Diamond

How important are grammar rules in creative writing.
Can any contractions be used outside of quotation marks?
Is it ever acceptable to end a sentence in a preposition?

I'm sure there's lots of others I'm not thinking of just now.

Lily

Generally, I feel that the presence of basic grammar (ie: punctuation, basic sentence structure, spelling, etc., etc., etc.) is a necessity in any piece of writing. After all, you do want people to understand you, don't you?

At times it's okay to be a little loose with your grammar, but that really depends on what kind of story you're writing. Sometimes, usage of grammar can be essential in setting the mood of the piece. However, you have to be REALLY careful when you're deciding whether or not you want to be loose with your grammar, because trying to show some creativity in loose grammar might be misinterpreted as lack of writing ability/knowledge of the English language, and we don't want that, do we?

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Insufferable Know-it-all.

Capulet

Asking how important grammar is to writing is like asking how important wheels are to a car.

Not very, if you don't want to go anywhere. But if your car, or writing, has a destination in mind, be mindful of your grammar.

There are grammatical rules, and rules to breaking those rules. If you are going to step outside the boundaries of proper grammar, then you better study the accepted misuses of grammar as hard as you've studied the proper use of grammar. (You have been studying right? )

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It's not opression when you are protecting the voice of the majority.

-Shawn

Spudley

The only time you'll get away with a lack of grammar is if it's a deliberate attempt to give your writing a certain voice (and even then you'll still have rules to follow in order to keep it consistent).

Most editors will expect their writers to be capable of reasonable grammer - they are writers, after all -so they are quite likely to reject a piece with bad grammer without even reading it all. Editors are busy people, and if it doesn't have basic grammar, they won't take the time to find out what it does have.

Even if he does read it, it will need to be edited before it can be published, which means extra work, so if he has to chose between a very good piece with bad grammar and a fairly good piece with good grammar, he'll probably choose the latter.

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Spudley Strikes Again
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Poetic Threads
The Poetry Tree

Enforced Bliss

To begin with I am assuming that we are speaking of prose alone and not poetry. I make this assumption because mangling the strixtures of language has long been a convention of poetry and so this would be unneeded. That being said -

There is a difference between "bad grammar" and unconventional grammar.

'I ain't never had nothing like the stuff that he gots" is bad, though oft-spoken (shudder) grammar

"To boldly go where no man has gone before" - would be unconventional grammar (though not a stirring example of it).

Bad grammar, except when writing in the voice of a particular character, is to be avoided. Unconventional grammar is to be applauded.

Read Tropic of Cancer and Naked Lunch, read Fear and Loathing in Las Vagas. These books (to name just a few) make consistent use of grammar and syntax that would make most English teachers swallow their tongues. They do it brilliantly.

What matters in writing is not some idiot obeissance to a list of arbitrary and fossilized rules but rather, "does it work?" If it works with "bad", "unconventional", or "outright bloody screwy" grammar then you have broken no rules.

One final note...contractions are only included inside of quatation marks when they are being spoken or when you are making clear that you don't agree with the word chosen (ie - Jamie was supposed to come help but he "couldn't" because there was a movie on T.V.).

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DL Ferguson

You can't break the rules unless you know what they are. And the only way you can know when you can get away with unconventional grammar and spelling use is if you know the correct way it should be used in the first place.

Correct grammar and spelling are the most basic tools of any kind of writing. For a writer to not want to learn how to use them is akin to a carpenter not wanting to use a hammer and nails to build a house. Despite all the arguments I've read here, knowing when and how to use proper grammar and spelling doesn't limit your choices. Indeed, it expands them and gives you more freedom in your work.

Ceridwen

Grammar rules are of course, important. It helps the reader to follow your idea and get the conclusions you are trying to convey. It keeps the reader from being confused or being led to the wrong "path" or stream of your story. Grammatical errors sometimes make readers inadvertently comprehend the wrong ideas (and you wouldn't want that). So, it's really important.

*I myself have troubles in it. Mainly because my mother tongue is not English, so I tend to have occasional grammatical errors and fallibilities in this field. I'm still learning and trying my very best to cope up with this problems.

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I learn and learn and learn...

Capulet

Splitting infinitives has now been accepted as "ok" in linguistics circles. It was a silly rule in the first place, emulating silly latin.

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It's not opression when you are protecting the voice of the majority.

-Shawn