[gsmonks]

The purpose of this thread is to get blocked writers writing again, and/or to help people with their general writing and writing habits.

If you're stuck and can't write at all, let's talk about it.

If you're stuck on a story, post your story, beginning with the problems you're facing, your aim in writing the story, your wants, your goals, your needs.

If you just want to improve your writing, post excerpts of the passages or sections that are giving you trouble, and we'll go to work on them.

We're not just writers here; we're also readers. If a writer isn't getting things across, let's not be shy. Ask questions. It's often through asking questions that writers themselves realise where they need to improve.

This post has been edited by gsmonks: 20 October 2005 - 08:26 PM

[ChicaFrom3]

The most recent section of my short story:

Quote

Nicole found Shane sitting on the ground at the far end of the cemetery, pulling listlessly at a strand of grass.

She swallowed, looking down on him, and steeled herself.

Hey. That meant: are you okay? Do you want to talk?

Hey. That meant: I’m fine. Go away. I want to be alone.

She frowned to herself and sat down next to him.

Hey. That meant: Forget it. I’m not leaving. Talk to me.

She thought she might have seen a trace of a smile on his face, but she was probably imagining it.

Certainly when he spoke again there wasn’t a trace of humor in his voice. Hello, Nicole. What the hell do you want?

Touchy, touchy. She swallowed. You leaving soon?

Maybe.

Need a ride home? She hoped he’d say yes. She didn’t want to leave him alone, not now.

No, Nikki, I brought my own damn car. He wouldn’t look at her.

That bugged her. Don't call me Nikki.

I know where I want to take this scene, and I know where I want to take the whole story.

For exposition purposes, all you really need to know that's been established in the story so far is that Nicole and Shane, who have been best friends since they were nine and eight respectively, are in a cemetery immediately following a funeral.

Nicole is trying to comfort Shane. The exact reason why he needs to be comforted and so forth won't be established until later in the story. Nicole tries to coax Shane into letting her stay with him for the night (so he won't be alone, although she won't come out and just say that) but he just wants desperately to be alone, so he's trying to alienate her and annoy her into going away.

(Also in this scene is a brief cigarette diversion which I've got more or less written and I know basically where it goes.)

The problem is, the words won't come like they're supposed to. When I try to force it, it sounds awkward and unnatural and I refuse to let that happen.

(I actually have a slightly altered version of this particular scene written in script format. But I can't just apply it between formats, it doesn't work, I tried.)

Any advice?

[gsmonks]

Any advice? Loads!

Dialogue is generally your last consideration when working on a story. Put it in, because you need it there, but work on it last.

There are three levels to work on when constructing scenes containing dialogue, and they need to be both present and balanced for the scene to really pack a punch. Dialogue is only one of those elements. There are two others.

Setting is one of the elements in question. Your setting, in this instance, is a graveyard.

Why? How does the graveyard tie into your story? What is its purpose? Its function? What part does it play? What symbolism does it represent?

Next comes what I call the "tactile" element. What is your setting like? How does it feel to be there? Is the air cool, hot, stifling, chill, wet, dry and sere, is it hot or cold to the point where it becomes a factor?

Your focus in this scene is 110% on your subjects, yet I suspect that you have a very clear picture in your mind of what the setting and your subjects look like, feel like, sound like. But I'm just a reader, and I won't know any of this unless you, the writer, communicate it to me.

Walk us through this. Imagine that you're speaking to a little kid, a little boy or girl, wide-eyed and innocent, hanging on your every word, listening with utter rapt attention to every little thing you say. Take that child by the hand, and walk it through the scene.

First off, where is the graveyard situated? Is it within a city? Outside the limits of a small town? Is it a flat area or a hillside, is it covered with long pale yellow grass like you find in the prairies, or is the grass short, green, and manicured, as you find in cities? Are the gaves well-tended or neglected? Is it an old graveyard or a new one with polished granite markers? Does the graveyard feel empty, or as though it were full of memory? Is it just a cool place to hang out, or is there something disquieting and sinister about it?

I'd like to you try something as an exercise. I'd like you to turn slowly about in that graveyard and tell us what you see. And not just the graveyard, but what lies beyond it. Put us right in the scene with you.

I'd also like you to try constructing your sentences in three clauses, or your paragraphs in three sentences; the first being dialogue, the second being setting, the third being tactile. In other words, say something, describe a bit of the setting, then talk about feeling, whether physical or emotional.

For example:

{"Hey." That meant, 'Are you okay? Do you want to talk?' The tombstone he had chosen to rest his back against leaned drunkenly, like an ancient menhir from some ancient, forgotten culture. She shivered and hugged herself against the chill air that seemed to issue from the ground, below which lay the cold dead.}

There is good reason to take a stab at doing this. It creates an hypnotic sensation in the reader, where words, scene and feeling are run together. Short, terse dialogue is good, but you will run into trouble if you try to make it stand alone.

Lastly, don't worry about your dialogue at this time. Dialogue is what you come back to, when the story is finished, and you rewrite it until you are satisfied. Get the story out of the way, first. Make progress where you can make progress. Just doing that will make the writing of dialogue an easier task.

I can tell you that the terse style you've adopted for your dialogue writing is a difficult one, one that's hard to maintain. It's as hard as writing in the first person without saying "I" all the time. But it is also a very effective method, and you've chosen wisely. It takes work to make this style work, but you'll reap the rewards, in the end, just from having done the work.

This post has been edited by gsmonks: 20 October 2005 - 12:17 AM

[Raina]

Good advice about the dialogue stuff, gsmonks. I'm also having a hard time with the dialogue in my fic, but being a fanfic, it seems really redundant to describe settings that the readers have not only read about in other fanfics, but actually seen onscreen. Any tips on how to write my scenes with that in mind?

[gsmonks]

Raina, on Oct 20 2005, 02:30 AM, said:

Good advice about the dialogue stuff, gsmonks. I'm also having a hard time with the dialogue in my fic, but being a fanfic, it seems really redundant to describe settings that the readers have not only read about in other fanfics, but actually seen onscreen. Any tips on how to write my scenes with that in mind?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Absolutely! Setting is especially important when writing fan-fic, regardless how well you think the fans know stuff from the show.

With fan-fic, you have three options:

-you can add (enhance existing) observations to lend the overall experience greater depth
-you can explore neglected aspects of the existing setting
-you can fix problems with the original setting when and where setting is lacking

This last applies very much to Andromeda, which did a piss-poor job of giving you a good idea of the size and contents of the ship. Unlike the Starship Enterprise, where legions of fans could have jumped aboard and taken you anywhere on the ship, Andromeda never gave exact details, you never knew exactly where something was, you never were certain of the ship's scale, you were never given schematics that laid everything out in detail, although I'm assuming that these must exist?

Regardless, as a writer, your job is to assume that you're dealing with people who have never seen the show on the one hand, yet make what you have to say entertaining and interesting to jaded fans.

It is important to have both of these aspects in balance, because you really would be dealing with people who had never seen the show, and you really would be read by fans who had seen it all a million times.

There's also the time aspect. Let's assume that the show went off the air 50 years ago, and one of the few remaining vestiges of that show was YOUR STORY! ACK! If you had failed to supply all that needed detail, your story would make absolutely no sense to someone reading it 50 years from now.

Part of the job description of being a writer of fan-fic is to keep your beloved subject alive. Fan-fic often really gets going after a show is no longer being made. If the show was good, the desire to make more of it in some form will be strong, and your job will be to fulfill that desire to the best of your ability. That carries with it a weight of responsibility.

As far as dialogue goes, you will want to stay "in character" for the existing characters, and you will want to maintain that character, regardless the setting, or whether you introduce new characters of your own.

The fun part of writing fan-fic is that the genre itself is often full of fun cliches, like "Beam me up, Scotty," or "I'm a doctor, not an engineer!", or "Mind your Vulcan business" (that line was used several times in the 60's), or "It's no good! He's dead, Jim", or "Warp 5! Engage!" or "Neitzchean humour? Isn't that a contradition in terms?" There is therefore often a camp element, where audience, actor, director and audience alike are aware that the story line is sometimes "tongue-in-cheek". Run with it. Have fun with it.

The big advantage in writing is that you get to say things that were never stated outright on the show. You may have seen certain things a million times on the show, but writing about them is not the same. It is a different type of experience. On no Andromeda episode are you going to come across a passage like:

{Barely illuminated by starlight, the darkling hulk of the Andromeda slept like her crew- exhausted, battle-weary, spent. Like the bruised and battered bodies contained therein, the ship seemed clenched in pain, afraid to break.}

True, there is power in images. But there is even greater power in words, and in the imagination, which they have the power to unlock, unlike any other medium.

This post has been edited by gsmonks: 20 October 2005 - 06:04 AM

[Chakoteya]

That's interesting advice.
I've been reluctant to write in an established universe for fear of accidental plagiarism - finding I'm writing a version of something I've already watched or read in the past.
Which is why I have problems thinking up new stuff. I keep thinking it's all been done before!

[gsmonks]

Chakoteya, on Oct 20 2005, 05:21 AM, said:

That's interesting advice.
I've been reluctant to write in an established universe for fear of accidental plagiarism - finding I'm writing a version of something I've already watched or read in the past.
Which is why I have problems thinking up new stuff. I keep thinking it's all been done before!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As a musician, I've had to learn to deal with exactly that problem. In fact, many of the devices I use in writing are musical devices, and many of the devices I use in music are literary devices.

But as for not repeating what yourself and others have done, that has been a problem for as long as there have been story-tellers, and there are a good many tried-and-true methods for avoiding that pitfall.

I'll give you a musical example that may shed some light on the problem:

Periodically, throughout music history, each genre gets stuck in a rut, and each time that happens, inventive guys figure out ways to get out of that rut. And it's important to note that when periods like this happen, it's not just one guy repeating him/her self. It's everyone.

In historical terms, this recently happened in Rock 'n' Roll. Musicians were getting sick of "three chord rock" because using those same three chords restricted the melodic possibilities. Blues is also based on three chords, and a century earlier, Blues guys had figured their way out of the same problem by using chord substitutions. Chord substitutions are related chords that sound something like the chord they're replacing. The closest substitutions are related by thirds, the next closest by sixths. This is where the term "far out" came from. A "far out" relationship is the process of getting further and further away from the root.

Rock 'n' Roll guys did start using substitutions, but found that it was making the music sound too much like Blues and/or Jazz, and they wanted to keep the music firmly grounded in R & R. They needed a different approach, something that would allow them to keep the original feel of the music.

Their solution was to turn up the volume and play even simpler chords, and to substitute riffs (repeating snippets of melody) for chord structure in the rhythm guitar part. This made the music a lot more elastic, form-wise, and it went from being a purely chord-based music to a contrapuntal form of music (riffs plus melody instead of just melody on top of simple chords).

And so Heavy Metal was born!

Three hundred years earlier, another generation of musicians were stuck in exactly the same three-chord rut! Henry Purcell (1659-1695) was a composer during the reign of Elizabeth I, and was a contemporary of Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser.

Purcell hit upon a very similar formula for getting out of the three-chord rut without losing the flavour of the music. I should point out that in both cases, these guys wanted to maintain the three-chord format. They just wanted it to sound different. Purcell's answer was- get this- to simplify the chord structure even further, and to add repeated snippets of melody. His version of the riff was an ostinato chromatic figured bass.

And so the seeds of what would become the Classical Period were sewn, and you can hear history being made for yourself in one piece of music by one guy. The piece of music is an opera called Dido and Aeneas, and the big moment happens when Dido begins to sing about her impending suicide.

The thing is, Purcell was sick to death of the melodies afforded him by using the same old three chords. They were no longer able to convey real gut-wrenching emotion. Everything written to three chords has a "la-dee-dah" feel to it.

So along comes this dark theme, and something happens that has never happened before. Instead of the basses laying the foundation of IV-V-I, clunk, clunk, clunk, for the first time in history there is a melody in the bass part. And not just any melody. This slow, gutwrenching dirge starts up that grinds away chromatically, ever downwards, so now the melody can't harmonize to the chords in the same old way. The melody is forced to seek refuge in territory never before explored. And the effect is absolutely electrifying. For the whole rest of the piece, we've heard this boring, old-fashioned music, but all of a sudden, Purcell casts off the chains of convention, and right before your eyes you witness a miracle!

Now, at this point you're probably thinking, "What the heck does this have to do with writing, and not repeating myself and/or others?" The short answer is that it has everything to do with it.

To avoid copying others, the first thing you have to change is your approach. You have to do something different, that is going to set you apart from all others.

Fortunately, there are countless ways to accomplish this. Some involve a highly skilled and technical control over the language. An example of this is dropping punctuation altogether, and replacing commas with conjunctions and copulas. This also involves altering the way you construct your sentences. You can control the length of your sentences, making them very short or very long. Both methods have a marked impact on the way the writing comes across.

Or your approach can involve an unusual shift in your point-of-view devices. This approach led to the creation of the anti-hero. An anti-hero does not view the world in the way a regular hero or point-of-view character does. The anti-hero approach colours everything that character says and does.

Another approach is the introduction, for the purpose of your story, a new character that is very different from the usual slate of characters. Create a character that does not want to be there, that dislikes everyone, that finds legitimate things to dislike in all the characters. Right off the bat, your character will say new things about old characters, and will say things never before said or contemplated. Maybe they aren't such a great gang after all?

Another approach is the "prisoner of circumstance" device. Your characters are delivering a new character whose life must be sacrificed in order to save other people. Will there be a crisis of conscience that won't allow the characters to go through with it? Maybe everyone takes a turn at trying to help this person escape, and each fails in their turn. This character will have its own unique way of seeing your favourite characters, and your characters are forced to do some real soul-searching.

Another approach is comedy or satyre. To make comedy or satyre unique requires only that a unique foil be chosen. For example, the Enterprise crew are vegetarian restaurant workers, the Enterprise itself is made up of dinnerware. Take that approach and your chances of copying someone else are pretty slim. Captain Kale in an aside to the audience, "If Spork actually manages to establish a mind-meld with that cabbage, then I'm going back to eating meat!"

Another approach is to add, not one, but two new characters to the cast, who don't want anything to do with the original cast, and are hell-bent on getting at each other. This gives you the chance to view the characters in a whole new light, as enemies.

Another approach is to write from the viewpoint of the enemy. An enemy is going to have a very different approach to portraying each of the characters.

The possibilities are endless.

[ChicaFrom3]

gsmonks, on Oct 20 2005, 01:13 AM, said:

Next comes what I call the "tactile" element. What is your setting like? How does it feel to be there? Is the air cool, hot, stifling, chill, wet, dry and sere, is it hot or cold to the point where it becomes a factor?

Your focus in this scene is 110% on your subjects, yet I suspect that you have a very clear picture in your mind of what the setting and your subjects look like, feel like, sound like. But I'm just a reader, and I won't know any of this unless you, the writer, communicate it to me.

First off, where is the graveyard situated? Is it within a city? Outside the limits of a small town? Is it a flat area or a hillside, is it covered with long pale yellow grass like you find in the prairies, or is the grass short, green, and manicured, as you find in cities? Are the gaves well-tended or neglected? Is it an old graveyard or a new one with polished granite markers? Does the graveyard feel empty, or as though it were full of memory? Is it just a cool place to hang out, or is there something disquieting and sinister about it?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This is actually all addressed in great detail in the first part of the story--during the funeral itself, in which there are about two lines of dialogue, both excerpts from the funeral service, and the rest is description of the setting and Nicole's interpretations and feelings about it. I don't really feel any need to go back and address the same issues again; it'd probably end up sounding repetitive and needless.

gsmonks, on Oct 20 2005, 01:13 AM, said:

I can tell you that the terse style you've adopted for your dialogue writing is a difficult one, one that's hard to maintain. It's as hard as writing in the first person without saying "I" all the time. But it is also a very effective method, and you've chosen wisely. It takes work to make this style work, but you'll reap the rewards, in the end, just from having done the work.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Oh, thank you. You've offered some good ideas, and I'll give them a try later.

[gsmonks]

Let's just take a quick look under the hood of the myth of "writer's block".

If there really were such a thing, you wouldn't be able to write at all. Yet if this were a classroom, and I asked you for a short essay on classifications of dogs or cats, without even thinking about it, you'd run to the library, look up the information, and in no time at all you'd turn in an interesting and enthusiatic paper on the classifications of dogs or cats.

So what happened to your writer's block?

The answer is that you never had it. What you lacked, in this instance, was direction and motivation. Once those components were supplied, Hey, Presto! Poof! You were off to the races with stars in your eyes and a fire under your arse.

So, if writer's block doesn't exist, then what's the actual problem?

In a word, your "wannawrite" function button was sticky.

Some writers are very obstinate people who will refuse to write unless a subject happens a long that really gets their mojo going. This is what most writers, especially pros, term "writer's block".

Yet were we to observe these same people in their daily habits, we'd observe them writing blissfully away at other things. You'd find them jotting down possible story ideas, chatting up their friends, writing creative grocery lists based upon budgetary and dietary concerns- all the while maintaining that they're stuck and can't pen a decent word.

On the other hand, there are people who write profusely who have never experienced what it is to be inspired, and who don't give a rat's arse about such things. Does this make them boring or bad writers?

Not at all. Some really inspired writers are talentless, boring, unimaginative hacks, whilst some unimaginative, methodical plodders are literary geniuses.

This is not to claim that either approach is more meritorious than the other, but to point out that inspiration is not a necessary component of writing. You can live without it, and allowing the lack of it to stop you from writing is both unnecessary and counterproductive. If you allowed yourself to buy into that notion, were you dependent on your writing for food, you'd either starve in very short order or come to terms with your own obstinacy, put paid to it, dust off your stylus, and write up a storm.

This raises questions about inspiration. There's no arguing that it's a nice thing to have, but are there ways to control it? To turn it on when you have need of it?

The answer is "yes", which is all I'm going to say for now.

[ChicaFrom3]

I'm actually really confused now...

[gsmonks]

ChicaFrom3, on Oct 20 2005, 09:18 PM, said:

I'm actually really confused now...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Okay . . . about anything in particular? Or is this just a sense of general, unfocussed confusion?

[ChicaFrom3]

Well, the general unfocused confusion is the state of my life, so I don't feel the need to state it usually. This particular confusion comes from your last post and the fact that I couldn't make it logically connect to the thread up to that point. On the other hand, I am moderately exhausted and immediately before reading your post had been dragged outside to stand in the cold for five to ten minutes (I don't judge time well) so it may just be my brain quit working.

[gsmonks]

Okay, well, don't try to warm up the ol' bean by putting your head in the oven. I'm told that's not a wise thing to do.

This post has been edited by gsmonks: 21 October 2005 - 12:08 AM

[ChicaFrom3]

I'd have to walk down the hall to find an oven and there would probably already be people using it, so, no worries there.

[Chakoteya]

gsmonks this is all great stuff.
I hope you don't mind if I print this off to refer to in future.

Must warn you though that you won't see any of the results. I suspect there could be some really p*ke inducing Mary-Sue in the pipe-line, (but really my motives are just to try and get my 'creative' side mobilised on on the basis of use it or lose it! )

[woody000]

It's music for me. When I'm writing fantasy, for example, I'll put on a lord of the rings soundtrack. Instant inspiration. Though sometimes I have to stop myself from mimicking Tolkien. I do find though that it doesn't work if I listen to the same music regularly. I need to keep changing, finding something else to get me going. Inspiration from a single source doesn't seem to last too long.

This post has been edited by woody000: 21 October 2005 - 03:46 AM

[gsmonks]

woody000, on Oct 21 2005, 02:45 AM, said:

It's music for me. When I'm writing fantasy, for example, I'll put on a lord of the rings soundtrack. Instant inspiration. Though sometimes I have to stop myself from mimicking Tolkien. I do find though that it doesn't work if I listen to the same music regularly. I need to keep changing, finding something else to get me going. Inspiration from a single source doesn't seem to last too long.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Take what you need, Chakoteya, and if you need anything, just say so.

I'm the same way, Woody000. It drives lots of people squirrely, but like you, I like having some tunes on while I write.

Actually, I can tell you a bit about why this works. When I was in university, I was studying the social psychology of music. It was found that generally when people went for a long walk, over time Alpha (also known as Berger) waves would cut in. But playing music is more direct, because it can more readily access and affect those same areas of the brain. Alpha waves and music seem to naturally go together.

It has been demonstrated (under controlled conditions) that Alpha waves increase creativity- no surprise there, as plenty of people know this instinctively without having some nerdy science-geek tell them what they aleady know, as though it were an actual discovery.

You can have this same experience just by walking. It takes longer to kick in- anywhere from 10 - 20 minutes, depending on the person. Many creative people do their best thinking while they're going for long walks. By "long", I mean no less than an hour in length.

I'd like to hear from more people about what gets their creative juices flowing.

[gsmonks]

A few thoughts on:

CREATING CASTS OF CHARACTERS

Some suggestions on how to go about the process of creating a cast of character for your story.


Ever wonder how the creators of your favourite movie or story were able to come up with a team of characters that went together so well that you can't imagine the story without a single one of them?

Ever wonder why certain groups of characters go so well together?

Ever wonder why some casts of characters are unbalanced and ungainly, and never seem to just settle in and flow?

There are sound reasons behind why various approaches do and do not work.

Integration

Character groups that work all have a single element in common- they integrate together, they mesh together, like gears in a machine.

Is this an accident of choice? Very often it is. Are there ways to control this process? Definitely!

One tried-and-true approach I've noticed, through doing many hours of analytical study of the practices of professional writers, is what I call the "single personality" approach. Many writers unconsciously use this approach. A few do it intentionally.

In this approach, when you examine the characters as a group, you soon discover that they're part of one single unified personality. One represents the head, another the heart, another practicality, another logic. If this sounds familiar, then you've seen the original Star Trek.

Interdependency

Casts of characters include the villains and incidental characters. An important aspect of their presence in the story is the dependency of the character to the plot and themes contained in the story. The two should go together.

When the two do not go together, you run into problems, and the story lacks cohesiveness and continuity. This problem is story writing at its worst- a story that contains elements that are not unified in purpose to the plot and its themes. It's like having badly behaved extras on a movie set who watch the main actors act and talk loudly and distractingly in the background, or who horse around when they're supposed to be participating in a choreographed mass fight scene.

All of the characters in the story should be dependent on the story, the themes, and the other characters, for their existence. Otherwise they serve no purpose.

Function and Purpose

All characters present in any story should serve some purpose. As a writer, you should be aware of something the reader is not- that characters are functions with purpose.

By definition, a function is "what something is used for".

Purpose, then, is the goal or aim or direction of that function.

A character is therefore a vehicle for experience that must proceed smoothly from a state of conflict to a state of resolution in order for the mechanics of a story to work.

Proportion And Different Styles Of Writing

Key to a good story is proportion and balance between the main characters. It is for this very reason that the "single personality" approach to creating casts of characters works.

Now, you may be wondering about heroes and heronines in all this. Well, heroic writing is another matter entirely, because heroic writing is disproportionate in its treatment of the overall cast of characters.

In heroic writing, a different sort of balance will be struck, between the hero and the other characters, and between the hero and the story itself.

The heroic/epic style is all about exaggeration, and therefore disproportion. An epic is a grand and sweeping tale told in grand and sweeping language, and the hero of classicism is a large-than-life figure.

In hero stories and in epics, the balance struck is mainly between the hero and the villain, because most hero stories are morality plays about the conflict between GOOD and EVIL.

There therefore must be a proportional balance between the two forces. The good must really be good, and the evil must really be evil. Failure on either account leads inevitably to a failed effort of a story. Balance, with extremes that really work and strike sparks off each other, is what makes for a great story.

This post has been edited by gsmonks: 21 October 2005 - 10:12 PM

[gsmonks]

A QUICK OVERVIEW OF THE EIGHT PARTS OF SPEECH

(for those who do not know their parts of speech and would like to learn, or for use as a quick reference)

There are eight parts of speech in the English language.

1-Nouns
2-Pronouns
3-Verbs
4-Adverbs
5-Adjectives
6-Conjunctions
7-Prepositions
8-Interjections

The order of parts of speech is unique to each language. English is a subject-verb-object language. The technical name for this property is syntax.

Frames

There are two types of frames in the English language- syntactic and morphological.

"Syntactic frame" refers to the word order within a sentence. English is a subject-verb-object language. That is the primary element of its syntax.

Morphological frames consist of morphemes. Morphemes are the smallest meaningful forms of a word. "Squished" has two morphemes: "squish" and its "-ed" suffix. The first morpheme is the verb "squish", the second morpheme "-ed" carries the past tense.

Referents

It is actually a mistake to say that an object or person is a noun. In truth, nouns are words that name "referents".

"Referents" are the "entities", "events" or "qualities" to which nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs refer.

In other words, when you see a cat, the real-life animal, the thing being refered to, is the "referent". The noun "cat" is used to name that particular referent.


Nouns

There are two types of nouns in the English language- Common and Proper.

Common nouns are things that can be lumped into categories.
Proper nouns are things that aren't normally thought of as belonging to categories.

Pronouns

There are seven types of pronouns in the English language. Memorise this letter sequence and you'll have it:

D, I, I, P, R, R, R.

Say those letters over several times a day until you've got it.

They stand for:

1-Demonstrative
2-Indefinite
3-Interrogative
4-Personal
5-Reciprocal
6-Reflexive and Intensive
7-Relative

There are four demonstrative pronouns in the English language. They are categorised for proximate (near), distal (far), singular and plural.

The proximate singular pronoun is this.
The proximate plural pronoun is these.
The distal singular pronoun is that.
The distal plural pronoun is those.

Indefinite pronouns are imprecise as to number and/or identity. Some examples are:

Some, much, all, somebody, everyone, no one.

Interrogative pronouns are the "w" words: what, why, who, whom.

Personal pronouns are:

..................subject (nominative) possessive (genitive) object (accusative)
1st sg....... I............................... my,......................... mine me
2nd sg.,pl.. .you your,.................. yours...................... you
3rd sg.,m... he............................. his........................... him
3rd sg.,f..... she her,..................... hers........................ her
3rd sg.,n.... it............................... its............................ it
1st pl......... we our,...................... ours......................... us
3rd pl..........they their,.................. theirs....................... them

There are two reciprocal pronouns in the English language- each other and one another.

Each other refers to two people, one another refers to three and more.


Reflexive and Intensive Pronouns:

Classification ....... Form
1st sg................. myself
2nd sg................. yourself
3rd sg., m............ himself
3rd sg., f.............. herself
3rd sg., n............. itself
3rd sg., indefinite.. oneself
1st pl. ................. ourselves
2nd pl.................. yourselves
3rd pl................... themselves

Reflexive and Intensive pronouns are classified for number, person, gender and indefiniteness.

When a word acts upon itself, it is intensive: He, himself, was to blame.
When a word does not act directly upon itself, it is reflexive: He is, himself, to blame.

There are five relative pronouns in the English language: that, which, who, whom and whose.

Relative pronouns take the place of a noun in a relative clause, and is coreferent with the noun that is modified by the relative clause.

For example:

"There's the dog that bit you!"
"Isn't that the guy who stole your car?"

Verbs

Main Verbs.

A main verb is the last verb in the verb complex.

"Billy has been throwing a tantrum all day."


Transitive and Intransitive Verbs.

Tansitive verbs are followed by a direct object.
Intransitive verbs are (a) not followed by a direct object, and (b) most often are the last word of a sentence.

Transitive verb example:

"Your cat ate my homework!"

Intransitive verb exampe:

"Your cat died!"


Linking Verbs.

Linking verbs link subjects to either adjective phrases or noun phrases.

"George is the boss."

"George seems down."


Auxilliary Verbs.

There are three auxilliary verbs in the English language, each of which has three forms:

The root form is: be do have.
The present form is: is does has.
The past form is: was did had.

Auxilliary verbs carry tense- present and past.


Modal Verbs.

Modal verbs express ability, permission, obligation, volition, necessity, predition, and possibility.

Could, should, may, might, can, will, would, shall, should.


Adjectives

Adjectives modify nouns. There are five types of adjectives in the English langage.

Memorise this letter grouping and you'll have them- ADDIN, or ADD IN.

1- Articles
2- Demonstratives
3- Descriptives
4- Indefinites
5- Numericals

Articles are also refered to as "determiners".

There are three articles in the English language- the, a and an.

Demonstrative adjectives.

There are four demonstrative adjectives in the English language, and they are identical to the four demonstrative pronouns, and are likewise categorised for proximate (near), distal (far), singular and pluaral. The only difference is that demonstrative adjectives do not take the place of nouns, but rather work in conjunction with them.

The proximate singular demonstrative adjective is "this".
The distal singular demonstrative ajdective is "that".
The proximate plural demonstrative adjective is "these".
The distal plural demonstrative adjective is "those".

EG: demonstrative pronoun:

"This is better than that."

EG: demonstrative adjective:

"This tabby cat is cuter than that tabby cat."


Descriptive Adjectives.

Descriptive adjectives ascribe qualities to nouns.

"The dead dog lay at the side of the road."

"The blue crayon is her favourite."


Indefinite Adjectives.

Indefinite adjectives are vague as to number or amount.

EG: some, few, many, several, each.


Numericals (Numerical Adjectives).

Numerical adjectives specify numbers of nouns.

EG: three balloons, ten monkeys.


Adverbs

Adverbs modify: verbs, adverbs, adjectives and sentences.

EG:

"She sits noisily."
"A very ugly troll followed me home."
"She threw the doll very hard against the wall."
"Really, you must stop doing that!"


Prepositions.

Simply stated, prepositions specify the relationship between the object of the preposition, and other words in the sentence.

"He went through the dog, under the rock and over the fire."


Conjunctions.

There are two types of conjunctions in the English lanuage. There are coordinating conjunctions and subordinating conjunctions.

There are seven coordinating conjunctions in the English language: and, or, for, nor, so, but and yet. Memorise these seven little words and you'll have it.

Everything that is not a coordinating conjunction is a subordinating conjunction. Some subordinating conjunctions are: because, although, since, whether, that, while, after, if, when.

Coordinating conjunctions join items of the same syntactic class, joining words to words, phrases to phrases, dependent clauses to dependent clauses, and independent clauses to independent clauses.

Subordinating conjunctions subordinate clauses and join those dependent clauses to independent clauses.


Interjections.

Interjections are words that express emotion, but that have no grammatical function. If you can swear, you know all you need to know about interjections.

EG: fudge! shoot! @#@%$@!!! dangblamedconsarnedsonofableeping . . .

"Oh, gosh, my bling-blang just fell off!"
"EEEEEEK! A mouse!"

And . . . that's it!

PS- if you see any boo-boos- PLEASE POINT THEM OUT!!!

This post has been edited by gsmonks: 24 October 2005 - 12:33 PM

[gsmonks]

How taking a different approach to writing changes the style and content of your writing, or, How to avoid copying the work of others, or, Avoiding plagiarism.


Ever notice when you're talking or writing that there are certain words and word combinations that you use more than others, and that everyone seems to do this? When you're a teenager, the language is loaded with the idioms of your generation, and you're more apt to repeat yourself in this manner during your teenage years- more so than at any other time of your life.

Every writer who harbours a desire to really take control of the language notices this, and for the sake of creating characters that do not resemble the author in terms of speech patterns, most authors make some attempt to pay attention to and recreate familiar idioms.

But have you ever noticed how difficult it is to try to create a brand-new, never-before-heard idiom? It's almost impossible, and few writers, in all of history, have ever managed to do so in a fluent, believeable and convincing manner.

Why should this be so, and why is it important to note successful and failed attempts in this area?

First off, "this is so" because idioms do not just happen, and they are not created at a mere whim. They are the direct result of cultural complexity, diversity and richness.

Secondly, certain writers have figured out the knack of simulating unique idioms, and in the process have learned valuable lessons.

One master in this area was J. R. R. Tolkien, who was, not surprisingly, a linguist by profession, and he put his education to direct use by creating whole entire histories and language, and derived his idioms from them.

The primary benefit, of course, is that having laid such a groundwork means that you have a resource to draw from that is different from the groundwork that is available to others.

Drawing from such groundwork has repercussions in writing. It not only affects both style and content, but makes the writer more aware of existing style and content, simply because it is other than the groundwork the writer has developed.

Original groundwork can take many forms. As in Tolkien's case it can mean creating a people and their history. In standard fiction, it can mean taking great pains to understand and control the relationship between phrasing and vocabulary, and the mechanics involved in creating new and unique idioms.

Key to good writing is the ability to manipulate word order and position within a sentence, in order to convey emotional impact. In other words, you've got to set the reader up in such a way that the reader feels what's coming without knowing what's coming. This degree of control also means that you will have absolutely no worries about copying or plagiarising others.

An example of this type of delivery would be something like:

"As soon as the doctor came in through the waiting-room doors, before he even fully registered the hopeful looks of Lal and Richard, before anything at all was said . . . I knew then that Remi was gone."

Setup . . . antipation . . . gotcha! Works every time.

This post has been edited by gsmonks: 02 November 2005 - 09:54 AM