Grammar Rules - A Follow-up

I am sure you've experienced something similar to this. You and some friends get together, say to go bowling. You get a few strikes, pick up a couple of spares, and close the game with a solid 148 - far better than usual. You are happy, and say, "It's always a nice night when I bowl good."

At this point, a friend butts in with, "You didn't bowl good, you bowled well."

"Huh?"

"The proper way to say it is that you bowled well." This uptight friend continues, "A bowler is good. Someone bowls well."

"Whatever," you say, reminding yourself to no longer invite that friend for nights out.

We all know that guy. We all hate that guy in one way or another. It gets so annoying that they know exactly what I meant, yet still pointed out that the way I said it wasn't the grammatically proper way to say it. They just had to have their win, apparently. We dislike these people not because they are right, but because they are insisting we use the right words instead of familiar communication. (Or maybe because they picked up a spare in the tenth frame to beat us by two pins.)

As writers, we have to hold to the rules of grammar - kind of. When I write this piece, then I definitely keep to the rules because I want to effectively communicate a point to you, whether it's about writing, grammar, or my bowling scores. However, when our writing drifts into the arena of storytelling, the lines blur a little. We can start playing games with sentence length, points of view, and the reliability of the stories we tell. Then when it comes to dialogue - look out! We suddenly have license to write things in the way people say them if we so choose. We can use the passive voice, we can mix up certain words, we can get sentences wrong, just as long as they ultimately serve the purpose of fleshing out the story in the shape we want it to.

Now, that being said, there are still a few rules. What about narration? If someone is telling a story from their own perspective, then it very much needs to be in their voice - warts and all. If, however, the narration comes from a third-person source, or the omnipotent eye in the sky, well, the narration better be crisp and to the point. This can sound weird when you mix the dialogue of someone who uses a lot of slang with a proper third-person narrator, but the effect is clear. Example:

Steve thought about the situation for a long moment. "I ain't knows much about no book-learnin'," he said, rubbing his chin in contemplation, "but I sure 'nuff knows what's right and what ain't that right."

Narratively, the voice is clean, so it helps showcase every little quirk of speech in the actual voice of the character. I have had to edit dialogue like this and it's a nightmare, but when it is put next to proper narration, the experience is very effective.

Plus, it drives the grammar Nazis out of their head.

(With the approach of Labor Day on September 2nd, my next post will be on September 6th.)