Writing Conventions

Writing Conventions
-or-
Why I Got My Worst Grades in English Class When I Actually Love Writing


I have a few problems with writing conventions. As someone who professes to be a writer I want to try to use correct grammar and spelling and things like that. But I notice that my adherence to grammar and spelling constrictions tends to break down as I approach places in writing where logic conflicts with conventions. For example: The rules for dialogue. They do not make any sense. I mean, I understand them- I know when it's appropriate to end with a period, question mark, or comma and not to capitalize the beginning of the sentence extension. I just cannot bring myself to follow them.

Think about it. In script writing dialogue you always have the character's name capitalized or bolded or blocked in like this [Example] and the dialogue with no quotes surrounding it immediately following. Sometimes the dialogue may end in a dash or ellipsis to indicate being cut off or trailing off (respectively). It is quite orderly. After all when you want to convey clearly what is going on in a scene and what is being said by whom you have to be orderly and clear. [JACE] I am aware that I may not be the greatest in giving constructive examples for expository purposes. I hope you will forgive me this trespass.

In expository writing or speech-writing everything written is intended to be spoken and the only quotation marks used are to indicate a direct, ver batim, quote. The quote may be preceded by the source such as I am now going to quote the only swear my nephew Metaeo has learned as an amusing example: "Holy boys!" Alternatively you could have a quote followed by the source of the quote. I will quote the following as an example: "Stephanie Meyer is unclear." Christopher Perry, taken from AOL Instant Messenger Transcriptions, dated 12/28/2010.

Quotation is intended to preserve the integrity of what was said by a certain person. Intentionally misquoting someone for the purpose of misleading other people about them or their beliefs is an offense that can be punishable by law. A way to intentionally mislead people without altering a quote made by a particular person is to take a quote out of context and put it in a different context. Let's say, for the sake of argument, the president was quoted in an interview making the statement: "I hate them." (Please note that this quotation is only for the sake of argument in this example and to no other purpose.) "I hate them." Is a strong statement and also quite ambiguous. It's possible that the interviewer asked him: "Why is it that we never see you wearing tube socks?" To which the president responded: "Because I hate them." He did make the statement- about tube socks. But a clever writer can take that quote out of context and place it in another context that gives the implication that the "them" refers to... we'll say kittens as I do not want to bring politics into this. Someone has now taken a (fictional) quote from a (fictional) context and placed it into a different (fictional) context that makes it seem as though he hates kittens. Naturally this will cause a great deal of stir even after it is pointed out that this was a quote taken out of context and the president actually likes kittens a great deal.

Quotation within writing is somewhat different and not subjected to absolute veracity. Also the point of view used in fictional writing can affect the dialogue used. If the writing is in first person you may have a snippet of dialogue that is intentionally not what that character actually said because the main character may be hard of hearing or may have heard only what they wanted to hear. This is usually explained later. If I was going to write some kind of modern geek romance in first person the main character might hear her beau say: "I love you." She would then throw her arms around him and admit she loves him as well to which he may act confused and reply: "But all I said was that I love Yu-Gi-Oh." Obviously the main character will be disappointing at the tricks her ears played on her but for the sake of a particularly sappy scene we'll say that as she started to pull away, dejected and crying, he continues: "I do love you as well."

You will notice that in the previous paragraph I used the same quotation construction each time as this is the only construction accepted by standard forms of grammar that I can bring myself to use. I'd like to go back to the statement I made a couple paragraphs ago about how quotation is intended to preserve the integrity of what was said by a certain person or character with nothing altered to intentionally mislead the audience of this message. (You will notice there that instead of quoting myself directly I paraphrased a previously made statement and added to it.) So let's go through all of that a little at a time, shall we?

Quotation is intended to preserve the integrity of what was said. You'll remember I mentioned earlier that mis-quoting someone as saying something they never said is punishable by law. I then went on to say that other people will take quotes out of context in order to mislead people as well. This is holding up quotations the same way we uphold the law: by preserving the integrity of the words only and not the intent or idea behind the words. The president says "I hate them" referring to tube socks and even though he did in fact state the words "I hate them" he did not mean he wants to kill kittens.

Quotation is intended to preserve the integrity of what was said by a certain person or character. Reproducing a quotation by one person while accrediting it to another speaker is misrepresenting a source (or slander, depending on how offensive it was). While the quote is very real and the person credited with the quote is real the person credited didn't actually say those words.

Nothing is altered to intentionally mislead the audience about the message. Obviously people can and will intentionally misquote people or take quotes out of context or attribute quotes to the wrong sources all to make the audience think what they want them to think. They can but this does not mean that this is allowed and in fact can be punished by law in certain circumstances.

Fictional writing (or even non-fictional narrative writing) is not held to the same standards. In some cases it is obvious why. If the author wants to mislead you about something the main character can mishear something said by another character or can include descriptions of actions that make this statement significantly more sinister than it would otherwise be in order to take you on a ride. This is acceptable because no one is being slandered (except in satire and people have been known to be killed for that as well) and the reader agrees to being duped by knowing that it's fiction in advance.

When a fiction reader reads dialogue in a book they know that it is all made up. There are no people to attribute these quotes to except the author's imagination and if something is misleading it is intended to be that way. Except when the conventions of grammar themselves are confusing and illogical. (Imagine that I said everything after the word "except" in the last sentence in a deeper more serious tone of voice.) Most people know that when they reach a written comma there is a mental pause, a short beat or indrawn breath in spoken conversation before continuing on. Most people would agree that a period at the end of a thought indicates the end of a sentence and a longer pause before continuing. A exclamation point indicated that the preceding sentence was exciting or loud or otherwise exclamatory. A question mark indicates that the tone of voice was querulous. But in conventional grammar for dialogue in a novel I must do something that is not only illogical but also misleading.

"I must quote a complete sentence and end it with a comma," he vented in frustration, remembering not to capitalize the first word in the sentence extension.

This does not make any sense. Complete sentences do not end in commas. When a reader sees a comma their mind is trained to think pause. But if you're reading say, my bad modern geek romance in first person, you don't want to read her beau saying: "I love you pause" (here with the word pause inserted in place of a standard comma). You see that comma and you expect there to be another clause to round out the sentence. You see that "I love you pause" and you expect that the next thing out of his mouth is going to be awful. You expect him to continue with something like: "The same way I would love a sister." That would be terrible. And here you are expecting this awful thing to happen to your favorite character because of a comma when that's not actually what Beau said at all. Beau said: "I love you." I love you period- No ambiguity. Beau loves the main character in the traditional romantic way. But what he says must be butchered according to the conventions of dialogue in novel writing.

"But why are you so worked up over a comma?" my theoretical readers wonder. That is why. If I want to have a character asking a question I can end the sentence with a non-comma punctuation (namely, a question mark) but the 'sentence extension' must still not begin with a capital. Going from a complete sentence to what should be a whole new sentence with a capital and everything only to find that uncapitalized 'm' feels like missing a step going up the stairs- it's unlikely that you're going to tumble down but it does give you a sick feeling in your stomach and a little rush of adrenaline. A writer doesn't want his or her readers to feel as though they've skipped a step or to pause to wonder why they've begun a sentence with a lowercase letter.

Okay, so that's two forms of punctuation. What if a character is trailing off at the end of a line and I would prefer to indicate this through punctuation rather than stating explicitly that the character is trailing off? It would look like this: "I only wish...," she murmured before turning away. What!? What is that comma doing there at the end of the ellipsis? Well, according to conventional grammar for dialogue in novel writing it is supposed to go there.* It is supremely frustrating is what it is.

What if I actually want to end a clause with a comma, say something about how they said that first clause and follow it with the sentence clause, completing their sentence? Well, under conventional standards it would look the same. And then you might have confusion still if the first clause appears independent. Wait, where did this second bit come from? Oh. It's the end of that. I see. Instead of immediately knowing that the first part is merely a clause as it ended with a comma instead of a period.

I could go on. I'm sure you are aware that I could easily go on. But instead I will try to move to the point (and hope that I've kept you amused along the way). Regardless of the fact that my characters are fictional I still love them. I care about them. I care about the characters in the books that I read as well. I don't want to read what they say and see it butchered or confused by the conventions of grammar. I want to quote what they actually say. If I am reading a sappy love scene in a novel I want to read the stereotypically reluctant male character say: "I love you." I don't want to read: "I love youpause". I don't want that. Not unless the author intends to follow it up with a clause to break the poor main character's heart. And if that is the author's intent then it will be made obvious by the comma and the reader can work themselves up for it.

So what is my proposed solution? I might say that I'd like to see a committee get together and vote on a logical grammatical system for the English language. While they're at it the committee could come up with logical, phonetic spellings for words where one letter (or one particular combination of letters as necessary) stands for one sound in a word because to be frank that jerk Webster fucked a lot of things up especially for anyone who is dyslexic or who did not get the spelling gene. The only problem with the committee theory is that it would not work. How would you decide who got to be on the committee? It certainly can't be Bestselling Authors because as we should well know it does not take any kind of grasp of grammar or even logic to get to be a bestselling author you just need some sparkly "vegetarian" vampires and too much free time. Not that I have anything against sparkly "vegetarian" vampires (this is actually an outright lie) I'm just pointing out that Bestselling Authors may not be the best choice for this committee. I would not elect English Teachers either. Not even college professors. Why? I had a high school English teacher who was a former college professor and he was so in love with the current standards of grammar that given the opportunity I doubt he would change them.

That leaves me with the only option I have which is to boldly write as I wish to write, calmly ignoring the illogical conventions of grammar. They are, after all, not rules. There are no rules except for spelling and we can even throw that one out if you're making up your own words. My best friend, and an excellent writer, assured me that as long as it's consistent, clear, and makes sense it does not matter that you do not follow conventions. Someone sifting through a slush pile (which is to say the giant pile of manuscripts publishers receive every day) probably would not care. Readers are clearly not bothered by glaring lapses in grammar (as is evidenced by a certain bestselling saga involving sparkly "vegetarian" vampires). The only people who will care are grammarnazis on the internet and preliminary studies show that internet grammarnazis do not actually have souls.

"And that will be all." He said grandly, calmly beginning a sentence with a conjunction and defying the grammatical rules of writing, because that is how he speaks just to let you know annoying sophomore English teachers everywhere.


* On a semi-related note: One period is the end of a sentence, two periods together is a typo not an indication of trailing off, three periods together is an ellipsis which is an indication of trailing off, and four periods together is not an ellipsis followed by a period to indicate trailing off and the end of a complete thought it actually means that what is being quoted is missing a chunk exceeding one full line and should generally only be seen in expository writing where you want to quote big chunks of text in a pointed way and not in play-by-post roleplaying- ever. The end.