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I recently published a collection of Short Stories called "The Healing Road Chronicles. It's available on Amazon as of Today. Many thanks to Bill, M.J., and others out here who've reviewed my work and encouraged to keep at it.

Don

I got a review that totally HAMMERED my ass on passive voice (not complaining!! These are the sort of things I DESPERATELY want reviewers to point out.)
It brought a question to mind, so I thought I'd ask it here:

Is it okay to use passive voice in dialogue? People don't talk using perfect grammar. But is it okay to use it in dialogue even though it's a major NO-NO in writing in general?

Inquiring minds want to know and are too lazy to google it....

Bobbie

An example from the Chicago Manual of Style: "Hello, stranger." Not a title, so no caps.

Much obliged, Everyone. ;-)

Hell, it's been that way in Word since I started using it about fifteen years ago -- they didn't ban it or anything but just in a round about way told you it was stupid to waste all that extra effort. Running my own business I was always one for efficiency. Not sure why you needed two spaces anyway other than perhaps it evolved in the typesetting for printers. As the old saying goes, good riddance. But before I get yelled at, if you want to keep using two spaces you can still do so. You don't have to correct flagged errors. And I doubt anyone will notice either way. Take care. Vern

Memphis Trace wrote:

Ann Everett wrote:

I agree with MJ. Why mess with something that works?

I think creative writers are messing with things because they aren't working.

I like these quotes from the article:
In contractions like hes, shes, youre, theyre, and its, there are ones no one gets wrong, and there are ones that are gotten completely wrong all the time (theyre/their/there, youre/your). Either way, people still know what the writer means. Every. Single. Time. The apostrophe makes no difference.

I go back to my original thought on this matter.  It's not that things aren't working, because they are.  And have been for many years.  They're working for those who took the time to listen in class, for those who were interested enough to learn their native tongue.  It may be correct that people still know what the writer means, every time.  I know what they mean, but it doesn't mean it should be my place to have to figure out exactly what it is you mean.  When I see the misuse of theyre/their/there, youre/your, it's/its, I cringe. It tells me the writer doesn't care and never did, else they'd learn proper English, which, as JP pointed out, is our form of communication with each other.  It means you don't care if someone has to figure out what you mean.

Mark Twain cared enough to write the greatest American novel (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn] in the dialect of the times. Every school marm in the country got their bloomers in a bunch. They are now dead, some probably tied to a tree and beaten to death metaphorically. Huck Finn lives on, accessible wit and wisdom for all.

Students should learn by THIRD grade that the plural of potato is not potato's, or tomato tomato's.  This simply boils down to how lazy our country has become.  Many teachers get teaching degrees and teach what they know, which in this day and time is very little.  We let kids pass on to the next grade when many of them shouldn't.  And I'll go back to my old pet peeve of homeschooling.  A homeschooled child is only going to be as smart as the one teaching them.  We have no rules governing who can home teach and who can't, or at least we don't have rules here in the south where I live.  So if you're a homeschooled kid and your teacher (probably parent) writes "Its cold out today, so everyone should wear they're mittens when your going outside" --- then I rest my case.  If you home school and your kids are the smartest in the world, then congratulations because not every homeschooled child has that opportunity.

One of the points of this article is that anyone regardless of whether they know the difference between potato and potato's understand what a semi-literate means when they write it wrong. The same way you know what they mean when they speak both words. That you know the difference hardly gives you license to shame a semi-literate trying to communicate in writing. Killing the apostrophe would cure both your imperious attitude and allay the child's shame.

   

There's an old saying here in the south:  You'll never rise above your raising if you don't take the initiative and do it yourself.

There are many old sayings in the south. I like Mark Twain's best: Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned.

I one hundred percent agree with John Richards:  "The ignorance and laziness of modern times have won."

When going with the times means going the wrong way, I resist every time.  I'll leave you with a quote that my father used to tell us kids every single day:  Do it right or don't do it at all.

If you are waiting to do something right before you do it at all, why do you belong to a writing workshop? Why did you ever do arithmetic homework?

MJ

Memphis Trace wrote:

Kill the apostrophe
https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/0 … nding.html

MT

Then along comes this idea where someone is either too ignorant or too lazy to put in an apostrophe.  All I can say in order to end this rant I've found myself riled up about is I've lived too fucking long.

MJ

I guess because I like wordsmithing long sentences, I'm often (falsely) accused of writing run-ons. It's like authors here don't know what a run-on actually is, but, judging by the number of words between the first and the last one, it must automatically be one. It makes me wonder if they actually read books, or study at least some rudimentary principles of the English language, which puzzles me, given the fact English is not my mother tongue, and if I can do it, they most assuredly must be aware. Long sentences occur in novels of every genre, be it sci-fi, fantasy, horror, or speculative literary (whatever that is). Also, writing is hard work, and success must be earned. Submissions are often answered by dead air. It's not like a car mechanic is hired because he/she has a driver's license. Anyhoo, occasionally it will consume the better part of an hour for me to get it right.

So, here's the definition of a run-on sentence, to avoid further 'misunderstandings,' or planting comments as soon as there are more than, say, twenty words without a period at the end:

A run-on sentence exists when two or more independent clauses are not joined with the proper conjunction or punctuation. A run-on sentence is poor grammar. More than one independent clause cannot exist in a sentence unless they are properly combined. To properly combine clauses, correct conjunctions or punctuation must be added to the sentence. Despite their name, run-on sentences have nothing to do with length. Run-on sentences can be quite short, in fact. The only thing that determines a run-on sentence is when more than one independent clause exists without the proper tools to combine them.

Also see: https://writingexplained.org/grammar-di … n-sentence for examples.

During all my years of writing, I have never had a story rejected because of long sentences. Ever. My latest short story sale (Gigolo, which was up for review on this site a few weeks back) to https://www.3lobedmag.com/ contains this baby:

Only occasionally there's a glimpse of what once was, like a bubble of methane escapes melting permafrost and explodes: Jody's grandfather's apple orchard where they played hide and seek amidst old and gnarled tree trunks, the grass so high it tickled her thighs and chills ran down her spine when thinking how many nasty frogs might be hiding in this wilderness; Marcy's dad with his 8mm film camera, recording scenes for prosperity in his backyard, a sudden gust of wind blowing smoke from the barbeque onto the scene, obscuring three fourth-grade girls practicing for the cheerleading contest and granny laughing, granny who always understood everything, her favorite person in the whole world, granny in the background, granny she loved so much, granny who would pass away that same night; and cradled in soft chairs, the aroma of hot popcorn tickling her nostrils and Lea's impatience for the movie to begin and silently praying no big person will sit in front of her and her friends giggling and her mom telling them to hush but there's a smile in her voice and—

Can that be improved? I'm sure it can, but all I'm asking in this longish post is to pay attention to what and how it's written. and don't discard stuff without knowing why...

Ray

P.S. I'm not Shakespeare. I do this mostly for the money, and because my muse won't stop pestering the hell out of me. Plus, I'm a cranky old bastard. So there.

I'm wondering what people do when it comes to writing numbers in a story? I typically spell out numbers <= 100, but also write numbers like one thousand as words rather than 1,000. I eventually settled on a rule that if I could write it out in three words or less, then I would do so. As a result, numbers like 500, 10,000, 1,000,000, etc. all get written out. I tend to include 'and' when writing numbers, so 350 would be three hundred and fifty, which is four words, so I wouldn't write it out. One of my reviewers recommended I write 350 as three hundred-fifty in a line of dialogue, hence this post.

Thanks
Dirk