Thread: A little assistance with grammar

Greetings all

I am currently developing my novel, which happens to be my first novel in fact. I have always been fond of reading and writing poetry, and thought I would take a stab at writing a novel. I appear to have little problems with being descriptive, maybe the latter of being overly descriptive, neither do I have issues with imagination or plot, but I am rattling my brains with grammar.
See, I am currently reading Dorian Gray, (it is actually fantastic), and have come to notice the way grammar is used in that book. Yes it is over one hundred years old, but I am sure little has changed grammar wise since. I often become confused with using commas, semicolons, colons and dashes. (I have not used one dash yet in my manuscript). Anyway, I am mindful that a comma simply acts as a pause to get ones breath and to create flow, that a semi coma is an extended pause and joins what would maybe be two sentences together, but I often feel as if I am making mistakes. In Doiran Gray, he sometimes uses commas without a single fullstop for maybe 7 or so lines on a page. When do you know to use a fullstop and put and end to the sentence, is there a general rule?
If anybody could share some wisdom on grammar in general or specifically with what I have mentioned, I will be highly appreciative

Here is a random segment from my manuscript so far, if you care to criticize and advice, that would be great

After being thwacked to the floor and the pain had subsided, he had turned his attention to the docile fire that would fail to cease in the somber room. He marveled at the magnificent spectacle the fire had to provide, almost as if there was a display being performed solely for him. He gawked at the energy it fabricated, at the numerous colours it seemed to create from nothingness, and how it had a certain seductive sway to its nature. The flames were wholly hypnotic to him, as he became misplaced somewhere in their splendor, pinpointing a moment to where everything was right, where everything seemed comprehensible. He gazed deeper into the burning inferno as the intensity became evermore evident, a sharp crackling sound grew louder as it resonated throughout the room. He widened his bright blue eyes, and became increasingly engrossed in the overpowering combustion. He knew of nothing else in that moment as he continued to be captivated by the trance. He could now hear a persistent hiss begin to cry out from sizzling wood. It began to emerge as a prominent tone that built in volume, sweeping around the room and slithering across the walls. Jake was transfixed, he now had a startled and somewhat anxious expression across his face, he could not escape the illicit lure the fire gave, as the sound mushroomed around him. He heard yet another faint sound that also became more apparent, it began to almost struggle with the overbearing hiss.

สวัสดีและยินดีต้อนรับ - Grammar is a secondary issue in the sample you provide. First you must rid yourself of your thesaurus, or of thinking like a thesaurus if you don't actually have one. I do have some suggestions to make, but first let me ask you if English is your first language. I have taught English as a second language and can offer the best help if I know whether it is your first language, or, if it is not, what is your first language.

What you have provided is not bad, but is badly overwritten. Once that baggage is cleared away we can tackle the grammar issues.

And again, welcome.

In what sense would you say overwritten? Too much detail... I was thinking about how I have maybe gone into too much depth on the whole.

Not too much detail, no. Too many over-heated descriptive words that add nothing to the meaning, and words that do not say exactly what it's obvious you mean to say.

'Thwack' is the sound of a cricketer's bat hitting the ball. I know of no other use, except for comic effect and I do not believe you intend for any of this to be funny.

I do not quite understand what a 'docile fire' is. Docility is a trait of certain people and animals and means easily handled. For example, 'The docile draft horse allowed himself to be harnessed and led about by the small boy'.

What makes the room sombre? Is it dark? Is it decorated with symbols of death? Are the walls painted black? Just saying the room is 'sombre' says nothing. Show us why the room is sombre.

Consider this:
After he was knocked to the floor, and the pain subsided, he turned his attention to the small fire that always burned in the dark room.

I still say I can help you more if I know your first language. If it is Thai or Khmer that is one situation. If it is Cantonese that is another. If it is any European language other than English that is yet another.

The scope of the assistance you're requesting is probably beyond what is typically available on an internet discussion forum. To be able to write well in a language that you didn't grow up speaking is a worthy goal! Also a large goal. Maybe not long-range, but definitely medium-range.

Reading the language you desire to become fluent in (i.e., per your example, the "Picture of Dorian Gray") is gonna help, but the thing that will help most of all with your fluency is speaking the language and hearing it spoken.

Even translating between dialects of any given language can sometimes present real problems if the person translating has never heard the language spoken before; as an example I'll give the time that me and my buddy from grade school attempted to "translate" Shakespeare's play "Romeo and Juliet" into "street talk". We got exactly as far as the word "colliers" and gave up; it was too hard to look up all those damned antique-y references.

Anyway, try to practice speaking the second (or third, or whatever) language with others and also listen to the language being spoken in all different settings. That will help you enormously. Also when you are looking at things in your everyday life, even if you think about that thing in your own native language, say the word in the second language to yourself, and also try to describe it as would a native speaker of that language, with the words in the same order as a native speaker would put them.

Not easy, but doable. (Yes, I'm telling you to practice. I know that is dreary, boring advice, but it's also realistic advice. I can't start speaking a language that's not my native one, and HEARING it in my head, until I hear others speaking it.)

If the time period represented by the Dorian Gray novel, and the way people spoke English during that time, is of great interest to you, try finding some English-language feature films that dramatize other stories from around that time (turn of the century 1880s-1900s) to hear how the people are talking, so that you can follow the flow of words better--maybe try to record some of the dialog, even, and transcribe it out with the punctuation in the places you think it should go. That could help a great deal.

Anyway: Good luck!

Heya, Tom. Welcome to WF.

Grammar is a gray area in writing that takes a lot of feeling out. I feel like I'm always learning how to do it better, where I could put a comma, where I could do without one. Some general advice I can give is that the choice of your grammar mark, whether a comma, semi-colon, etc., should always be dictated by the flow. What sounds right? The dashes you were wondering about, they usually indicate a dramatic tone change. He took the apples—all three of them.

Another thing is, though it may not seem like it, English and its grammar have changed a lot since Oscar Wilde's time. Most contemporary writing isn't so ornate and long-winded as the older stuff.

I looked over your excerpt and it does sound like you're a bit heavy on the vocab. I think it's safe for you to tone down the use of the larger words. I suspect you're a beginning writer, and vocab indulgence is, from what I've been able to see of many people, myself included, a phase that beginning writers go through. It takes a while to develop that ear for what sounds right and what sounds like overkill. Hell—some people never lose the overkill, but they usually learn to temper it and stylize it in such a way that it doesn't grate as much.

Enjoy your book you are reading now, but I recommend you find something more recent to study as an example of grammar. And read, read, read! I read your piece, and the time spent on the fire, and the focus would lead me to believe he was 'tripping'. Write as you think or speak first, and then if you need to change a few words to please your sense of aesthetics, do.
Frankly, I hated grammar as a kid and still don't want to think about it very much. I was looking out the window while they were explaining it at school, yeah, the whole time, would you believe it? I don't go out of my way to use more than I need. Semi colons, colons? Should I run into a place where I think I am really gonna need that, I'll look it up and give it my best try. Don't ask me to explain an adverb or any of the rest. I can't. I just write.