Authors, Writers, Publishers, and Book Readers

Something I wrote on breaking grammar rules

Excerpt from my personal blog

“Well I’m a majikelistik sorceri of abyssilikal sources evokelled after some berkies mispronankilled a sytakal importalit in vocalistiks.”
That made no sense, right? Well that was intentional. That’s the history of one of my D&D characters Lasunala L. Lutz VI VI in a nutshell. A crazed and off-the-wall spellcaster of highly questionable sanity, named after a powerful magician from the original Phantasy Star game. Let me translate that into something more comprehensible...

Rest is here

That's something that I wrote about a day ago when I was reminded of the book Sin and Syntax, which is basically my grammar bible. Personally, I have a firm belief that if you can't make the rules of English, or any language for that matter work for you, then you should break them.

You're probably blowing steam out your ears at that. Do you think in perfect grammar? You probably don't, and when you're writing a book, you're narrating it. Books written in a first-person perspective are being narrated by the central character, through their thought process and analysis of the situations at hand.

Because you can't physically see or hear the people in a book, you need to rely heavily on narration for their personalities to be down pat. If your characters are cookie cutters who only have differences in their names, then there really is no point in having multiple characters. You might as well have the main protagonist be an avatar of Shivaso he can do multiple things at once with multiple hands.

I find that part of making writing stand out like that is by smashing the rules to bits and rearranging them to make them work. I've had more than one person get at me for saying "That's not a word!", even though one of the most renowned authors of the 16th century was a capital offender at making up words that caught on.

What are your views on smashing up the rules and twisting them in the name of writing?

0 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by scribbler on February 27, 2011 at 4:56am

Nice post! After reading your blog in full I think I'll be giving Lovecraft a miss LOL. That would give me a headache having to decipher it all. :)

I don't think I'm guilty myself of smashing them up really, mainly because my mother was a real stickler for speaking and writing 'properly'. I've become lazy as I've got older though. Creative people will always see new perspectives on just about anything, so I think this is an area where the blessing of artistic freedom can, although not always should, be given. (What annoys me more is text speak anyway.)

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Tkumah A&T&D on March 1, 2011 at 3:39am

I totally agree that breaking the rules is necessary if one wants to live in the moment. No human thought can predict the unknown.

The protocol which is the vanity of the commerce world reinforces fear and restriction to keep a human mind small and afraid.

Words are there to communicate feelings and ideas, desires and needs. Dogma on the other hand will fume at any deviation no matter what.

Those who break the rule risk success or failure. Who is the reader will determine the outcome.

I read some awesome poems in poor language and some boring ones in pure language....

As long as one communicates the idea successfully then.....

I was told once that the heart is the better writer, however the audience may not have one:)

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Sally Pomeroy on March 3, 2011 at 11:58pm

To quote Terry Pratchett: they're more of a guideline really. I use the rules to help me know when I'm not really saying what I meant to say. If the sense is there in an improper sentence and a proper sentence would detract from it, then I go with improper, with a delicious little shiver of rebellion.