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| Apostrophes Explained |
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APOSTROPHES EXPLAINED
(460 words. This article may be freely published or distributed
as long as the author's information at the bottom remains
intact. If you use it, please notify
laroccamichael@hotmail.com.)
According to last week's newsletter, whenever a Southerner says
"Y'all watch this," get out of the way because those are
probably the last words he will ever say.
Well, I am a Southerner. I used to live in the southern US, but
I moved to south China. And, I'm about to say the magic words:
Y'all watch this.
The word is "week." If I want to talk about more than one week,
like I did near the end of the previous article, I'll use weeks.
No apostrophe. If I want to talk about something belonging to a
week, such as "last week's newsletter," I'll use an apostrophe.
That's the rule. If it's a noun, s makes it plural and
apostrophe-s makes it possessive. It's just that simple.
If I were still in the US, and I wanted one of those fancy
carved signs that are so common on southern lawns, it would not
read "The LaRocca's." The LaRocca's what? His lawn? His sign?
That apostrophe makes it singular possessive, so The LaRocca is
surely claiming ownership of something. If that was not his
intent, and he whacked in an apostrophe anyway, he's an idiot.
What about plural possessive? Is it "the LaRoccas' house" or
"the LaRoccas's house?" Well, it's neither, since my wife isn't
a LaRocca and we don't own a house. But for the sake of this
article, pretend she is and we do.
In ON WRITING, Stephen King swears it's LaRoccas's. When I was a
student, my teachers swore it was LaRoccas'. As an editor, I
heard the first was US standard and the second was UK standard.
And the answer is, I don't care. Just be consistent.
I once met an editor who said that the spelling has something
to do with the pronunciation. She's an idiot. Spelling isn't
100% pronunciation. It's history. I'll say LaRoccas-zz whether
it's LaRoccas' or LaRoccas's. So will you.
Jump up four paragraphs and read the eleventh word. Noun. Note
that I didn't write pronoun. Just for fun, the rule for pronouns
and apostrophes is completely different, as I noted in my Common
Writing Mistakes article. I still get email praising that one,
so let me repeat a little bit of it.
It's is a contraction for "it is" and its is possessive. Who's
is a contraction for "who is" and whose is possessive. You're is
a contraction for "you are" and your is possessive. They're is a
contraction for "they are," there is a place, their is
possessive. There's is a contraction for "there is" and theirs
is possessive.
If you've been paying attention to the above examples, you've
noticed that possessive pronouns never use apostrophes. Its,
whose, your, yours, their, theirs...
And there you have it. Apostrophes explained.
Michael LaRocca is the author of four published novels and an
EPPIE 2002 Award finalist. He's been working as a full-time
author and editor since December 1999. For a complete list of
his articles, all available via autoresponder, send a blank
email to michaellarocca@sendfree.com
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| Commas Explained |
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COMMAS EXPLAINED
(965 words. This article may be freely published or distributed
as long as the author's information at the bottom remains
intact. If you use it, please notify
laroccamichael@hotmail.com.)
Don't they drive you nuts?
You can visit all the rules of style you want, and you can read
all the books and articles you want. You will still be confused.
You will see inconsistency. You will see experts who don't agree
with each other. And, you'll pull out your hair. Unless you're
Michael, since my hair's falling out all by itself. I think it'd
do that even if I weren't an editor hunting down errant commas.
Well, folks, here are some rules. A bare minimum. Internalize
these and ignore everybody else.
(1) Never put a comma between a subject and a verb. It's always
wrong. The dog, barked. What is that? Idiocy. I'm sorry, but it
is. Read it aloud, and pause at the comma. Don't you feel
stupid?
(2) If you want to separate a clause, put a comma on both sides
of it. Otherwise, no commas at all. "The dog, who held a bone in
his mouth, ran to the porch." See how there's a comma on both
sides? That's because you could skip that whole clause entirely
and it'd still be a complete sentence. "The dog ran to the
porch."
If I delete the first comma, I have to delete the second one.
You decide which looks best, two commas or none. But, one comma
doesn't work. Try deleting either one and reading the result
aloud, remembering to pause at the comma. It's a wreck, isn't
it? You don't talk like that, so don't write like that.
(3) "He saw the cat, the cat was on the couch." This is not a
good sentence. It's two sentences. The one before the comma has
subject object verb, and so does the one after the comma.
Run-ons like that can emphasize the run-on nature of a
character's words or thoughts, but use the device sparingly.
It's okay to break a rule, as long as you know what it is and
why you're breaking it.
But in the example above, it'd be best to make them two
sentences. If you find you just can't do it, consider a
semicolon. Don't believe anyone who says semicolons aren't
allowed in fiction. I wouldn't use one in the sample sentence,
but I've used them in other sentences I've written. Sparingly.
But for something as lame as a sentence about a cat on a couch,
it's best to follow the rules exactingly and make that two
sentences. Do you really think your reader's gonna pop off for a
beer or a toilet break between them and lose his place? As long
as they're in the same paragraph, they'll be read together.
(4) And finally, THE rule. It works for narrative and it works
for dialogue. Read what you've written aloud. Wherever you would
pause for breath, whack in a comma. Because, you have
internalized the rules. You've been speaking English all your
life. But as an aspiring writer, you've been so busy trying to
learn "the rules" that you've forgotten the rule you've known
all along. And you do know it!
If you'd like, you can look over some sentences in the preceding
paragraphs. You'll note some commas where they're not strictly
necessary. Often, it's where I begin a sentence with a
conjunction, also an alleged no-no. But that device can be used
sparingly to emphasize a point. And when I do that, sometimes I
whip in a comma for extra emphasis. A comma is a pause. That's
what you should note if you indulge in this exercise. I'm
pausing for emphasis. Read my sentences aloud. Pause at every
comma. The rhythm works. It's how I talk, and you won't be all
freaked out and confused as you listen because I paused in funny
places.
Speaking as an editor, I run into a lot of writers who have
problems with commas. Heck, speaking as someone who likes to
read books and newspapers and magazines, I see commas where they
shouldn't be, or missing commas where they should be. It's
because we're trying to be too fancy, drifting dangerously far
from the "write what you know" mantra because we think we're
stupid.
We're not stupid. As Sean Connery noted in FINDING FORRESTER,
critics spend a day destroying what they couldn't create in a
lifetime. That's also what I think of people who want us to
memorize hundreds of silly rules about commas. They're pauses.
Nothing more, nothing less. Pause where you want to pause, not
where you think someone else thinks you're supposed to pause.
Wanna know who's the best at this whole comma business? Sports
journalists. Some of them make up words, are given to hyperbole,
and are guilty of many other sins. But they get their commas
right. (Maybe they have good editors?) You can read what they
wrote and dang near hear their voices. You know what they said
and what they meant to say, and you can agree with them or be
totally outraged by them.
And that is, after all, what writing is. Telepathy. I'm in
Hangzhou and you are not, and you're reading this hours or
probably days after I wrote it, but you know what I'm thinking.
Stray commas would be a barrier to that. Good writers don't like
barriers.
(I say "probably days" because you don't know when I wrote what
you read. Usually several days before I send it to you. Once in
a while, a few weeks.)
Just remember that a comma is a pause, and pause wherever you
think you should. Blow off the rules--there are too many and
they just keep changing--and trust your gut. If you do that, I
think you'll find that when you seek out publication, and find
yourself working with an editor, you'll hear very little about
your commas.
Michael LaRocca is the author of four published novels and an
EPPIE 2002 Award finalist. He's been working as a full-time
author and editor since December 1999. For a complete list of
his articles, all available via autoresponder, send a blank
email to michaellarocca@sendfree.com
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| Rhetorical Questions |
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RHETORICAL QUESTIONS
(592 words. This article may be freely published or distributed
as long as the author's information at the bottom remains
intact. If you use it, please notify
laroccamichael@hotmail.com.)
Here's a question I ask as an avid reader. It's rhetorical,
which means you don't have to answer it. Which is convenient
when you think about it, since I won't hear you. I'm not
talking to you, I'm writing. The floor is all mine.
Why is it that when someone's in a fight, and someone hits
them hard enough, bright lights always explode behind their
eyes?
I've been clocked a time or two. Sows, boars, horses, falling
objects, falling Michael, a baseball bat, a nightstick,
footballs, basketballs, baseballs, kickballs, kung fu cousin,
a bad neighbor, the jaws of a leaping dog. And, never has
light exploded behind my eyes.
What usually happens to me at that point of impact is sensory
overload. I don't feel it when a hunk of metal pops me in the
mouth hard enough to split my lip and break my dentures and
send them across the room. (The dentures, not the lips.)
Sensory overload. Then a couple seconds later I see the
damage and think, "Dang, what happened?" But in books, it's
always those darn bright lights exploding behind people's
eyes.
My advice to authors, then, is this. Before you write a lot
of fight scenes, ask someone to punch you a few times. No,
I'm kidding. No lawsuits, please.
My real advice is, avoid the cliches. Don't say "a snowball's
chance in hell," say "a broccoli's chance in Bush One's White
House." It's original, see? And if you're going to write
about something you know nothing about, please do a bit of
research.
This isn't a rhetorical question, but rather a true story.
You know how in the comic books, whenever someone gets
popped, they see stars? I really did. Once. Readers of RISING
FROM THE ASHES know who "kung fu cousin" is. Clint. The naughty
boy. My hero. He's in this story. Naturally.
One time, when I was eleven years old, four of us decided to
play a game at Gramma's house. Clint, Dwayne, Barry, Michael.
Whenever we got together, someone wound up losing blood, and it
was always at Gramma's house.
In this game, which was safe by our standards, each of us had a
different large plastic ball. We went into the bedroom,
turned off all the lights, and threw them at each other.
Something hit me in the eye, hard, and I saw stars. Then we
turned the lights on, and I saw that I'd been hit by a kickball
with stars on it.
Since there was no blood, we turned off the lights and played
some more. The next day, I had a black eye. "How'd that happen?"
Mom asked. "I dunno. I think I fell out of bed." She didn't
believe me, but she pretended she did.
To continue on with rhetorical questions, here's another one.
Who cares? Note how I ended that with a question mark. Always
do that. I see this one so much that I might add it to
"Common Writing Mistakes" one day. I don't care how many times I
see it. It's still wrong. I first had this argument in 1980 with
two fellow busboys. I'll never back down. I'm edumacated.
Next week's rhetorical question... When the ghosts appear in
the haunted house, how come nobody ever leaves? Okay, I know,
Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy have done that bit already,
but my editor still busted me on that one in THE CHRONICLES
OF A MADMAN. So, I changed it. The dude left the house. If it
were me, I would. Wouldn't you?
Michael LaRocca is the author of four published novels and an
EPPIE 2002 Award finalist. He's been working as a full-time
author and editor since December 1999. For a complete list of
his articles, all available via autoresponder, send a blank
email to michaellarocca@sendfree.com
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