• Book Name: Grammar for Fiction Writers by Chris Saylor and Marcy Kennedy
• Author: Chris Saylor and Marcy Kennedy
• Pages: 106
• Size: 3 MB

Grammar for Fiction Writers by Chris Saylor PDF

Contents of Grammar for Fiction Writers by Chris Saylor PDF

• Chapter 1 – Possessives vs. Contractions
• Chapter 2 – Comma Problems
• Chapter 3 – Dashes, Semicolons, and Ellipses—Oh My!
• Chapter 4 – How to Format Your Dialogue
• Chapter 5 – Take It to the Page: Part One Part Two: Knowing What Your Words Mean and What They Don’t
• Chapter 6 – Commonly Confused Words
• Chapter 7 – Imaginary Words and Phrases
• Chapter 8 – Crutch Words
• Chapter 9 – Weak Words
• Chapter 10 – Connotation vs. Denotation
• Chapter 11 – Take It to the Page: Part Two Part Three: Grammar Rules Every Writer Needs to Know and Follow
• Chapter 12 – Passive Voice vs. Active Voice
• Chapter 13 – Subject–Verb Agreement
• Chapter 14 – Double Negatives
• Chapter 15 – Don’t Get Tense
• Chapter 16 – Lack of Parallelism
• Chapter 17 – Woe Is Me: Dealing With I/Me, Who/Whom, and That/Which/Who
• Chapter 18 – Take It to the Page: Part Three Part Four: Special Challenges for Fiction Writers
• Chapter 19 – Dangling Participles and Misplaced Modifiers
• Chapter 20 – Reversing Cause and Effect
• Chapter 21 – Are Your Characters Doing the Impossible?
• Chapter 22 – Orphaned Dialogue and Pronouns
• Chapter 23 – Take It to the Page: Part Four Part Five: “Rules” You Can Safely Ignore When Writing Fiction
• Chapter 24- Grammar Taboos That Aren’t
• Appendix A: Do the Grammar Checks Provided by Word Processing Programs Work?
• Appendix B: 200 Commonly Confused Words
• Appendix C: Glossary of Fiction Terms

Why a Grammar Guide for Fiction Writers?

I‘m in the odd category of people known as editors. Like writers, editors love words, but we also love the intricacies of grammar and punctuation that can make many writers feel like crying. Because I know not everyone is like me, I wanted to create this book for people who struggle with grammar, as well as for those who might just want a refresher. This book is specifically for fiction writers.

The world of grammar is huge, but not everything applies to someone who’s writing a novel or short story. In fact, some of the rules you were taught in your high school or college/university English class will actually hurt your fiction writing, not help it. Like all the books in the Busy Writer’s Guides series, Grammar for Fiction Writers is fluff-free.

It won’t teach you things you don’t need to know. The focus is on teaching you the punctuation and grammar that are relevant to you as a fiction writer. While some elements are universally needed by writers (and are included), others are especially important for fiction writers (and have been given their own sections), and still others don’t matter for fiction writers at all (and, as such, aren’t in this book).

The purpose of grammar for fiction writers is making your writing clearer and more interesting for your readers. This book was written with the goal of respecting your time—quickly and clearly teaching you what you need to know, in an approachable, friendly way, so that you can get back to writing your book.

I know all these rules can be intimidating. The point of this book isn’t to turn you into a copy editor. If you decide to self-publish your book, you’ll still need to hire a copy editor. None of us are objective enough to catch all our own errors. When you finish, however, you should be able to write clean prose, not have your query letter or proposal rejected because of egregious errors, and pay less when you do hire a copy editor (the cleaner your book, the less a copy edit usually costs).

You’ll also be a more effective final pair of eyes for your book and catch anything that your copy editor or proofreader might have missed (because no one is perfect).

Grammar for fiction writers by chris saylor pdf.