“Good Trouble” as in “Good Awful Grammar”
Turning Lousy Grammar into an Asset
Excerpted (and adapted) from my soon-to-be published
Word by Word: A Vocabulary for Success
published by Modern History Press
“Beware grammar rules that interfere with your choice to write believable dialogue—or limit your creativity. Play with rules. Destroy rules. Learn new ways to get around rules. It’s lots of fun! And your storytelling improves.”-CHJ
“It’s complicated”
We hear it everywhere these days.
When it comes to language, the trick is to keep an open mind about “rules” that have been imposed on us from, what? Kindergarten? I didn’t encounter a class that acknowledged rules could fluctuate from genre to genre until I risked enrolling in a graduate seminar in writing while I was still a Freshman. That’s where I heard that some rules were never rules at all and that the “never-break-a-rule-mentality” we learned to practice so assiduously is likely to confuse, even destroy creativity.
Language is a beautiful, growing thing that sets us apart from other lifeforms and brings us closer to the things in life we love. Poets have been creating (making up) words, probably since before writing was invented. Writers are doing better at accepting the realities of language as it’s practiced than we once did. Even journalists are using more storytelling including authentic-sounding dialogue in their reporting.
Choice is a beautiful thing, too. Every technical quirk we use (or know the name of) can have its moment when it solves a problem, makes your writing sparkle, or lets you discard a rule for whatever good reason you have ascertained is the best thing for the project you are working on.
To keep moving in a positive direction, dare to learn from the best. Making language rules that never allows for exceptions instills fear in students rather than confidence or creativity. Seek your resources—you know, mentors, teachers, institutions—that accept and share the differences between voice and publishing preferences. Think MFA (Master Fine Arts programs at accredited universities, the ones inclusive enough to teach techniques for writing internal thought and risk the ire of the establishment (and maybe you!) by telling you those techniques are effective enough for readers who have, after all, practiced reading for some time. Truly. They don’t need codes like italics as cues that your internal dialogue isn’t being spoken aloud and often don’t need repetitive (and ugly!) dialogue tags to discern that either!
So, are you really expected to write poor grammar if you are writing dialogue for a character who happens to talk that way? Expected? No. But you’ll make better choices if you know you can, if you know your character might not be fully-drawn if you don’t know that it’s “right” or at least “okay” to do so. Now you know, you might choose to exercise this freedom. If so, here is an entry from my soon-to-be released little dictionary of writer-specific words to help you get started—this one specifically that helps you avoid two of the most annoying grammar “rules” for writing and formatting internal thought—rules that even the most experienced (and independent!) writers tend to adhere to no matter how many times they hear from credible resources that they could be limiting opportunities to find acceptance from what we fondly—or not so fondly—refer to as “The New York Big Five.” Two writer-related vocabulary words are closely connnected anacoluthon and internal thought are entries in Chapter Four of that book:
Anacoluthon (an-uh-kuh-LOO’-thuhn) is borrowed from 16th Century Greek which explains why the plural is anacolutha. Anacolutha are useful to show emotion and internal thought. But it might also appear show up looking more like extended typos or bad editing. Recognizing it helps you edit it or consciously use it for characterization in your dialogue or internal thought.
Like “Good trouble” popularized by John Lewis the American civil rights activist and US Congressman, “good lousy grammar” can be made useful, too. Here comes a starter course in recognizing its danger signals in your own copy and then turning them to the advantage of the story you’re telling. This is advanced stuff you need to identify before you can decide to edit what might be classified as awful grammar for clarity, keep it as is, ditch it entirely, or use for characterization. Google gives us an example of an easily identified anacolutha.
"I will have such revenges on you both, That all the world shall―I will do such things, What they are, yet I know not."
Of course it could be translated into perfect English of the new millennium, but it would lose what this speaker (or writer) has captured: The tone of a distraught, indecisive, highly emotional, and angry person. The speaker is almost certainly a man of Roman times; his frustration is indicated by his word choice or lack thereof and the long dash without its partner to indicate a sudden shift of thought that suggests he might think he has succeeded or just recognizes defeat. His confusion is literally reflected by fractured sentences and erratic punctuation.
Because it defies strict grammar norms, those who use anacoluthon effectively might find themselves defending its use to gatekeepers and sharp-eyed editors. One of the big problems is that anacoluthon isn’t easily identified by editors, either. That makes it difficult to decide if the piece you are editing is suited to its use by time, place, genre, emotion or if it feels unintentionally more like oncoming insanity, dementia revealing itself, or merely an extended typo. Of course, it could be used to indicate those very states of mind in which case it isn’t merely poor writing or a mistake. Because it so often feels familiar, readers often don’t find it needs clarification. They can feel it just as it is.
Here’s how to identify anacoluthon if you aren’t using idiosyncratic speech for characterization or if you’re just intent on catching your own typos or regional speech structure when the occasion calls out for some carefully considered editing.
1. Long sentences using conjunctions, or lots of clauses and/or commas are suspect (or indicators).
2. Run-on sentences and fragments. Can you logically explain how and why you used them? Are they punctuated correctly? Are they in logical order? Do they reveal confused thought patterns? It’s up to you whether they’re working—either subconsciously or intentionally—to create what you intended for your character or if Word’s grammar correction feature is overriding your natural genius for observation.
3. When you use clauses in your nonfictional prose, make sure they “match” and “flow” in terms of letting the subjects and verbs imitate one another in logical ways. The principal writer of the US constitution and its amendments Thomas Jefferson was so proficient with that formality that even John Adams, known for his competitive nature, admitted Jefferson’s superb use of parallelism made him the better writer and so forfeited his natural inclination to do it himself.
4. Examine each use of em dashes (double dashes) and parenthetical phrases in your copy. Are they lengthening the sentence unnecessarily? Would dividing a sentence into shorter ones help or would you lose tone or voice you are trying to achieve?
5. Watch for abrupt shifts in topic. Evidence of that is a shift in the subject from clause to clause within a single sentence.
6. Watch for “ing” words otherwise known at gerunds. They often are guilty of producing unnecessary or unwanted anacolutha. “Growing up, I…” frequently sets authors’ onto ungrammatical (and over-used) path in the opening sentences of their query letters.
7. An easy fix is to make as many full sentences of your suspected anacolutha as possible and then delete the unnecessary ones mercilessly or—if they’re keepers—insert erratic punctuation to heighten the emotion you are after.
8. Oh, yeah. Make yourself an expert by reading June Casagrande’s smart (and fun!) Joy of Syntax.
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