Now. When we go to school like good little boys and girls, we're taught all these rules and norms and etiquette and stuff. Some of us latch onto these rules and norms and etiquette like it's the one thing that will save us all from damnation in the future. Others completely reject it and continue their atrocious attacks upon the language as a whole with the way they write. But if you want to really master a language and be a writer, you have to learn to cut down the middle: sometimes we should honor certain rules of writing, but other times you have to slap the norms in the face and declare your own way of doing things.
Every writer develops his or her own ticks: for better or worse, we all find ourselves falling into set habits and ways of doing things, and I'm not talking about how we plot stories out, or how we develop characters, or blah-blah-blah, although many of us do it on that macroscopic level too: what I'm talking about is the micro right now, the smallest level you can get: how we simply write down words and phrases.
Here's an example.
"Scrivener Blooms, thou art fat." Luna declared, then she leaned forwards and smiled slightly, half-lidding her eyes teasingly as she shifted eagerly on her hooves. "Now I demand thou helps me out with some new 'fun;' I have the most delightful idea in mind."
Yes, that happened and no. No. It was not very fun. No.
...I don't want to talk about it. We're. Busy with something else.
Okay, examining the sentence. We get an idea about how I construct my sentences. I abusively use commas and tend to create run-on descriptions. Note the segment here: ['fun;'] and how it's constructed: I place punctuation inside the single quotes instead of outside, although it's fairly common to see it written as ['fun';] by many authors. My word choice is fairly simplistic and note [lidding]: I've bastardized the word with my conjugation and I'm clearly a fan of double-consonants in situations where we're dealing with Unknowns. Oh, Unknowns. I love Unknowns. Do you know how many Unknowns there are in this language I'm writing in? A hell of a lot. It amuses me endlessly because a lot of grammar freaks don't recognize that what they're taught in school, even fancy-pants university, isn't necessary correct: it's not a law, but a custom. And it's really fun to get into prescriptive/descriptive grammar, but if I even touch on that I'm just going to cause screaming fits to every sane and competent writer in a two mile radius.
...I don't think that would matter, since. I'm pretty sure we're more than two miles deep in the Everfree. And Twilight, hey, Twilight? You're not a sane writer. Competent, oh yes. But no pony who spends as much time on scheduling as you is sane. And Luna's neither. She can't even do dictation spells properly, as a matter of fact. That's why she always had me to abuse. Oh, she caught what I just wrote.
Well. Now I'm covered in coffeLUNADONTLICKME.
...
Distractions aside. I've strained or broken a few rules in the sentence above. I've done an extended sentence, I've used a semicolon where a colon could arguably suffice, I kept punctuation inside the quote thingies instead of placing it outside. But how you bend rules and tenets and put mechanics to use for yourself will affect your story: let's modify the above example.
'scrivener blooms thou art fat' luna declared and she leaned forwards and smiled slightly half-lidding her eyes teasingly as she shifted eagerly on her hooves. 'now i demand thou helps me out with some new fun, I have the most delightful idea in mind.'
Minimal grammar, mass-structural transformation, and it affects both the pace and the dynamics. Lack of capitalization of names downplays the importance of the ponies named, and it has a sense of all running together. The use of a comma after [fun] creates a minor pause, but there's no longer any emphasis on [fun] because of the lack of quotes or anything similar, meaning it goes from impacting with a sense of innuendo to a simple statement.
Now, mechanics, grammar, spelling, they don't make a story. But proper use of them can, will, and does influence how your story will make an impact. I'll get more onto this topic on a later post when LUNA STOPS BITING ME BECAUSE MY MANE TASTES LIKE COFFEE HORSES OF HEAVEN I THINK SHE JUST ATE MY EAR.
~Scrivener Blooms
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