20 Common Grammar Mistakes That (Almost) Everyone Makes. I’ve edited a monthly magazine for more than six years, and it’s a job that’s come with more frustration than reward. If there’s one thing I am grateful for — and it sure isn’t the pay — it’s that my work has allowed endless time to hone my craft to Louis Skolnick levels of grammar geekery.
As someone who slings red ink for a living, let me tell you: grammar is an ultra-micro component in the larger picture; it lies somewhere in the final steps of the editing trail; and as such it’s an overrated quasi-irrelevancy in the creative process, perpetuated into importance primarily by bitter nerds who accumulate tweed jackets and crippling inferiority complexes. But experience has also taught me that readers, for better or worse, will approach your work with a jaundiced eye and an itch to judge.
While your grammar shouldn’t be a reflection of your creative powers or writing abilities, let’s face it — it usually is. Who and Whom This one opens a big can of worms. Which and That Lay and Lie Moot Nor. Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules for Writing. Elmore Leonard — author of Get Shorty, Out of Sight, and Rum Punch — died today. What was it about his suspense thrillers that made them both popular AND critically acclaimed? Maybe his own writing rules will provide the answer. 10 things you should watch out for in your writing, according to Elmore Leonard 1.
Never open a book with weather. 2. Avoid prologues. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. And his most important rule, to sum up all the others: “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.” What do you think of those rules? 6 Ways to Make Sure Your Reader’s Brain Syncs with Your Protagonist’s Brain. Photo by Andres Musta via Flickr Because here’s the thing: it’s not fiction.
It’s fact. Except, you know, for the Vulcan part. And, okay, the part where you have to put your fingertips on the other guy’s face to do it. But hey, the world was pretty much analog back then, so who could blame Wincelberg for seeing life as hands-on, and thus missing the nuances of how information is actually transferred from one brain to another? To figure that part out we had to wait for something that even ‘Bones’ McCoy didn’t have access to — fMRI technology, which revealed that when we’re really engaged in listening to a story, our brain synchronizes with the speaker’s brain – literally mirroring it. fMRI studies reveal that when we’re really engaged in listening to a story, our brain synchronizes with the speaker’s brain – literally mirroring it.
In other words, we really are on the same wavelength, and their experiences become ours. The exact same thing is true when we’re reading a story. Exactly! 1. 2.