FS101 - Description, Spelling, Grammar

Become a member of Writersco
What is Writersco?

Page name: FS101 - Description, Spelling, Grammar [Logged in view] [RSS]

2006-02-19 12:08:33

Last author: Mister Saint
Owner: Mister Saint

# of watchers: 2

Fans: 0

D20: 15

Wiki-page rating	Stumble!
Informative:	0
Artistic:	0
Funny-rating:	0
Friendly:	0

FS101 - Description, Spelling, Grammar

By [Mister Saint]

<img:stuff/flipdiv.gif>

Here we will discuss a few questions related to spelling and grammar, and tackle the beast of description.

<img:stuff/flipdiv.gif>

Section Directory

Flipside
Flipside Guide
Roster
Flipside Contest Section
Flipside Workshop

<img:stuff/flipdiv.gif>

Spelling and Grammar

Note: My spelling and grammar instructions are based on American English, since I am American. The difference between it and Oxford English are small, but certainly do exist. However, since I am not clear on all of them, I will not provide parallels.

16. Spelling! I couldn't spell if my life depended on it! ((I can spell normal words, but others, that I haven't seen written before, I can't spell >.< ))

Okay! Well, the first rule of spelling is that the more you use a word, the better your chances of spelling it correctly are. If you know the meaning of a word there is a fair chance that you know how to spell it correctly. Using words of whose meaning you are unclear is not recommended, for other reasons as well as spelling errors, because you obviously haven't used them often and will probably misspell them. The English language is a mixed bag when it comes to spelling oddities... unlike the extremely phonetic Japanese language (in the Romanized written system, it has five vowels, and they always sound the same!) English possesses double sounds for several letters, as well as having the ridiculous 'laugh' spelling where 'gh' sounds like an 'F'. It is lucky though, that it doesn't bother with gender-based words like German and Spanish (a chair is feminine? Wha???) and doesn't completely slap the face of spellers with gigantic clots of silent letters like French (rendezvous pronounce Rahn day voo?). So in a way English is a gentle and ferocious beast.

The best way to learn proper spelling and grammar is... ah... in school. Sorry kiddies, but that's how it is. In school, people will punish your grade for poor spelling and grammar, until you get it right. Otherwise... if you don't know how to spell something, find a dictionary and look it up. www.merriam-webster.com is an excellent online dictionary that you can use... if you try to look up 'tuff' and find that there are no entries for it, chances are, you've spelled 'tough' wrong. Practice, and have people proofread your work for you. Ask them to nitpick spelling.

Grammar is a tougher beast. Try doing a google search for Strunk's "The Elements of Style", which is a well put together (if somewhat old) work detailing the grammatical clustersmack that is the English language. Again, have people proofread your work. Get ahold of an English textbook or online study help site, so that if you don't know the difference between your, you're, and yore, you can look it up. If nothing else, ask somebody, and then practice doing it right.

My final piece of advice on this goes like this. "Learn to do it right first. If you practice it wrong, you will always do it wrong when it isn't practice too."

<img:stuff/flipdiv.gif>

Description

Description is another mixed bag, a staple of good writing that is different for every single writer on the planet. Will you be a wordcount machine like Robert Jordan? A subtle wordsmith like Shakespeare? A highly detailed technical mind like Michael Crichton? Or a painfully detailed world painter like Tom Clancy? It's not a choice that you will consciously make, not really. But let's dive in.

13. Discription! I can't discribe things worth a pence.
17. Description I still have troubles with this
19. Description . . . I can do feelings, but when it comes to describing how something looks or moves I'm no good.

My, this is a popular subject. Like every single other literary (non-grammatical type) problem, the solution is to study the works of others and see how they approached the problem. Study a broad variety of sources that cater to your specific descriptive problem. You can't describe action scenes? Get ahold of a ninja book or military book, maybe a book about wrestling or boxing. Did you say that you have problems describing emotions? Grab a romance story (NOT a Harlequin type. There's a reason those books are called 'trashy romance novels.' If you ever want to learn to describe somebody's legs and butt, grab one.) and study it. Read it, enjoy it, and learn from it. But read outside your genre as well.

Another approach, one that I regularly use, is to go out and observe things. Go outside your house, and look at a tree. Not right now, keep reading the article. Sit down. Good. When you do go outside, look at that tree and start describing it to yourself. How do you do it? Do you notice the texture of the bark? Color of the leaves? How it smells outside? Answer those kinds of questions for yourself. Do this often enough, and you'll start becoming more and more detailed in your descriptions, and they will become more and more adept at conveying a picture.

Remember that you do not need a glut of description. While artists paint pictures for people to see, a writer has to suggest what the reader should see, not literally tell them what is what. "Ten green-leafed palm trees stood in a row, ten feet apart, with brown coconuts and brown bark left long black shadows diagonally across the grassy ground." This sentence, to put it mildly, sucks monkey ear lobes. You do not have to lead your reader around by the nose. "A line of palm trees, alive in summer color, cast their shadows along the ground." Summer color is not a static concept. In some places, summer means brown and dead trees. But you can let the reader fill in what s/he thinks is summer color without telling them.

So, to wrap this up, remember this. Practice, study, and enjoy yourself doing it. Observe and describe to yourself. Practice. And then do it all again, until you've got it down.

<img:stuff/flipdiv.gif>

Questions should be placed in the comment board.

2006-01-12 [Emily]: Another thing about grammar: Make sure you understand what a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, and ... well, everything else is!

2006-01-12 [Emily]: A noun: A person, place, or thing.

2006-01-12 [Emily]: A pronoun (I googled it... got a nice little example out of it): The part of speech that can take the place of a noun in a sentence and function as a noun. In the sentence "Mr. Rice spoke to Tom and offered him a job," "him" is the pronoun; it takes the place of "Tom."

2006-01-12 [Emily]: A verb: Describes an action or a state of being.

2006-01-12 [Emily]: Adverb (took me years to actually understand this): An adverb provides more detail to another adverb, a verb, or an adjective. Words like 'beautifully', 'very', and 'quickly' are adverbs.

2006-01-12 [Emily]: An adjective: It describes something. More specifically, it describes a noun or pronoun but isn't one itself. It's like a wannabe. And I will add this nice example from google: Adjectives either come before a noun or after linking verbs (eg be, seem, look).

2006-01-12 [Emily]: A preposition: This type of word relates a noun to a pronoun. For example... a little trick I know is using the 'Mountain'. I am at the mountain ('at' being the preposition). I am between the mountain. I am in the mountain. If it makes sense to say it, in relation to a mountain (:O mountain is a noun!), then you're all good. ... that kinda went on longer than it shoulda. Should I just post this in the whole of the wiki?

2006-01-12 [Mister Saint]: If you'd like, you can make a separate, more specific grammar article. ^^ You can even take credit for the whole thing that way. I intentionally left out specifics, but now that you mention it, a refresher course wouldn't be a bad idea.

2006-01-12 [Akayume]: hey, that was my thing that I have problems with! thanks for making this page! thanks for the help!!!

2006-01-12 [Mister Saint]: ^-^

2006-01-13 [Emily]: Go ahead and delete those comments, Moorn. I added FS101 - Spelling and Grammar Specifics. I can change the name. Go ahead and edit the page if you want.

2006-01-13 [Mister Saint]: Meh, I'll leave the comments. I'm lazy that way. And... I'd like it if all the articles had the same 'FS101 - article' setup if you can do that. ^_^

2006-01-13 [Emily]: Sure!

2006-01-13 [Emily]: Done!

2006-01-13 [Mister Saint]: Rock! Now, let's put it in the list at Flipside Workshiop. Very well done and praiseworthy. ^^

2006-01-13 [Emily]: The page is double-done at FS101 and then the original FLIPSIDE, just to let you know!

Show these comments on your site