Most elements of grammar are fairly easy to understand. If you are a native English speaker, you have been drilled on pretty much everything from the time you started to write. One thing that requires a little more thought, or maybe, re-training, is the active and passive voice in writing. Without further ado, we discuss passive v. active voice.
Passive voice is either when the thing being acted on is at the end of the sentence, or is unknown. A passive voice sentence example is:
The milk was spilled. Or
The milk was spilled by Charlie.
Passive voice gets what I would call “guff.” However, a lot of the time in academic settings, you will find yourself with a requirement to write an essay or paper without coloring it with a view. You will be asked (or maybe have been asked) to present facts and ideas, but not show those facts and ideas as your own. In these areas, and also writing articles that are journalistic in nature, it is important to take the actor out of the action, so to speak. Maybe it’s for reasons of anonymity, or maybe it’s so that the writing can speak for itself. Either of these reasons would cause the writer of the piece to choose to use a more passive voice.
Active
When using an active voice, the person or people doing the action are at the beginning of the sentence. An example of active voice would be:
This is the type of writing that writers are constantly told to use. In fact, even in writing a blog post, I have a plugin that tells me when I use too much passive voice. I personally think that passive voice can be used with great effect. You could even show a character coming into themselves, simply by thinking passively, and then actively. For example, if at the beginning of the story, they always put themselves at the very end. But, then by the end, they thought of themselves first. That change in voice, could be used to great effect, subtle, but great. The reader may not catch on at first, but they would get it. Even subconsciously.
At the end of the day, passive voice = actor at the end, action in the beginning, active voice = actor in the beginning, action at the end. Easy enough to remember. Keep track of what you are using, or even just be aware of it when you are editing.
Thanks for reading this post about passive v. active voice.
Verbs are action words. Verbs also describe abstract concepts. There are different modifications: mood and tenses among others. Let’s look at these first two closely in Grammar Lesson #3: Verbs.
Mood
A verb has five moods. They are: the infinite, indicative, subjunctive, potential, and the imperative.
The infinite mood expresses the verb in an unlimited manner, without number or person.
The indicative mood indicates or declares a thing, or asks a question.
The subjunctive mood expresses the verb in a conditional, doubtful, or contingent manner.
The potential mood expresses the verb as power, liberty, possibility or necessity.
The imperative mood expresses the verb as commanding, exhorting, entreating or permitting.
Tenses
I think it’s no surprise that there are three tenses, past, present and future. We go into more detail here:
Present Tense
Simple present tense expresses what now exists, what is normal, or correlated to the senses.
Present continuous tense expresses what is temporary.
Present perfect tense expresses what has taken place, within some period of time not yet fully past.
Present perfect continuous tense expresses something that started in the past. But isn’t yet finished.
Simple past tense expresses that which took place fully in the past.
Past continuous tense expresses that which was taking place, then suddenly something else occurred.
Past perfect tense expresses something that happened some time ago, when something else happened as well.
Past perfect continuous tense expresses something that happened before and was still going on, when something else occurred.
Future Tense
Simple future tense expresses something that will take place in the future.
Future continuous tense expresses something that will be taking place at a certain time in the future.
Future perfect tense expresses something that will have taken place at a certain time in the future.
Future perfect continuous tense expresses something that will continue up until a certain point in the future, and then it will be finished.
So that is a lot of really heavy stuff. There’s actually a lot more to do with verbs. The thing to remember is that, you probably already know it. Learning about the things, and what they mean, is also good. Knowing why you feel a sentence is worded wrong is important. Thank you for reading my grammar lesson, verbs.
Finishing anything is kind of a big deal. So, when you finish your novel, short story, poem, blog post; anything. The first order of the moment is a (short or long, depending on the piece of writing) celebration. Then, it’s time to get down to brass tacks with revising and editing.
Photo by Marina Leonova
I will focus on novel editing and revising, because it’s the biggest, hardest thing to do. However, these can apply to other things. Most of the ideas here can be easily applied to any other thing. I will make a note about revision poems: they’re different. The things that matter for poetry don’t for other types of writing. So some advice may not be useful for budding poets.
Revising and Editing: Editing
Let’s start by talking about editing. There are several kinds of editing that can/should be done with a piece. The types of edits are: developmental editing, line editing, copy editing, and then proofreading.
Developmental Editing
This is the first edit, this is the meat and potato edit where you go through the entire piece and look at it with a critical eye. You will want to look at each part of the book and make sure that everything makes sense as you want it to. You can do this one of two ways, you can either read through the entire piece (hopefully with fresh eyes, meaning that you have put it down for a while, at least 2 weeks) and highlight each area in turn that you find you need to work on. Or, the other option is that you can read your piece several times, each time looking at each part in turn. The parts are:
Parts of a Story
Plot: check that the story you want to tell is making it on the page. Does the plot flow from points A to Z? Can you tell why the characters are acting the way that they are? Do you question anything, any weirdness–make a mark, come back to it later.
Structure: How you tell the story. Maybe it’s chronological, maybe it’s reverse chronological, maybe it skips through time and then doubles back. However, it does it make sure that it does it the way it’s supposed to. Wherever it gets confusing, make a mark.
Characterization: Do the characters act “within character” the whole time? If there are places where you have characters acting differently than they should or making choices that are strange, make a mark.
Pacing: How quickly/slowly does the action take place? Are there places where you are bored, places where everything is moving so quickly that it’s hard to keep track? Make a mark.
Viewpoint: The POV character should not be ambiguous. If you have a work where you have multiple point-of-view characters, it will need to be apparent whose point of the story is from within a sentence or two. If this is confusing, mark it.
Narrative Style: This ties into viewpoint, is the story told in first, second or third person? If it is in First, it shouldn’t switch. If the narrative style is unclear, mark it.
Tense: Is it in past or present-tense. If it is unclear, or switches tenses; mark it.
Mark it?
What do I mean by mark it, and why am I saying “mark it” instead of change it? The very first step in the editing process is to let the work rest. If possible, of course. When you come back to read the work with fresh eyes, then, instead of changing it right away, you will want to make marks on it. These marks could be highlights, they could be changing the color of the text itself. My suggestion would be to mark each item with a different color.
Line Editing
As the name implies, line editing looks more closely at sentences. This type of editing should be done after the developmental edits are already completed. Essentially, the idea is to start big. Start with those ‘big picture’ changes before moving to the smaller, more fiddly changes.
Line edits will look at style, voice and flow. They will look at poor word choice, character-voice issues, inauthentic writing. Other things to look for are poor metaphor choices, overwritten prose, repetition, and this is also where telling v. showing will come in. So, don’t worry about it until you get all the way to the line edit phase of writing.
Photo by Charlotte May
Copy editing
This is where you look at the formatting. The copy editing phase is where you would check the chapter sequencing, the spelling of proper nouns, all the grammar and syntax sentence level stuff, and the proper formatting of the document itself.
Sometimes the line edit and the copy edit are performed at the same time.
Proofreading
This is the last pass edit before a document is deemed “good enough.” This is where you look for any weird formatting issues that may have come up, along with searching for sentence consistency and any grammar errors that may have been missed. You pull up the work and make sure that it looks as good as it possibly can before either being sent off to agents or published.
Revising
Revision is the act of making the changes. So, while editing, you will make suggestions. Then, when you start revising, you actually make the changes. Revising goes hand in hand with editing, which is why they are typically mentioned together, although revising should be considered the act of the thing.
When you begin the process, it is perfectly okay to move as slowly or as quickly as you would like. There are people who will write a couple of chapters and then start to revise right away. Personally, I like to write to the end, without revision, and then go from there.
Revision may be its own post one day.
Let me know if you need any more information on revising and editing, or if you would like different information. Thanks for reading!
When I was in elementary school, I loved my English classes. When we first discussed adjectives, they were simply called “describing words,” and while it’s a touch more complicated than that, the idea, at it’s core, is true. So, welcome to Grammar Lesson #2: Adjectives.
Photo by Marek Piwnicki
An adjective is a word that modifies a noun or a noun phrase. The adjective can come either before or after the noun or noun phrase it modifies. The adjectives will be called different things depending on their position.
A prepositive adjective comes before the noun or noun phrase (it’s called an antecedent basis).
A postpositive adjective comes after the noun or noun phrase (this would be a predicate adjective).
A nominalized adjective is when an adjective takes the place of a noun.
The way in which the adjective modifies the noun is essentially to describe or to give more information about the noun. The adjective lives to provide the sentence with the description and information that it needs in order to make sense. Adjectives are our friends.
Here are some example sentences using adjectives:
The big tree stood for a hundred years. Prepositive adjective.
The big tree limb stood in my way. Postpositive adjective
Out with the old, in with the new. Nominalized adjective.
In review, adjectives are words that modify nouns or noun phrases. They can come before or after the noun phrase, and they can even take the place of the noun. They modify the noun by describing it, or changing the information that it provides.
Photo by Pixabay
Thank you for reading grammar lesson #2: adjectives. Let me know if you would like to know about a different part of speech or something completely new.
Why talk about grammar? Especially nouns. In fact, why have a Grammar lesson #1: Nouns? Because, frankly, I don’t know what people may or may not know.
I thought that I knew enough, that I knew all I needed to know when it came to grammar. And I suppose that’s true enough, I get by really well in a business setting. In fact, before I went back to college, I was a supervisor over an “online communications” team. I read and corrected people’s emails and live chats for a living. I made sure that their interactions properly reflected the business and were error-free.
Photo by Dids: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-shot-of-purple-paint-abstract-painting-6404178/
One of the things I learned, is that there’s a lot I don’t know. There are a lot of people who are much better at grammar than me. It is worth continuously reviewing my knowledge, and making sure that I know what I am doing. Especially when it comes to the best ways to put together a sentence.
And so, with those thoughts in mind, let’s talk about nouns.
Grammar lesson #1: Nouns Photo by Pixabay
What are Nouns?
Person
Place
Thing
Idea
Very simply, anytime you are talking about someone, something, somewhere, or an abstract thought; you are using a noun. This is the first building block of grammar and is something so simple that most of us can name what a noun is off the top of our heads. But, as these things go, it is important to “start at the beginning.”
Some examples of nouns are:
We went to school. School is the noun, because it’s a place.
Johnny got a new typewriter. Typewriter is the noun here because it is a thing.
The woman ate an apple. The woman is a person, so she is a noun.
Give me liberty, or give me death. Both liberty and death are ideas, so they are nouns in this context.
And now we have finished Grammar Lesson #1: Nouns.
Congrats! Let me know if you have any questions/comments or would like to see other grammar subjects faster. I am going to start very slowly.
