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Grammar and writing tips

Two Controversial Grammar Points Explained

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Meme demonstrating use of the Oxford comma

Breaking Some Rules You Learned in School Can Enhance Your Writing.

You might think of grammar as black and white—correct grammar and incorrect grammar and nothing in between. But some grammatical structures fall into a gray area. Maybe the thinking on them has changed over time, or there might be examples of great writing taking opposite choices. So let’s explore some tricky grammar. Here are the first two controversial grammar points, and I’ll follow up with more in the coming weeks.

Serial Comma

People keep wanting to die on this hill, typically in favor of the serial, also called the “Oxford,” comma, but some stalwarts against the damn thing stake their claim to higher ground as well. The serial comma is the comma before and when you’re naming three or more items.

Outside of the United States, the serial comma has generally been accepted as proper. But Americans, especially American journalists, have been more likely to contend that the serial comma is, at the very least, unnecessary. In “my day,” standard stylebooks advised dropping the comma, and journalism schools taught that you’re always trying to save space, even the space of a tiny punctuation mark.

But then the Internet came along, with its eclectic and global mix, and Americans saw that they were in the minority not only in the world but also among academics, who tended to go with the comma. The meme above depicting JFK, Stalin and strippers became the rallying image against the serial comma. The idea is that without the comma, JFK and Stalin become identified as the two strippers. With the comma, you’ve invited two people and an indefinite number of strippers:

We invited the strippers, JFK and Stalin.
vs.
We invited the strippers, JFK, and Stalin.

What never went viral is a meme showing how inserting the comma can create an ambiguous meaning. In the following example, JFK could be your uncle, whereas without the comma it’s clear that you’ve invited three people:

We invited my uncle, JFK, and Stalin.
vs.
We invited my uncle, JFK and Stalin.

For many years after getting my master’s degree in journalism in the U.S., I held fast to omitting the serial comma as I was taught. But when times change, I change. Today, even here in my country the serial comma has become relatively standard, and the AP Stylebook no longer bans the comma and, in fact, recommends using it in a long, complicated series. I still drop it in a short and simple series:

On my birthday, I received three cards, some makeup and a necklace.

But in anything longer or more complex, I usually throw in a comma before the and.

Sentence Fragments and Run-ons

A proper sentence requires a subject and a verb. Sometimes it’s an implied subject, as in a command. “Go away!” is a sentence with you as the implied subject.

But skilled writers do not always have to be proper in their writing. Run-on sentences and sentence fragments used to indicate a lack of sophistication. Today, they can signal just the opposite. When you break rules with knowledge and purpose, you’re molding the language to fit your writer’s voice. That’s a good strategy for developing your style. With that approach, you can justify inserting a period after a phrase that has no subject and, therefore, is not really a sentence. Or you can use the once reviled comma splice instead of a period or semicolon to create what technically is a run-on sentence.

Look at these examples of sentence fragments (in bold). I think they’re just fine within the context of their paragraphs:

My sister stared at me but said nothing. Nothing at all. She didn’t even blink.

I looked away and thought of all the things I could do. Accept the ring. Give him reasons for not accepting the ring. Tell him I still loved him. Tell him why I hated him. At least give him a hand so he could get up off his knee. Instead I walked away, slowly at first and then more quickly, not once looking back.

Let’s twist that second example and turn it into a run-on, comma-spliced sentence:

I looked away and thought of all the things I could do. I could accept the ring, tell him I still loved him, head into some imagined and unlikely sunset with him. Or I could decline his proposal, tell him why I hated him, push him to watch him fall completely to the ground. I could at least extend a hand, help him get up off his knee. But all I did was walk away, slowly at first and then more quickly, not once looking back.

I routinely use both devices—the fragment and the run-on. Fragments are the way we speak; they’re useful for connecting with the reader. With run-ons, I like the cadence of omitting the and or the or. I like the way you say it in your head when it’s a complete thought without being a proper sentence.

Come Back for More Torture

Next time, I’ll tackle ending a sentence with a preposition and using the possessive with gerunds. You don’t have to know anything about it ahead of time to understand—you’ll see!

What’s Wrong with “It Was a Dark and Stormy Night”?

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Snoopy on his doghouse with his typewriter and Woodstock

An analysis of the iconic, quintessential example of bad writing.

You’re told to give readers visual images—“show, don’t tell.” In his 1830 novel Paul Clifford, Edward George Bulwer-Lytton did just that. Yet the first seven words of his opening sentence have become the quintessential example of bad writing. Is there anything wrong with beginning a story, “It was a dark and stormy night”?

History of the Phrase

Madeline L’Engle didn’t think so. She began her 1962 young adult novel, A Wrinkle in Time, with the very same wording. And the phrase’s French version appears in the famed 1844 Alexandre Dumas story, The Three Musketeers.

Bulwer-Lytton may or may not have come up with the phrase. According to Wikipedia, “a dark and stormy night” was mentioned in an 18th century journal about a shipwreck. But Bulwer-Lytton was a successful novelist and did originate the saying, “The pen is mightier than the sword,” so it’s conceivable that the same phrase came into two minds independently.

It was Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz who brought broad awareness to “it was a dark and stormy night” as the trashy writing cliché that it has remained to this day. In his multiple depictions of Snoopy, in the company of his pet bird Woodstock, sitting at the typewriting and tapping out his war-time memoir, Schulz showed his favorite beagle beginning his work with, “It was a dark and stormy night.” Schulz even released a short book with the phrase as the title.

In 1982, Scott Rice, a professor at San Jose State University, built upon the phrase’s unflattering reputation by launching the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, named after the earliest known author of the phrase and welcoming writers to submit dismally florid opening sentences for pretend novels. Prizes are still awarded annually.

How Bad Is It?

In evaluating whether the disparaged phrase deserves its lowest-bar standing, let’s consider the entire sentence:

“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”

For me, that is pretty bad in just the way Charles Schulz implied—overly dramatic with too many adjectives and a resulting passage that becomes laughingly overwrought. I also have some technical issues with the sentence.

Parsing the Sentence

Granted, my critique is from the perspective of American English in 2025. With that caveat, I take exception to the very first two words. Try not to start your book with “It was” or “There is.” A sentence here and there can read that way, but I advise writers to minimize “be” verbs like “is,” “are,” “was” and “were.” You may think that the “it was” and “there is” structure is passive voice, but “be” verbs are intransitive verbs, so neither active nor passive voice applies. Still, “is” is not compelling.

While I admit there are times I do start a sentence with “there is,” “there was” or even “it was,” I wouldn’t start a whole book that way. The structure can create drama in a good way, but in Bulwer-Lytton’s sentence it sets up a foreboding that feels cheesy. And then we come to a semicolon. If you have a semicolon in your opening sentence, you most likely use too many semicolons. Just give in and use a period.

I’m okay with “the rain fell in torrents.” The author then goes into a little wordiness about the occasional intervals, the checking, the violent gust—but I probably would hang in there through all of that. It does create a visual image.

Next, I’d replace “which” with “that,” but I recognize that this is an American distinction. In the U.S., we use “that” to introduce a restrictive clause and “which,” preceded by a comma, to introduce a nonrestrictive clause. I can see this clause being either restrictive or nonrestrictive. It’s either “a gust of wind that swept up the streets,” or it’s “a gust of wind, which swept up the streets.” In the first case, the restrictive clause indicates that it’s not just any gust of wind but the one that swept up the streets. In the second, it’s a gust of wind, and by the way another fact about it is that it swept up the streets. If the author intended it to be read as nonrestrictive, using “which” correctly, he needed a preceding comma. If he intended it to read fluently without the comma, he should have used “that.”

I have long been on a rampage to ban most parentheses, so you can imagine I am not pleased with what comes next in this sentence. Find another way to tell us this takes place in London. Don’t refer to “this scene” in a contrived, breaking-the-third-wall manner. Furthermore, Mr. Bulwer-Lytton, have you never been to Chicago? Boston? Dallas on a bad night? I assure you that London does not hold the unique claim of either streets or dark and stormy nights rife with violent gusts of wind accompanying torrents of rain.

The end of the sentence just tops off the ornate description. If you’re already thinking this sentence is a lot, the end becomes too much. If not, then I suppose it’s not terrible. But the final comma is wrong. The “gust of wind” is the sole subject that was both rattling and agitating. Throwing in “along the housetops” and “fiercely” doesn’t change the fact that this is not a compound clause with separate subjects. It requires no comma before “and.”

Decision About the Sentence

Is this the worst sentence ever written? Or even the most elaborate? Heavens, no. That’s what makes it the perfect foil for our amusement. Professionally crafted and well-intentioned, “a dark and stormy night” becomes a cliché precisely because it’s viable. But don’t begin your memoir with anything like it!

Grammar in Memoirs: What Are Flat Adverbs?

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list of flat adverbs in squashed font

I learn a lot about people’s current grammar concerns from the Facebook page “Grammar Matters,” which I help to admin. Recently someone asked why adverbs are being sloppily replaced by adjectives. Examples:

  • Drive slow.
  • Act quick.
  • Play safe.
  • And the kicker: You did amazing.

The complaint was that the “ly” is missing. The word answers the question “how,” which calls for an adverb. How should I drive? How should I act? How should I play? How did I do? These people wanted the adjectives slow, quick, safe and amazing replaced by the adverbs slowly, quickly, safely and amazingly so that the phrases would read: drive slowly, act quickly, play safely, you did amazingly.

But it’s not as simple as that.

Adjectives vs. Flat Adverbs

“They’re not adjectives,” other members of the page schooled the complainers. “Those are flat adverbs.”

According to the MacMillan Dictionary Blog, “flat adverbs may sound less formal, but grammatically they’re fine.” The blogger explains it further:

“Indeed, flat adverbs have a venerable history. Centuries ago in Old English, they were marked by inflections (usually –e), which were gradually dropped. This left the adverbs resembling adjectives, so –ly was sometimes added to mark them more explicitly as adverbs again. And so we ended up with pairs like bright and brightly, slow and slowly, soft and softly, wrong and wrongly.”

Keep in mind that flat adverbs are also adjectives. You are a “safe driver”—here, safe is an adjective describing the noun driver. The blogger further notes that the pairs are “sometimes interchangeable (drive safe/safely); in other cases their meanings have diverged, as with late and lately, right and rightly, hard and hardly. We might kick a ball hard, but if we hardly kick it we mean something quite different. Sometimes one form appears in certain idioms and expressions while the other form does duty elsewhere.”

Our Approach to Flat Adverbs

At Write My Memoirs, do we think that flat adverbs have earned their place in formal writing and, specifically for our purposes, in memoir writing? As you may know from taking our Writing and Grammar Course, we approach formal writing pragmatically. We apply grammar rules as they are generally regarded by people who make it a point to use proper grammar. That means people who know just enough about grammar but not more than that.

What do we mean by that? Flat adverbs are a good example. Most people who believe they use proper grammar will prefer drive slowly or shine brightly, choosing the traditional adverb safely over the flat adverb safe. So our editors at Write My Memoirs advise writers to mostly avoid flat adverbs. However, if you’re writing dialogue, you did amazing might sound more natural than you did amazingly so, in that case, you might want to choose the flat adverb.

English grammar is always a moving target!

Is “Show, Don’t Tell” in Memoir Good Advice?

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reader demonstrating show don't tell reaction

If you’re a writer or trying to be a memoir author, you’ve heard the advice to “show, don’t tell.” It’s easy to think you know what it means until you sit down and try to put it into practice. But as with most writing, it is important to “show, don’t tell” in memoir.

Too many adjectives

Especially in a memoir, we want the reader to know our deepest feelings about the experiences we’re describing. The natural way to convey our reactions is to use adjectives—it made us sad or happy; we felt afraid or angry; we were surprised or baffled. It’s okay to pepper your work with adjectives like these, but it’s just not that effective. When you spoonfeed the reader your emotional intent, the reader doesn’t become as engaged as when the reader organically experiences the same emotions.

As you get better at “showing, not telling,” you’ll find that you rely on adjectives less frequently. You’ll describe everything that occurred, but you’re not an objective observer. You’re you. It was your eyes that saw the event take place, your ears that heard the accompanying sounds and conversation, your heart that took it all in. And then it all gets filtered through your memory. So telling the story in itself lets the reader know how you felt about it.

Trust the memoir reader; don’t authorsplain

The product that comes out of all that is a biased and detailed account. The emotions you felt are exactly the same that the reader is likely to experience. You don’t have to “authorsplain” how the events made you feel. Readers are smart. Did the joke strike you as funny? The reader already knows this, because you described the way you laughed uncontrollably. Were you feeling jealous of someone? The reader senses that when you mention that in your mind you were picturing yourself strangling the person. Did you feel ashamed of yourself about an incident? The reader feels your shame because, after all, who wouldn’t be ashamed of doing what you so vividly just described?

Your reaction is important

The other clue is what happens next in your story. Instead of telling the reader about your shame, maybe you reported that you slouched, turned and left the room without saying a word. If you were afraid, you could describe your hand shaking. Even a simple “a huge smile crossed my face” is better than “I was so happy to hear this.”

The role of the confidante

Dialogue can be useful, too, in letting the reader know what’s going on in your mind. Relating an experience to your friend can let the reader in on your thoughts that might not be as obvious. It’s still tricky. Telling a friend “I’m so happy” is no more compelling than saying it directly to the reader. But in skilled hands, dialogue can be a useful device.

Watch this space for more “show, don’t tell” in memoir!

Check back soon, and we’ll give examples of passages that show vs. those that tell. That will make everything crystal clear!

Critique of Traditional Writing Rules, Part 3: Show, Don’t Tell

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Critique of Traditional Writing Rules, Part 3: Show, Don’t Tell
Reviewing the Writer’s Digest list of 10 writing rules, we come to Rule 3—“show, don’t tell,” advice you’ve probably received from an English teacher at some point in your schooling. It’s an important rule, which author Natalie Goldberg recommends following. Goldberg provides an informative example to illustrate the difference between how a timid student might fulfill the typical “What I Did on My Summer Vacation” assignment when compared with a fearless writer. The former would tell, Goldberg says, writing something along the lines of, “I had a good time. It was very interesting and fun.” The bold describer would show, not tell. Regretting her own timidity, Goldberg wonders how much her teacher would have preferred if she’d shown instead of told and written the truth: “My mother dyed her hair red, smoked Marlboros, while my sister and I played Parcheesi on the back porch, sitting on the cool cement. My father ate an early dinner of steak and iceberg lettuce each night before he left to tend bar until 5 a.m.”
That’s the difference between telling and showing, and you can see why showing makes for a vastly more interesting memoir. But what happens when you want to reveal what’s going on in your mind? There’s no action to describe, but it’s critical to your memoir to share your thoughts about a situation. Literary agent Donald Maas address this, maintaining there is an effective way to keep the reader interested while conveying, for example, “ the intuition out of nowhere, for no solid reason, that she’s going to leave me.”
Maas’s solution? “The trick to telling is to base your passage in emotions. Less obvious emotions are good. Contrasting emotions are better. Conflicting emotions are best. If moving beneath the surface, in subtext, then you’re cooking. Fold into these feelings whatever outward details are at hand in the moment.” I agree with Goldberg that showing beats telling every time, but I also agree with Maas that when telling is your only available choice you can include a bit of candid emotional turmoil and still keep your readers engaged.
http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/writing-rules-10-experts-take-on-the-writers-rulebook

Reviewing the Writer’s Digest list of 10 writing rules, we come to Rule 3—“show, don’t tell,” advice you’ve probably received from an English teacher at some point in your schooling. It’s an important rule, which author Natalie Goldberg recommends following. Goldberg provides an informative example to illustrate the difference between how a timid student might fulfill the typical “What I Did on My Summer Vacation” assignment when compared with a fearless writer. The former would tell, Goldberg says, writing something along the lines of, “I had a good time. It was very interesting and fun.” The bold describer would show, not tell. Regretting her own timidity, Goldberg wonders how much her teacher would have preferred if she’d shown instead of told and written the truth: “My mother dyed her hair red, smoked Marlboros, while my sister and I played Parcheesi on the back porch, sitting on the cool cement. My father ate an early dinner of steak and iceberg lettuce each night before he left to tend bar until 5 a.m.”

That’s the difference between telling and showing, and you can see why showing makes for a vastly more interesting memoir. But what happens when you want to reveal what’s going on in your mind? There’s no action to describe, but it’s critical to  your memoir to share your thoughts about a situation. Literary agent Donald Maas addresses this, maintaining there is an effective way to keep the reader interested while conveying, for example, “ the intuition out of nowhere, for no solid reason, that she’s going to leave me.”

Maas’s solution? “The trick to telling is to base your passage in emotions. Less obvious emotions are good. Contrasting emotions are better. Conflicting emotions are best. If moving beneath the surface, in subtext, then you’re cooking. Fold into these feelings whatever outward details are at hand in the moment.” I agree with Goldberg that showing beats telling every time, but I also agree with Maas that, when telling is your only available choice, you can include a bit of candid emotional turmoil and still keep your readers engaged.

Try Garner’s as a Reference for Grammar and Usage

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Try Garner’s American Usage as a Reference
So many questions about grammar cannot be answered simply yes/no, either/or. While we tend to think of grammar as cut-and-dried, it’s really more of a reflection of preferred usage at this moment in time—preferred rather than absolutely correct, and only at this moment because a living language is constantly changing. So a grammatical construction you learned in school 40 years ago may be less valid today. That’s less valid, not exactly wrong. Also, word choice, usage and even punctuation vary widely depending on your geography. Each English-speaking country seems to have its own rules.
For all of those reasons, for American writing I like a usage guide that’s not on everyone’s radar: Garner’s American Usage. Most people rely on a stylebook such as the AP Stylebook or the Chicago Manual of Style, or a dictionary like Webster’s or American Heritage. But unlike those references, which provide right-or-wrong information, Garner’s Modern American Usage includes the immensely helpful and sensible “Garner’s Language-Change Index,” a five-stage continuum of acceptability ranging from unacceptable to commonly preferred. Garner’s also is a fun read, adding information about the language and elaborating its points with humor.
A review by School Library Journal published on the Oxford University Press website calls Garner’s “the best of its kind in that it simply reports the facts in an engaging way; language evolves and usage changes. An invaluable ready-reference tool.”
http://www.amazon.com/Garners-Modern-American-Usage-Garner/dp/0195382757/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366214307&sr=8-1&keywords=garner%27s+modern+american+usage
http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Reference/EnglishUsageGuides/?view=usa&ci=9780195382754

So many questions about grammar cannot be answered simply yes/no, either/or. While we tend to think of grammar as cut-and-dried, it’s really more of a reflection of preferred usage at this moment in time—preferred rather than absolutely correct, and only at this moment because a living language is constantly changing. So a grammatical construction you learned in school 40 years ago may be less valid today. That’s less valid, not exactly wrong. Also, word choice, usage and even punctuation vary widely depending on your geography. Each English-speaking country seems to have its own rules.

For all of those reasons, for American memoir writing I like a usage guide that’s not on everyone’s radar: Garner’s American Usage. Most people rely on a stylebook such as the AP Stylebook or the Chicago Manual of Style, or a dictionary like Webster’s or American Heritage. But unlike those references, which gauge each case as right or wrong, Garner’s Modern American Usage includes the immensely helpful and sensible “Garner’s Language-Change Index,” a five-stage continuum of acceptability ranging from unacceptable to commonly preferred. Garner’s also is a fun read, adding information about the language and elaborating its points with humor.

A review by School Library Journal published on the Oxford University Press website calls Garner’s “the best of its kind in that it simply reports the facts in an engaging way; language evolves and usage changes. An invaluable ready-reference tool.”

Verb Tenses, Part III

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Verb Tenses, Part III
To finish up this three-part series, we’re going to talk about the “perfect progressive” tenses. Instead of using the past participle as we did for the present perfect, past perfect and future perfect tenses, for the progressive tenses we’ll need the present participle. For example, the past participle for to sing is sung, as in, “She has sung professionally in front of thousands of people”; the present participle is singing, as in, “She has been singing professionally since her teen years.”
Present Perfect Progressive Tense
Conveys current, ongoing action that began in the past, continues in the present and may continue in the future.
Formation: has been or have been + the present participle of the verb
I have been thinking about writing my memoirs.
We have been learning about verb tenses.
Past Perfect Progressive Tense
Conveys past, ongoing action that began in the past before another action.
Formation: had been + the present participle of the verb
I had been thinking about writing a novel before I changed my mind and decided to write a memoir.
She had been reading her book for three hours before she finally broke away to have dinner.
Future Perfect Progressive Tense
Conveys future, ongoing action that will be completed before another future action.
Formation: will have been + the present participle of the verb
As of June, I will have been working on my memoir for a full year.
If he starts his homework now, he will have been studying for three hours when he finally breaks for dinner.
I hope you found these tenses useful! Write if you have questions!

To finish up this Write My Memoirs three-part series, we’re going to talk about the “perfect progressive” tenses. Instead of using the past participle as we did for the present perfect, past perfect and future perfect tenses, for the progressive tenses we’ll need the present participle. For example, the past participle for to sing is sung, as in, “She has sung professionally in front of thousands of people”; the present participle is singing, as in, “She has been singing professionally since her teen years.”

PRESENT PERFECT PROGRESSIVE TENSE
Conveys current, ongoing action that began in the past, continues in the present and may continue in the future.
Formation: has been or have been + the present participle of the verb

I have been thinking about writing my memoirs.

We have been learning about verb tenses.

PAST PERFECT PROGRESSIVE TENSE
Conveys past, ongoing action that began in the past before another action.
Formation: had been + the present participle of the verb

I had been thinking about writing a novel before I changed my mind and decided to write a memoir.

She had been reading her book for three hours before she finally broke away to have dinner.

FUTURE PERFECT PROGRESSIVE TENSE
Conveys future, ongoing action that will be completed before another future action.
Formation: will have been + the present participle of the verb

As of June, I will have been working on my memoir for a full year.

If he starts his homework now, he will have been studying for three hours when he finally breaks for dinner.

I hope you found these tenses useful! Write if you have questions!

Verb Tenses, Part II

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Please read the Write My Memoirs blog post immediately preceding this one. Now that you have a handle on what a past participle is and, I’m going to assume, you pretty much know how to use the present and past tenses, we can move on to the difficult tenses that use past participles. Let’s example three:

PRESENT PERFECT TENSE
Conveys action that either began in the past and continues today or took place at an indefinite time.
Formation: has or have + the past participle of the verb

I have cooked [present perfect tense] dinner but have not served [present perfect] it yet.

You own [present tense] many books and have passed [present perfect] down the joy of reading to your children.

I sent [past tense] an email to my friend, and I hope [present tense] that she has read [present perfect tense] it by now.

PAST PERFECT TENSE
Conveys action that took place before another action in the past.
Formation: had + the past participle of the verb

I had intended [past perfect tense] to eat [infinitive] dinner at home until I decided [past tense] to go [infinitive] out instead.

I suppose [present tense] they had notified [past perfect tense] me earlier, but I neglected [past tense] to mark [infinitive] the date on my calendar.

FUTURE PERFECT TENSE
Conveys future action that will occur before another future action.
Formation: will have + the past participle of the verb

I will have finished [future perfect tense] all of my work when I end [present tense indicating a future event] my day with my favorite TV show.

I assume [present tense] that the teacher will have corrected [future perfect tense] our essays by the time class begins [present tense indicating a future event].

If anything is not clear, contact us or post on our Facebook wall! More tenses next time.

Grammar Lesson: Verb Tenses, Part I

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Grammar Lesson: Verb Tenses, Part I
When our Write My Memoirs members hire us to edit their memoirs, we notice that verb tenses seem to be a tough grammar hurdle that trips up many writers. So let’s tackle these tricky little verbs one tense at a time. I’ll devote as many blog posts as it takes, starting with today.
When we list the forms of a verb, typically we list three tenses: present tense, past tense and past participle. The last one—the past participle—is the most problematic. To illustrate the three tenses of the regular verb to help, you would list: help (present tense); helped (past tense); and helped (past participle). In practice, this goes: today I help the customer; yesterday I helped the customer; over the past week I have helped many customers. You can see that the past participle takes a helping verb like have. For regular verbs, the past participle is the same as the past tense—in this case, both are helped.
However, there are many irregular verbs. Let’s try to take: today I take my temperature; yesterday I took my temperature; I have taken my temperature many times this week. In that irregular example, took is past tense, but taken is the past participle. To run also is irregular: today I run; yesterday I ran; I have run five times this week. That’s an unusual case, because the past participle run is the same as the present tense, first person. Keep in mind, though, that “person” presents another variable that can change the present tense, but the past participle remains the same. With to run, the past participle remains run when we change the example from first person to third person: today he runs; yesterday he ran; he has run five times this week.
Practice on other verbs until we dig into this again next time!

When our Write My Memoirs members hire us to edit their memoirs, we notice that verb tenses seem to be a tough grammar hurdle that trips up many writers. So let’s tackle these tricky little verbs one tense at a time. I’ll devote as many blog posts as it takes, starting with today.

When we list the forms of a verb, typically we list two tenses—present tense and past tense—plus the past participle, which is a component of the remaining tenses and is the most problematic.  The last one—the past participle—is the most problematic. To illustrate the three tenses of the regular verb to help, you would list: help (present tense); helped (past tense); and helped (past participle). In practice, this goes: today I help the customer; yesterday I helped the customer; over the past week I have helped many customers. You can see that the past participle takes a helping verb like have. For regular verbs, the past participle is the same as the past tense—in this case, both are helped.

However, there are many irregular verbs. Let’s try to take: today I take my temperature; yesterday I took my temperature; I have taken my temperature many times this week. In that irregular example, took is past tense, but taken is the past participle. To run also is irregular: today I run; yesterday I ran; I have run five times this week. That’s an unusual case, because the past participle run is the same as the present tense, first person. Keep in mind, though, that “person” presents another variable that can change the present tense, but the past participle remains the same. With to run, the past participle remains run when we change the example from first person (I) to third person (he/she): today he runs; yesterday he ran; he has run five times this week.

Practice on other verbs until we dig into this again next time!

How Important Are Grammar Rules?

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How Important Are Grammar Rules?
If you’re writing a memoir, by definition you’re now a writer. For the first time since high school, you may be thinking about grammar. But is that really necessary?
My quick answer is that, yes, most of us could use a grammar refresher course. I found an audio course for $179 that you can take right from your computer on September 20. Click here to learn more. (We do not have any connection to that company; we neither receive a share of the profits nor have taken any courses there ourselves to recommend.)
This particular course aims to help you get rid of some bad writing habits like splitting infinitives, ending sentences with prepositions and using passive voice. Are those habits so evil? Not really. If anything, these rules are losing favor and become antiquated. But as a writer, you should be aware of them. You should recognize these “flaws” when you see them and limit them in your own writing. But I would not say you must eliminate them altogether. Take this sentence: “I want to always know where you’ll be.” While that demonstrates a split infinitive—always splits the infinitive to know—it’s probably the clearest and most efficient way of expressing that thought. However, it’s not the only way; there are lots of ways to say the same thing. Learning these rules will open your eyes to all of the options, and you can improve the impact of your writing if you avoid “breaking” these rules as much as possible.

If you’re writing a memoir, by definition you’re now a writer. For the first time since high school, you may be thinking about grammar. But is that really necessary?

My quick answer is that, yes, most of us could use a grammar refresher course. I found an audio course for $179 that you can take right from your computer on September 20. Click here to learn more. (We do not have any connection to that company; we neither receive a share of the profits nor have taken any courses there ourselves to recommend.)

This particular course aims to help you get rid of some bad writing habits like splitting infinitives, ending sentences with prepositions and using passive voice. Are those habits so evil? Not really. If anything, these rules are losing favor and become antiquated. But as a writer, you should be aware of them. You should recognize these “flaws” when you see them and limit them in your own writing. But I would not say you must eliminate them altogether. Take this sentence: “I want to always know where you’ll be.” While that demonstrates a split infinitive—always splits the infinitive to know—it’s probably the clearest and most efficient way of expressing that thought. However, it’s not the only way; there are lots of ways to say the same thing. Learning these rules will open your eyes to all of the options, and you can improve the impact of your writing if you avoid “breaking” these rules as much as possible.

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Then just set up a chapter and start writing your memoir. Don’t worry about rules. There are no rules to writing your memoir; there are only trends. These trends are based on techniques and features identified in current top-selling memoirs. At best, they’re the flavor of the month. If you’re capturing your life in print for your family, for your own gratification or to inspire readers, rather than aiming to set off Hollywood screenplay bidding wars, these trends don’t even apply to you. You’ll write the memoir that suits you best, and it will be timeless, not trend-driven.There are no rules, but there are four steps:

1. Theme/framework
2. Writing
3. Editing/polishing
4. Self-publishing

You’ve researched this, too, and you’ve been shocked at the price for getting help with any one of those steps, much less all four. That’s because most memoir sites promise to commercialize your work. They’ll follow a formula based on current memoir trends, because they want to convince you that they can turn your memoir into a best-seller. These sites overwhelm you with unnecessary information not to help you, the memoir author, but to address Search Engine Optimization (SEO) algorithms so they can sell more.

That’s not what we do at Write My Memoirs. Our small community of coaches, writers and editors are every bit as skilled as any you’ll find, and we charge appropriately for their expertise and the time they’ll spend helping you craft a compelling, enjoyable read. But you won’t pay an upcharge for other websites’ commercialization, the marketing that follows, and the pages of intimidating “advice.” You can sell your book if you like—we have ISBNs available for you—but our organic process of capturing your story takes a noncommercial path.

If you want help with any or all of the four steps above, choose from our services or save money by selecting one of our packages. If you’d like to talk about what’s right for you, schedule a call. One year from now, you can be holding your published memoir in your hand. And at that point, it will be a big deal!

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