All the Little Words

Photo by Planet Volumes on Unsplash and edited by me

Currently Reading: A Million Worlds With You by Claudia Gray

Bear with me. It’s time to get picky. 

I get it. Sometimes, words slip through the cracks. Especially words that are spelled right or that do exist—the word processor doesn’t notice the mistake, so neither do you. Maybe the fancy editor even looks right over it.

But the readers will notice. 

Maybe not every reader. Maybe the middle schooler on the bus won’t see the tiny mistakes. 

That won’t save you when I’m reading you’re story and notice you used the wrong word. 

See? Using the wrong “your” immediately gave me less credibility. It doesn’t matter that I’m a Masters student and have a BA in creative writing. By using the wrong “your”, I look like a high schooler trying to teach a college class. 

Tiny misspellings are one thing. If you drop a leter, but the word is still clear in context, the reader may just look right over it without an issue. 

There are specific contexts in which mistakes can turn from ignorable to a significant issue. Think about it: if you’re reading a high fantasy novel to escape, and you see that the author made a significant yet basic grammar mistake, you’re instantly reminded that you’re reading a book and it takes you out of the story. 

What’s the solution?

Before writing a book or anything creative, get a grip on grammar. Here’s the thing: you may not care about perfect grammar. Your narrator might not, either! And that’s okay, encouraged even. But in order to get something wrong in a beautiful way, you must understand how it would look if it were right. 

In one novel I was reading, the single-syllable word that refers to pawning something off for money was used multiple times. The word intended was “hock”. The word written was “hawk”. 

Yes, of course, I could tell what the author meant. But this was a published work of fiction! This little mistake instantly turned me off, making me feel like the writer did not take the time to consider their word choices. 

Another common mistake: the long form of “shoulda”. Because of the way we say this phrase, people sometimes mistakenly write it as “should of”, when it is meant to be “should have”. 

This all sounds so pedantic and annoying and “holier than thou”. It could even be construed as insulting to those who do not use fancy grammar or follow every rule, but that is not my point. Bending the rules of grammar and writing the way you speak is fine and wonderful and artistic, but mistakes are just that—they are unintentional, and therefore throw the whole work into question. 

Taking great care in ensuring the little details are taken care of will allow your work to shine and to read as something polished. It will give the readers reasons to suspend their disbelief in fiction. 

Plus, it’s just nice not to have to try and figure out what the author means by “your not my friend!”

Keep that grammar intentional. Break it, but break it on purpose. 

-Rachel, a picky grammar nerd