Grammar for Fiction Writers

Busy Writer's Guides #5

by Marcy Kennedy, Chris Saylor

Not your same old boring grammar guide! This book is fun, fast, and focused on writing amazing fiction.

The world of grammar is huge, but fiction writers don’t need to know all the nuances to write well. In fact, some of the rules you were taught in English class will actually hurt your fiction writing, not help it.

Grammar for Fiction Writers won’t teach you things you don’t need to know. It’s all about the grammar that’s relevant to you as you write your novels and short stories.

Here’s what you’ll find inside:
• Punctuation Basics including the special uses of dashes and ellipses in fiction, common comma problems, how to format your dialogue, and untangling possessives and contractions.
• Knowing What Your Words Mean and What They Don’t including commonly confused words, imaginary words and phrases, how to catch and strengthen weak words, and using connotation and denotation to add powerful subtext to your writing.
• Grammar Rules Every Writer Needs to Know and Follow such as maintaining an active voice and making the best use of all the tenses for fast-paced writing that feels immediate and draws the reader in.
• Special Challenges for Fiction Writers like reversing cause and effect, characters who are unintentionally doing the impossible, and orphaned dialogue and pronouns.
• Grammar “Rules” You Can Safely Ignore When Writing Fiction

Each book in the Busy Writer’s Guides series is intended to give you enough theory so that you can understand why things work and why they don’t, but also enough examples to see how that theory looks in practice. In addition, they provide tips and exercises to help you take it to the pages of your own story with an editor's-eye view. Most importantly, they cut the fluff so you have more time to write and to live your life.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction

138 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 20, 2014

About the author

Marcy Kennedy is a science fiction and fantasy author who believes there's always hope. Sometimes you just have to dig a little harder to find it. In a world that can be dark and brutal and unfair, hope is one of our most powerful weapons.

She also writes award-winning mysteries under a pen name, but that's a secret. Shhhh...

Marcy lives in Ontario, Canada, with her former Marine husband, Boxer mix, eight cats (all rescues), and budgie. In her free time, she loves playing board games and going for bike rides.

Reviews

[Ravi Prakash]

Not all, but some were really useful points. Anyone in fiction writing business can read this, and I am sure he will like it.

[Randy Tramp]

Grammar for Fiction Writer’s by Marcy Kennedy
I took my time in reading this book. A page or two each day to get the full understanding. I found a lot of information that helped me in my writing. From grammar rules to special challenges for fiction writers, such as myself, I was enriched. It was nice to review the punctuation basics. I recommend this book for any serious writer.

[Ally Cabella]

Great addition to reference shelf

I bought three other books in this series and got this one as an afterthought. I decided it would be a good idea to refresh my grammar skills. The book gives clear examples. It also covers the gray areas when writers can get away with "breaking the rules" and when they can't. Just like the other books, a link to a downloadable checklist is provided for printing out.

One thing I've noticed about formatting is that many of the underlined, bolder, or italicized examples didn't appear correctly in my kindle for iPad app. I do not have an actual kindle to see if it was an app problem or something with the file itself. However, it was not distracting enough to make the examples unclear to me.

[Navneet Kaur]

This is a good book for starters. There were some things that I knew instinctively, but with this book, I got a name for them and reason behind them. Some parts were pretty detailed, sprinkled with funny comments to not make the book a boring slab of rules.;-)
But I actually ended up being confused about the hyphen rule. I really wish the author had given a few more examples, especially considering that we read complicated descriptions in the style guides.

My most favorite part was of "Dangling participles and Misplaced modifiers". What an AMAZING point to make...

I've read many grammar books, but this one is the best for me!!:-)

But overall, I'm one satisfied reader. Great way to explain, really great examples, some great things pointed out. I'm sold.:)

[Amy]

Great refresher for any writer. I recommend it.

[K.D Peters]

Love this one and I recommend it to every author writing fiction. Learned so much from this book and it was probably one of the less boring reads I've ever come across. Thanks for writing this one. It feels as if you have written it just for me.

[Courtney]

A great reference book. I especially used the lists of crutch words, weasel words, helping verbs, and weak words. The take it to the page sections, were also very helpful. Overall, a great resource!

[Daniel B-G]

Probably one of the weaker books I've read on style.

[Mohamed El-Mahallawy]

Awesome

[Juan Pablo]

good reminder of the grammar rules that I've forgotten since finishing high school eons ago.

[Nancie]

Another great book in her series. Don’t miss it.

[Julie Burch]

quick reference for common questions.

I love the Busy Writer’s Guides and this one is excellent. An easy reference and review to support our writing.

[Beth Jackson- king]

An easy to follow reference

This is an easy to follow reference for writers. Much easier than other guides! Will be using over and over

[Brahim Elboukhari]

This is a nice book for fiction writers as the title suggests, I just want her to stop picking at high school teachers because not all of them have the same ideas, but the book is too the pooint

[S. Peters-Davis]

Love a good grammar book and this one gives excellent examples along with clear explanations. Good to have in a writer's toolbox.

[Ruth Kvarnström-Jones]

Thought I had grammar sussed and sorted years ago, but still found this book a gem for fiction writing. Easy read with useful examples.

[Sam Reeves]

This is mostly geared for new writers, but even those who have been writing a while and just want to brush up will learn a few things.

[Kelli C]

Short and sweet--and packed with practical rules/tips for shaping fiction grammar into a thing of beauty. I'm going to keep this guide close and use it during my revisions.

[Susan]

This book was very easy to understand and covered a lot of the grammar issues that are most important to fiction writers. It was very helpful to me.