In grade
school we were taught about the parts of the English language: Noun, pronoun,
adjective, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection. Our
teachers also tried to teach us to put these parts of language together;
sometimes they even succeeded.
Nouns
describe a person, place, thing, event or idea. Pronouns substitute for proper nouns
such as he, she and they. Adjectives describe nouns. A verb is action and the
three main forms are present, past and past participle. Adverbs describe verbs,
adjectives, and other adverbs. Prepositions link nouns/pronouns to the
sentence; some prepositions are above, across, below, but, except, up, via, and
within. A conjunction joins groups of words; examples of conjunctions are or,
either, and, if, so that, and yet. An interjection is often a singular word
that expresses an emotion or reaction such as damn, gosh, and wow.
All of these
words go together to form simple, compound, and complex sentences. All
sentences should contain complete thoughts/clauses. An independent clause can
stand alone, but a dependent clause “depends” on a joined thought to complete
the sentence. A simple sentence contains a subject and a verb. A compound
sentence contains two clauses joined together with a conjunction. Finally, a
complex sentence is one independent clause joined with one or more dependent
clauses; they are joined together with words such as although, because and
which.
The parts of
a story include setting, plot, conflict, character, point of view, and theme.
Setting includes the place and time of the story. A plot is the sequence of
events to tell the story and must contain conflict. Conflict is opposition or
struggles and helps to keep the story moving; there may be multiple conflicts,
but there should be a main one. Character can describe the people in a story or
their characteristics. Point of view is basically who the reader “views” the
story through; if the story is told through the eyes of a character keep in
mind that the character cannot tell you the thoughts of another. The theme is
the author’s message or “moral of the story”.
We have
rules in writing. But there are times when rules are better off broken.
Dialogue
doesn’t need to follow the rules of proper grammar or sentence structure if
that is NOT how the character talks. If you have a character who is illiterate
or for whom English is a second language, proper sentence structure may not
sound authentic. Make sure that you write your dialogue as the character would
speak. Don’t overdo it though, sometimes all you have to do is pepper the
dialogue with a character’s unique speech patterns and you can avoid making the
story unreadable.
Switching
point of view (POV) radically within a scene is called “head-hopping” and
normally frowned upon. There are times that you can change the POV so long as
it does not confuse the reader (as to WHO is talking or acting). A select
number of readers like to feel that they are “watching a movie” where the
camera lets you see the scene from various angles; such “head-hopping” may be
called omniscient, told in third person but moved from character to character.
If you are a beginner writer it is usually safest to begin with third-person
POV (ie: He moved across the room…) and told from the viewpoint of one chosen
character throughout the story.
Writing
exercises: Are the following sentences Simple, Compound or Complex? (answers
below)
1- Rosie
cooked the meal and she served her family dinner.
2- Jimmy
came home.
3- Brenda
and Alan sang Christmas carols.
4- I
purchased new jeans because my old jeans ripped.
5- Jim, who
is in my grade, will have gym on Fridays.
Writing
prompt: Describe the room you are in and your actions from your point of view
(first person: I see, I hear…); then describe the room from the viewpoint of
someone standing in the doorway and watching YOU (third person: She sat rocking
in the chair…) Remember that in third-person the person describing the room
cannot be in YOUR head, they cannot know HOW you feel.
[Answers: 1-
Compound; 2- Simple; 3- Simple; 4- Compound; 5- Complex]
