Kimberly Lang

Battling the Grammar Gremlins

The Final Battle

Kimberly Lang

No, the Gremlins have not won, nor have we vanquished them. I, however, must exit the fight and leave you to carry on alone. We’ve come a long way the last months, and I hope you’re feeling stronger and more confident in your personal struggle. As I wrap up this series, I’d like to leave you with a few final strategies and thoughts.

Be realistic. In a 400-page manuscript, you are bound to have an error or two. Don’t sweat it. Grammar strength is like anything else: the more you work at it, the better you’ll be. Even if you have “good grammar,” typos happen. You have an off day and something gets by you. You revise part of the sentence but neglect to change the verb tense in the second part of the sentence. It happens. Shrug it off and move on. No editor will reject you because of the typo on page 33 if the other 368 pages are well written.

Know when to sweat it. Sentence-level grammar is not worth worrying about during your drafting stage. Trying to compose while obsessing over each comma and semicolon will stifle your creativity and bring your writing to a screeching halt. The time to worry about commas is in the revision stage. As you polish that manuscript, check each and every sentence to make it the best it can be. That’s the time to sweat that comma…

Identify your weaknesses and work to eliminate them. So the lesson on mixed constructions set off light bulbs over your head and it all makes sense now. Great. But the lesson on commas still leaves you scratching your head and wondering if the comma goes there or not. That’s okay, too. You know you are still struggling with commas, so examine your comma usage carefully. Pretty soon, you’ll only have the occasional comma issue that you need to look up and clarify. You did buy that grammar book, right? If not, go get one now. There’s no excuse not to have one—I don’t care how great you think your grammar is. You’re battling grammar gremlins, remember? That grammar book is your primary weapon!

Grammar is more than punctuation. Grammar is the logic of our language. Ignore it, and your sentences don’t make sense. Read your work aloud. Does it flow and have the natural rhythm of the language? Does every sentence carry meaning, and is that meaning easy to understand? Properly punctuated, grammatically correct sentences can still confuse your reader. (Go check out the first 26 lines of Milton’s Paradise Lost. That’s two sentences. Two grammatically correct sentences that confuse the heck out of most anyone who comes along.) Aim for clarity and accessibility. Good grammar will get you there.

People will always correct you. When in doubt, insult the grammar. It’s a low blow for writers, as grammar is what makes our words “talk.” But there are many folks who will take great pleasure in telling you how wrong your grammar is. (I had a contest judge “lecture” me about semicolon usage. She even included a helpful list of when to use the semicolon. Too bad she had it confused with the colon.) Folks will also attack your sentence structure, word choice, you name it. If you get a remark like that, double-check to be sure you didn’t have an off day and let a gremlin slip through. If your grammar book (the one you are going to order off the internet TODAY), tells you you’re correct, ignore it and move on.

Challenge yourself. If your grammar is weak, challenge yourself to improve it. Grammar is a part of craft; you can’t tell an effective, engaging story without it. In the same way you strive to make your characters’ motivations crystal clear, strive to make your writing the best it can be. Commit to writing well, as well as writing good stories.

Remember, this battle may be over, but the war rages on. I think you’re ready to fight alone, and I hope you feel I’ve given you some good weapons in your arsenal. Thank you to everyone who has emailed me to comment on this series or asked to reprint it elsewhere.

Battle on!