are convenient, objective reasons to move on to the next submission. The manuscript never gets judged as story. This seems fair to me, and is a pretty low bar to clear for anyone aspiring to this profession.

Regarding education and experience, my father used to say he had two types of people working for him; those with ten years experience and those with one year of experience ten times. Experience analyzed and acted on is education. Anything less is marking time.

quote:

---

I've heard this a lot from various people and while I do understand the sentiment, I've critiqued some abominable writing on another site and I can honestly say that unreadable prose completely masks whatever story lurks behind it.

---

I hate the idea, "I don't have to worry about grammar, that's what editors are for." It is just like, "I can throw my trash on the ground, that's what custodians are for." I have been a custodian and an editor and I can firmly attest we have monumentally more to do than clean up your messes.

Editors are lazy people with a lot to do, when they read a submission they want it to scream, "money," not, "work." And there is only so much you can do before you as an editor are writing the story yourself. (Which, I hope I don't have to tell this group, is a bad thing.)

My frustrations with regards to education and experience in writing stem more from seeing a general lack of discipline than from ignorance or carelessness. I do not know everything there is to know about grammar. I still make careless spelling errors, especially in situations like this where there is no spell-check. The other day I used the word "lesson", instead of "lessen", when sending an email apologizing for a misunderstanding and felt like an idiot afterwards. But these situations are not what I am talking about.

I have, at times, seen a somewhat cavalier attitude among aspiring writers - a "charge ahead" type mentality. This is what I meant by "Education vs. Experience". I believe learning by experience is fine, albeit more time consuming and often less precise. The experience model seems to teach: "Go out there and write, write, write - when you have a million words, you will have become great!" However, a million poorly chosen words will put one not much further ahead than where he or she started. The learning aspect of the experience model seems to come primarily from critiques and rejection letters.

Now, I have learned a great deal from critiques, but I have also learned that critiques can be biased to personal tastes. I have said this many times, but I firmly believe that many editors have different expectations and preferences from those of speculative fiction writers. In short, while I find layman critiques beneficial, I am not convinced that they are the best means of learning the trade.

By education, I mean the discipline to go to a dictionary, a thesaurus, or a grammar book and look something up. This is educating oneself. Hopefully, if one does this enough times, he or she will have gained knowledge. Surely there must be some uncertainty when a new writer plunges headfirst into a piece of writing. I could not imagine doing so without some sense of trepidation. Words and word usage have meaning; the same goes for punctuation. To carelessly throw words out onto a page or screen without knowing their meaning seems irresponsible to me. It is laziness, and a different laziness to which Pyre referred.

quote:

---

Experience analyzed and acted on is education. Anything less is marking time.

---

Education is wasted on the ignorant.

You could say that education is fast-tracked experience, through distilling the experience of others. However, for best effect, and most effective fast tracking, some experience is necessary. Partly because everyone learns in different ways, or should I say via a different mix of the following:

Learning by seeing
Learning by hearing
Learning by analysis/synopsis
Learning by doing

I would have to say that I have learned by both education and experience, a combination of doing, studying, and peer interaction.

As usual I tend to relate to music, the parallel being this; Two of my favorite guitarists stand at opposite ends of this ed/exp continuum. Phil Keaggy at one end and Stevie Ray Vaughn at the other. Whereas SRV had a staggering amount of exp and reached an extremely high level of pure skill, Phil took the harder road of discipline/study. Both men achieved true musical greatness and have droves of us geetar pickers who claim they (one or the other) are the greatest in the world. Some say SRV is the greatest because he progessed SOOOOO far with SOOOO little where edu is concerned, relying on his passion and fierce energy to take up the edu-slack.

Phil, on the other end of the spectrum is able to combine that same fiery passion with a staggering degree of technical knowledge and consequently his music is transcendant, completely unique to Phil and all but impossible to duplicate.

Here is the point. Each man grew up within a certain set of circumstances and set foot to path as each saw fit. SRV's lack of 'formal' education did not seem to impede his journey, rather it became one of the primary 'spices' in his craft. He tuned his guitar 'wrong', used the 'wrong' gauge of strings, used 'wrong' hand technique, made stuff up because he didn't like the 'right' way of doing it. I for one would not dream of changing even the slightest aspect of what that man did musically, for that would kill the magic. The same applies to Phil, except that he struggled very hard to learn as much about music as possible. They are the same because each set a path and walked it to the fullest measure and worked countless hours without an audience or pay. Then they both stepped out of the comfort of closed doors and spread their wings and demanded space to fly. Both took falls and hit walls of rejection. At the Montreaux Jazz Festival SRV was booed... a lot! His solution was to turn his back to the crowd, crank the amp up a coupla more clicks and play for all he was worth. It was later recalled by some who were there that SRV's performance was mind-boggling and that several 'opportunity doors' were opening even as the booing echoed around the audience.

Neither of these artists learned in a vacuum, both had some balance of edu and exp. SRV more like Philo's comment;

quote:

---

By education, I mean the discipline to go to a dictionary, a thesaurus, or a grammar book and look something up. This is educating oneself. Hopefully, if one does this enough times, he or she will have gained knowledge.

---

BTW - My first million words were without the benefit of concentrated (writing) education and while they were not wasted words, they were obviously written in a vacuum.

Thanks for letting me ramble on...

I suspect that while there are those like Stevie Ray Vaughn who are able--or are compelled by their circumstances--to work things out for themselves (thereby risking re-inventing the wheel, but also thereby inventing something that does what the wheel does but in different ways that might actually be even better), most artists need to at least attempt Phil Keaggy's approach and learn as much as they possibly can about how it has been done and what has worked and why.

The ideal, I believe, would be to gain education enough to understand the process along with gaining experience enough to know how to apply that process to the art.

Those who just produce art, but don't know what they are doing or how they are doing it, can find themselves in serious danger of losing their control over their process as soon as they begin to get an idea of what their process is (as in, if you try thinking about what you are doing when you are riding a bike, you may lose your balance and fall over).

Using the music metaphor in a slightly different way: people who can play music "by ear" (say, after having only heard something once) can do amazing things, but so far as I am able to tell, it's all unconscious.

I prefer being able to keep what I do as conscious as possible so that I can make adjustments as needed, and so that I can understand and appreciate it when someone else does something wonderful.

I keep hearing about people with graduate and post-graduate levels of education who are struggling with writing, and about companies that are struggling with employees who have high levels of education but who can't write their ways out of paper bags (as in philocinemas' experience).

Education does not guarantee writing ability (care to guess how many business majors or law students say "I'll just have my secretary do my writing for me"?). An educated individual who can write is considered GOLDEN to more and more employers, from what I have heard.

At an orientation for first year English Lit grad students I had a professor tell us that her time in the PhD program actually made her writing get worse. She started off with a clear uncluttered and well articulated style and by the end of her dissertation she had fallen into the murky muddled writing of academic jargon and unnecessarily complex sentences. (I have since decided not to pursue a PhD, the ivory tower is not all it’s cracked up to be. My writing probably shows the ill effects of my time there.)

I've heard similar things happen to Law students where emotion is stripped from their writing. I guess this is to say, even if your writing is mechanically precise that does not mean it will be good.

People forget that the purpose of writing is to get an idea communicated to someone else and that is it. Sometimes a really awesome metaphore helps in the understanding but often only detracts from the message.

Having said that... there are a few exceptions. A small handful of UNT music students fight with every ounce of energy to keep the fire alive until they escape the educational gauntlet. Those guys and gals generally have a period of healing but emerge with passion, grace and fire and tend to reset the bar of excellence to a higher level. They approach the educational process as a worker-bee like myself approaches tool selections for a particular job. They don't 'become' the tools, they use them as needed.

That is my take on education, equipping oneself with the tools of the trade. If I carried my entire stock of tools to every job I would spend all my time dragging tools around and only a little time doing the work. If I carry only a pocket knife and a screwdriver then no matter how good a worker-dude I am I will not be able to do a good enough job to make a living.

does this qualify as rambling on and on?

added ~ Kathleen made a good point- We tend to think of a writing career as one in which we write books and try to convince somebody out there to publish it and start sending checks... YEAH BABY! However, a great deal of work could be had by someone with great writing skills offering their craft to the corporate world. My first writing efforts earned me 28 bucks an hour for a lot of hours! It was as a technical writer dressing up letters and reports and R&D/process reports for the higher-ups who decided to do their engineering homework in english class. I never once got a rejection, never had to pass the editorial gauntlet, never needed an agent, got paid and I got published about ten times over (although it was under the company name). One of my technical reports is availible through the Navy for $1800.00. I drew in the neigborhood of $1500 extra during those months, writing at home with a cold Shiner at my elbow! (won't this guy ever stop rambling?)

I not only cringed, but I struggled to figure out how to encourage the learning experience while explaining that not all sentences in all writing exercises needed three adjectives for every noun.

quote:

---

There's a writing poster in many teacher stores (and I've seen it in classrooms too) that says "Put said to bed." It then lists all the alternatives, replied, cried, demanded, yelled, whispered, ect.

---

I guess I should clarify - I am not saying that I don't think it worth my time, or that somehow it is beneath me. Of course if I learn new grammar rules, I'll try to use them. If someone points out an error I make, I'll try to fix it. I was just stressing that I don't consciously make an effort to study grammar (like memorizing rules, buying grammar books, etc...) because in my mind, I have larger issues to work with in improving my writing than that.

What I meant by "let the editor fix it" is that I don't believe I make such grievous errors that my works would be rejected simply because of those errors. Rather, I think I write pretty well as far as the technical stuff goes, so I am trying to focus on what I know I need to improve.

To use your janitor analogy, I'm not just tossing trash on the floor because "someone will pick it up, that's their job." Instead, I'll always throw my garbage away, but I don't have the tools right now to clean, wax, and polish the floor. And I'm in a situation where the editor is looking for a tidy, but well designed room, not necessarily just how spiffy the floor is. Editors will surely not eat at a restaurant where there is garbage all over the floor, but when choosing where to have lunch, they'll probably want to make sure it is tidy, has a nice atmosphere, and then most importantly they want the food to taste nice. I for one have eaten at some pretty cruddy places because the food is great, and avoided fancy ones who only focus on atmosphere rather than substance.

Now that I've thoroughly mixed my metaphors, I'll say it another way. My list of priorities resembles something like this:

1- plotting
2- characterization
3- voice
4- actually finishing
.
.
.
71- learning obscure, and not so obscure, grammar rules to polish my prose.

I didn't understand that sometimes creative writing isn't grammatical writing. I believe I once saw something where Glenn Frey of the Eagles had to remind Don Henley of that a few times.

You also have to worry about changing conventions. I know the rules for when to add an 's to make something plural. I know that just because a name ends in an "s" (as in Silas) does not mean you just tack on the apostrophe (it should be Silas's). I know this, but I keep seeing that kind of thing in print. So do I go by my education or by what I see coming up in print?

I will say that I did learn more about structuring sentences and paragraphs and about using specific writing techniques like parallelism and incorporating various literary devices, but I also see these techniques used by writers without degrees. I went to a liberal arts college, and I do feel that the variety of subjects I had to study made me, for a lack of better words, more rounded. I also feel that it helped me with being able to present written and oral arguments (not always a goood thing - tends to irritate and unnerve others).

quote:

---

So, the University of North Texas actually has it right. They strip away their student's creativity in order to give them the proper foundation for greatness. It's not UNT's fault that so many students get stuck on those basics and never expand on their own, it's the fact that there are so few truly great artists out there. It sounds like the great ones have their art benefit from UNT, while the average become artisans.

---

I will agree that education does help--but I strongly believe it mainly helps you sort out where your strengths and weaknesses lie. Though my degree is art--it did not make me an artist. I consider myself very fortunate to have been an artist long before all the technical jargon came into play. I went back to college to get the degree, and I spent endless hours watching 90% of the class trying to even understand basics and about 80% never really could draw something that resembled art even by the end, but they did at least try. They could copy something by following steps, but never found their own voice. To me everything was easy because I was already self disciplined to teach myself and wasn't solely dependent on the teacher. So of course five weeks into it he brought me on staff as a TA to help the others students find a voice along with the technical aspects. It helped them to understand when I explained how I learned it without the text book and lecture notes, but straight from real world experience of studying the actual history of how the artist created their technique. But again, I already knew I was an artist, I just needed all the technical aspects to get a degree so it was far easier for me.

Writing now has become a similar path. Every week since the point that I've started I've learned something new. This last week 'Info dumps' never had a clue before (action over info). There/Their/They're (get them right). It's/its ('It is' not ok to mess these up). When to put a comma before 'and' and when not to.(two independent clauses or dependent clause), when to break a paragraph. Comma or period before the quotation marks. Two spaces after a period. (Darn lazy pinky--Get it right for a change!)

Before I use to only looked up things on the web, but now I have two different types of thesaurus. One a plan one and the other an old 1935 book that divides words by subject matter. I have a nice middle sized dictionary that's easy to grab and flip open to find that word I'm looking for--To make sure it's the right word and spelled correct. I keep a stack of index cards and pens close at hand for quick thoughts, because they fly away quick, so you have to nail them down or they'll disappear for good.

I guess the point is--Sometimes I think we rush education. There's nothing wrong with just wadding into the pond and splashing around some. I know I want to write, and I will inevitable take a class or two, but the great thing I know from straight experience is if I don't rush it, I'll have already found the parts I'm looking for when I get to a class. So instead of being solely dependent on the teacher to give me my knowledge--I will instead be there to drain the teacher of all they can provide me with.

And I'm going to say this having just learned the phrase, 'Info dump,' If you went to a class and all you did was just sit there for one to three hours and just heard lecture after lecture of technique, it would be one huge, eye's glazed over, mind numbing, head pounding on desk, please kill me now, info dump. There would be no way to find out if you truly enjoyed what you're studying. So if this was the case it's a good thing to already know that answer.

One last thing: I actually have access to professional writers I know, but they won't give me the time of day about writing. I have learned far more here at this forum than I ever have or will learn from them because their egos won't let them believe that an artist can learn written language, and they don't want me stepping on their turf. So how stupid is that? Really stupid. So forgive me for saying this but - I plan on draining all you know-it-all's of every once of knowledge possible, before I go take a 'hopefully not mind numbing' class to fine tune my technique.

Till then--I'll just take each week as it comes and try and learn from each mistake, and then tackle the next obstacle.

ZZZZzzzzzz. zzzZZZZZzzzzzzz.

You can wake up now, the lectures over.

To me the grammar is the underpinning of it all, it is how you clearly share your ideas with other people. In your restaurant analogy, grammar isn't the decoration, it's the recipe. The food tastes good because it was cooked for the prescribed amount of time and it has the right ingredients. Now, it doesn't have to be perfect to be good. A little overcooking doesn't spoil the meal.

13 Literary writers (including Gaiman) - 5 with literary degrees, 2 with math/science degrees, 4 with other degrees, 2 without.
2 Thriller writers (Brown & Gerritsen) - 1 literary degree, 1 math/science degree
4 Horror writers (including Grahame-Smith) - 2 literary degrees, 2 other degrees
9 Fantasy writers (including Butcher, McGuire & Jacques) - 6 literary degrees, 1 other degree, 2 without
8 Sci-fi/Fantasy writers (including OSC and Martin) - 6 literary degrees, 2 math/science degrees, 1 other degree (1 had both lit and m/s)
11 Sci-Fi writers (including Sterling) - 5 literary degrees, 4 math/science degrees, 2 other degrees, 1 without (one had both m/s and other)

Personally, I think that writing is a bit of a leveler. I have learned from the most educated and least educated here. Perhaps that comes from living in a very egalitarian culture. But I am also curious about what backgrounds others here have and how their culture makes them perceive the value of education and educated people.