The Novelist and “Their” “Grammer” (sic)

Not to be fractious, but isn’t grammar even more trivial than fractions? After all, fractions help you cope with 3/8 teaspoon of baking soda when doubling or halving your muffin recipe. Far more practical than cringing over offering guests less or fewer muffins. Readers are a novelist’s guests, and many simply couldn’t (or the inaccurate “could”?) care less. For many people, grammar evokes the nightmarish high school memory of diagramming sentences.

Admittedly, diagramming sentence won’t polish your prose. Still, the impracticality of that exercise doesn’t justify discarding the elegant system that grammar represents. Even if diagramming sentences won’t improve your novel, grammar certainly might.

Here’s why.

~Perfect pitch.

Some folks lack it with language, just as others do with music. You wouldn’t inflict your off-key singing on a bunch of strangers, would you? Between “you and I” (sic!), consider protecting your readers from sounds that make them cringe. If the reader’s cringing, the reading’s not much fun.

~ Hierarchy.

Subordinate (“however, “but,” “if,” etc.) or coordinate (“and,” “also,” etc.) words indicate significance. Seemingly trivial word choices convey that some things are equal and others not. Intentionally or not, the clauses you create express relationships—including run-on sentences. Subordination captures causality at the sentence level: if the protagonist does this, then that happens. Doesn’t that deserve your attention? And your reader’s?

~ Syntax.

Grammar sensitizes you to what your sentence underscores. Aside from distance and wordiness, the real problem with passive voice is misplaced emphasis. If the bat is used by the girl, don’t you imply that the bat matters more than she does? Relationships between words (grammar!) accentuate or minimize. Noticing parts of speech encourages greater reliance on verbs instead of (yikes!) modifying everything with (sad) adjectives or adverbs (sadly).

~ Parallelism.

Though part of syntax, this construction deserves separate mention. Grammar reveals whether you’ve missed an opportunity to connect, echo, and create unforgettable patterns. After all, what if Lincoln had said, “The government that represents the people, which is the one they help to run and is thus capable of giving them what is needed… “shall not perish from the earth.”

Tip: Here’s a secret. Grammar is exactly as important as it’s cracked up to be.

What about the Dialogue No Character Ever Speaks?

Dialogue shapes novels. There’s an unspoken dialogue between a novel and its readers that shapes the quality and impact of fiction.  In Novel Voices, Jennifer Levasseur and Kevin Rabelais interview Siri Hustvedt, who has this to say about the dialogue that keeps us reading fiction:

The reader situates himself somewhere between the immediate here of the world in which he reads and the there of the book. He enters a state that is between himself and the voice of the book. Reading is also entering a dialogue of sorts because a book is nothing until it lives inside the reader, who makes the book come to life.

You can’t have a dialogue without both parties participating. But readers can’t do that unless some things are unsaid, some points never made. How else can readers interpret through the lens of their own memories, experiences, and appetites? Of course no one wants a novel to be an empty blackboard, awaiting the reader’s imprint. But no one wants every detail laid out, either, because that makes it impossible for readers to discover meaning for themselves.

Which factors let readers participate in the experience of fiction?

~ Plot events.

This is restricted to what the characters actually do or execute or say. What they contemplate, how they commiserate, whether they circumnavigate—all that excludes the reader, because it’s talking to rather than with.

~ Dialogue between characters.

Again, this is restricted to what the characters say rather than what they say “lazily,” “cheerfully,” “thoughtfully,” or “stormily.” Once you add adverbs or any other filter, it becomes a lecture—not a dialogue.

~ Subtext.

           

Pose questions that sound like questions and seemingly definitive statements that imply questions. If you like, write down exactly what the character wants to say. Afterwards, though, revise until your characters sound like real people—dropping hints, insinuating threats, and generally playing games.

           

~ Ambiguity.

Much as you’d like to, never, ever “tell” readers exactly what you want them to notice, believe, defy, or applaud. Drop clues. Unfurl your plot. Make your characters suffer enough to change. What will readers absorb from that? It’s up to them.

Tip: Let readers participate in the dialogue. After all, it’s why they’re there.