Grammar rules that you're probably breaking, but you just don't care...

[AwkwardlySet]

It's what you learn in the first 3 years of life - the rules of how to use words to communicate in your native language. Style and punctuation are what you're taught at school. Different schools, different rules. They'll also change as the purpose of your writing and the medium in which you write change. In creative writing, you're expected to use stylistic rules creatively.

Huh. And here I thought it was some slang for having sex with grandma. English is so weird.

 

[Duleigh]

Damn, Duleigh! By that logic, none of my stories could have more than 2 exclamation points each?!


Unacceptable!!! Unacceptable, I say!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is some novel length exclaiming!

I just don't use it very often, I try to let my adjectives do the yelling for me, that way a single comes out more powerful by its rarity.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

That is some novel length exclaiming!

I just don't use it very often, I try to let my adjectives do the yelling for me, that way a single comes out more powerful by its rarity.

Does that include dialogue? Are your characters so dispassionate?

Or are you talking about exclamation points in the descriptive text? Because, yeah... I never use exclamation points outside of dialogue and inner monologue

 

[Duleigh]

Does that include dialogue? Are your characters so dispassionate?

Or are you talking about exclamation points in the descriptive text? Because, yeah... I never use exclamation points outside of dialogue and inner monologue

They're not dispassionate, they use the living hell out of italics, I guess I don't count sexually induced exclamation points, they're a force of nature, but I try to keep them to the very fewest needed. I don't see them as a volume knob. (Duleigh Demandments are more like guidelines)

 

[BobbyBrandt]

The misinterpreted rules related to the use of pronouns in dialog is the only grammar issue anyone has ever commented upon in my stories, and oddly enough, only on this site.

I find it interesting that all these English majors come here to read erotic stories and struggle with how people speak versus how they would write the same words.

How many modern day women, when speaking, would say, "Her and her husband have asked me to sit with them at the reception, so now I feel obligated to go." versus, "She and her husband have asked me to sit with them at the reception, so now I feel obligated to go."

 

[SeraphNocturne]

 

[AlinaX]

I've had more than one person tell me that em-dashes when used as an interruption to dialogue by an action belong on the outside of the quotes. Example:

"If you refuse to talk"--He cracked his knuckles--"we have ways to convince you."

To me, that looks absurd. I prefer:

"If you refuse to talk--" He cracked his knuckles. "--we have ways to convince you."

I don't know if the first example is definitive and even if it is, this might be the only grammar rule I refuse to follow or retrain myself over. It looks wrong.

If the logic of the spoken dialogue is affected, then the dash belongs inside.

David scowled. "Now, when I was a lad -"
Emily rolled her eyes and muttered, "Here we go again."
"- there were six of us living in a shoebox in middle of t' road."

If it's more the external flow being affected, the dashes go outside - but it doesn't really make sense if you have a whole sentence there.

"If you refuse to talk" - he cracked his knuckles - "we have ways to convince you."

 

[KeithD]

Sentence fragments. People use them in speech and other people usually understand them in that context. Storytelling is more authentic when they are judiciously used in our stories. So I use them.

 

[SimonDoom]

View attachment 2249170

This makes my day.

 

[Duleigh]

Sentence fragments. People use them in speech and other people usually understand them in that context. Storytelling is more authentic when they are judiciously used in our stories. So I use them.

One drawback to writing is that people don't talk like we write, conversations are groups of sentence fragments and partial statements because no one really bloviates unless they're telling a story or a joke. Writing like people really speak looks fragmented and for the reader conversations can be difficult to follow. You're right judicious use of fragments make our stories realistic but over use makes them hard to understand.

 

[Passiontyper]

How do you quote dialog differently? (Btw, welcome! I see that this is literally your first post.)

(Thanks!) Usually, I do dialogue with an inline/tab and empty lines above and below
Like this:

She stared at it for what felt like a minute before catching herself, quickly masking the pertubed look on her face and looking away. At least he didn't seem to have noticed.

"What. The. Frick."

Samantha mouthed the words quietly to herself, still sneaking glances at the man. There was just no way... [etc.]

But other times, I'll just write like this, which, I AFAIK is closer to convention.

"Oh, I-well... I don't know how I feel about that!" Catching the rather inimical tone in her voice, she quickly added "I-it's just not what I expected!" As if that could hope to dent the newly minted sense of awkwardness in the room.

Honestly not 100% sure if this counts as a grammatical error, but some people take formatting pretty seriously!

 

[MediocreAuthor]

Honestly not 100% sure if this counts as a grammatical error, but some people take formatting pretty seriously!

Technically, I think you should have a comma after "added," but otherwise it looks fine to me (also I don't mind how it looks, I'm just saying."

 

[MajorRewrite]

I am also an ellipsis enthusiast. A few readers have complained in comments. Pedantic cunts.

 

[MillieDynamite]

All of them in speech if it's right for the character. "Joe, see me and you."

 

[SimonDoom]

Technically, I think you should have a comma after "added," but otherwise it looks fine to me (also I don't mind how it looks, I'm just saying."

Agreed.