Going to be a very short blog post this week, because it was Easter weekend, which meant that obligations to God and family were at the forefront, and it’s Spring Break for the kids this week, which means that they still kind of are. But it also means that writing projects have backlogged, so don’t expect too much blogging this week.

So, I’ve been doing a bit more researching than writing recently, mostly so I can kick marketing my novels into high gear. For anyone who’s interested, QueryShark is a gold mine for this.

And I’m kind of in shock at the number of people who want to be professional writers and really have no clue about grammar.

Look, I know we all like to joke about the Grammar Nazis, but in all seriousness, good grammar (and spelling) is important. It’s important because it’s there for a reason: to make your writing clear. Bad grammar is like static in a broadcast. A little of it can be tuned out and ignored. More than a little bit, and it gets annoying. No one wants to read what’s annoying. So here’s a few things I keep seeing that you really need to know to sell your work.

You must know what a full sentence is. A full sentence consists of at least one noun and one verb. “I ran.” That’s a sentence. That doesn’t create a sentence by itself. You can screw it up even if you have both those things. But that’s where to start.
You need to know this, not because you must always use them. Sometimes you may avoid them for rhetorical purposes. Like this. But if you don’t know when you’re using them. You’ll sound weird. Like I just did two “sentences ago.

You have to know the difference between those little annoying words. Yes, I mean its and it’s. Their, they’re and there. To, too, and two. You’re and your. And also then and than. Not knowing the difference doesn’t say you’re stupid. It says you’re careless.It says you need a copy editor. but you don’t know you need one. And that, right there, is the difference between “inexperienced” or “grammar-challenged” and “clueless.” The first two can be worked with. The third, no one wants to.

You must be able to use quotations, dialogue tags, and paragraphs correctly.

“Well, how do I do that?” you may ask.
“Firstly,” I say, “You must remember that punctuation always goes INSIDE, and never OUTSIDE, the quotation marks.”
“But what punctuation?” you ask.
“Well, that depends on a few things,” I answer. “For example, that last sentence ends in a comma, because we followed it up with the dialogue tag ‘I answer.’ It should be a period, but the dialogue tag makes it into a comma. On the other hand, because the first sentence of this whole exchange was a question, we left the question mark there. That’s really the only rule. Before a dialogue tag, periods become commas. Everything else stays the same.”
“Pretty easy. But what about paragraphs?”
“Every time a new speaker takes part in a dialogue, that’s a new paragraph. When you’re NOT writing dialogue, every major beat in the action should have its own paragraph. Paragraphs are a way to group related events together, and to separate major changes.”
“Should I indent paragraphs?”
“Always.”
“Then why aren’t we doing that?”
“Because WordPress really sucks that way.”