IWSG Post: Grammatical quagmires
It's the first Wednesday of the month, and that means IWSG day!
Purpose: To
share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without
fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire
can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure
writers of all kinds!
Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writers - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting!
Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writers - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting!
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Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG
Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG
The awesome co-hosts for the Aug. 6 posting of the IWSG are Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Natalie Aguirre, Sarah - The Faux Fountain Pen, and Olga Godim!
Every month, we announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.
Remember, the question is optional
Every month, we announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.
Remember, the question is optional
August 6 question - What is the most unethical practice in the publishing industry?
I'm not really in a position to answer this month's question, since I have essentially no contact with traditional publishing, and avoid services that charge money (aside from my cover artist, and I know where she lives... :D).
Instead, I guess I'm stuck talking about... grammar checkers. Since I've just finished the final edits and proofing of my new novel, I'm a little frustrated. I reviewed ProWriterAid last year after going through this process, and my opinion hasn't changed. Still helpful in some areas, still comically stupid in others.
Then I did what I did last time, to try to catch every error (especially those introduced when I dealt with issues PWA brought up): I ran MS Word's grammar checker. And that's where the fun began, because they don't agree. Commas I took out with PWA, Word wanted back in, and vice versa. And they totally fail to agree on spacing around dashes used with other punctuation. I have a couple of places where a dash follows a question mark--an interjection, you know?--and one says put a space after the ?, the other says not. I decided on not, but it was a close call. Same with spacing around the dashes indicating a narratorial interruption in direct speech. "It should--" she interrupted-- "have a space before the starting quote mark." "No--" he always had an opinion--"it should not." That also raises the question of if the first dash really belongs inside the quote marks.
Maybe I should use fewer dashes :p
In other news--we have a final on the cover! (And there's another dash.)
In fact, we have pre-orders available at Amazon. The Amazon link goes to my main book page since as of the time of typing the book wasn't quite up yet. Click here for the D2D listing, where links to other ebook providers will be live soon if they aren't now.
©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2024 As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated.
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Nice cover!
ReplyDeleteAlmost comical they don't agree. You would think proper grammar is standard.
I think the use of the dash has greatly increased in recent years, and maybe the rules haven't caught up. I got some disagreement about commas, too, which actually makes me feel better.
DeleteCute cover. I find that grammar checkers don't always work for writing manuscripts. We don't always write in complete sentences or proper grammar, especially in dialogue.
ReplyDeleteThanks! You're absolutely right about the grammar checkers' limitations. But they do find my typos :D
DeleteHaha! Oh the syntax debate. My editor always went to the Chicago Manual of Style and from what I was told, the em dash should go inside the quotes. "That's not what I--" he stepped into her space "--was trying to say."
ReplyDeleteYes… and then you find MS Word changes your closed quotes to open quotes and complains you don’t have any closed quotes…. That’s why I put my dashes outside end quotes now!
DeleteI'm with Jemima--though I don't have trouble with the 1st dash inside the quotes, the second one seems to mess things up. I'm spending a ton of time on this and hardly any of my readers will notice or care. Maybe none will care.
DeleteDashes are all over the place. From what I read online, the common practice now is no space, dashes outside the quotes: "This is"--he squinted at the text--"all weird." It threw me for a loop when I got corrected on that. Best of luck!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteLove the cover!
ReplyDeleteI use PWA to catch typos (I especially like to type "form" when I mean "from"). Everything else is gut ;-)
Good luck with the launch!
Ronel visiting for IWSG day Unethical Publishing Industry Practices 2025
Thanks! I have always punctuated from my gut, but the gut does benefit from a little instruction. I'm getting there. As for the dashes, I'm leaning towards going with what's most aesthetically pleasing to my eye.
DeleteI suppose the big thing is: does your reader understand what you mean?
ReplyDeleteGood point. And I think either way is equally clear.
DeleteAnonymously Esther O'Neill, East of the Sun, and still no signal. - Marking assignments, students and A level, I had to grade them for syntax too. Getting this right was a worse headache than checking that they understood the data analysis Hyphenation ? Glad that's just a click. Spelling ? ( forget pond) Jane Austen and Shakespeare were rotten spellers.
ReplyDeleteI studied Chaucer--no wonder my spelling is all over the place!
DeleteI'm ready to book a room in that cozy B&B! Great cover.
ReplyDeleteAww! It would be a great place for a writing retreat... I'm sure there's someplace like it, somewhere on the coast of Maine.
DeleteAck on the inconsistencies. That would be maddening.
ReplyDeleteIt might be less aggravating if I had a better sense of what's correct.
DeleteI think I've had to fight MS word on the dashes before.
ReplyDeleteIt's very frustrating. I used this combo of assistants for the last book without any of this trouble. I'm not sure which one has changed, but overall Word's grammar checker was farther out in left field than PWA, though both were hopeless with anything vaguely resembling an idiom.
DeleteI have to throw my poorly informed dos pesos in here. The purpose of punctuation is to clarify the message. If it makes sense one way and less sense another use what makes more sense. Re: the appropriate placement of em-dashes (or perhaps they could be en-dashes?) within or without the quotes, consider this: The dash is not part of the quotation unless your speaker is pausing to allow the narrator to comment. Therefore, It is my contention that putting the dash within the quote is unclear and inaccurate.
ReplyDeleteNow as to the spaces, I have only small opinion on that, since it has always been hammered into me that em-dashes don't get a space on either side. However.... in the modern world of electronic reading and such, I am inclined to say that a space on one side or the other makes good sense because it will allow for a line-break if needed. Some e-readers will line-break on an em-dash, most will not, so if you have a predilection for lengthy words you may be doing your reader a formatting favor by including the space.
Rules, particularly grammatical rules, are truly more like a set of guidelines, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.
That's a good point about the line break issue. Oh well--too late now (sort of. I can always change these things, but I'm probably not going to).
DeleteA charming cover, Rebecca. I love it.
ReplyDeleteLove the cover! ;-). Can I get my copies directly from you?
ReplyDeleteYou know you can!
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