BREAKING THE LAWS OF GRAMMAR: Bargain Wash and Clip

(NOTE: Oh, a little monkey playing on his one key/Gives them all the cue/To do the Monkey Doodle Doo/Let me take you by the hand/Over to the jungle band/If you’re too old for dancing/Get yourself a monkey gland/And then let’s/Go, my little dearie, there’s the Darwin theory/Telling me and you/To do the Monkey Doodle Doo)

Crime. Looks ominous, right? With its connotations of dark skullduggeries, nefarious plots, underhanded schemes, foul play, and shrouded identities, crime appeals to the inner child still smarting from the spanking it took for bad behavior in the late eighties. To be a criminal is to be free from the adult world where laws circumscribe the days. A criminal can do whatever she or he wants, and when.

Laws are for citizens; crime is for the daring, the swashbuckler, the pirate, the elusive and always romantic highwayman demanding, “Stand and deliver.” Ask any career criminal, especially those smart enough not to get caught, what is the sweetest crime and they will say it’s the one committed with knowledge of the law being broken. That’s where the true charge lies, more so than the money or property acquired.

BACK IN THE REAL WORLD

The writer, like a citizen obeying traffic lights, depends on the laws of grammar to travel from one reader to the next. Grammar gives shape to language and encourages understanding. A declarative sentence must have a subject, verb, and predicate. Never join independent clauses with a comma. Statements must always be in the positive form. The list grows as a writer learns more about their craft and can be overwhelming when trying to express an idea or action that calls for breaking the laws. Should they be good and follow Strunk and White? Go ahead, you writer, be a criminal.

CHANDLER’S DAMN EDITOR

After years of publishing with Alfred and Blanche Knopf, Raymond Chandler jumped to Houghton Mifflin in search of greater sales. He had been well edited at Knopf, but the people at Houghton did not understand Chandler’s approach to storytelling. His characters had to sound real and reflect the American English he heard on the streets, in the bars, and riding with on duty police officers in Los Angeles. After submitting the manuscript for The Long Good-bye to his new publisher, it was returned to him scarred by an editor’s blue pencil. Some of the corrections he accepted, and for others he had this to say: “When I split an infinitive, I mean it to be split, damn it.”

Grammar had been pounded into him during his years as a public schoolboy in England, but he was adamant that the story came first. Anything less would harm the reader’s trust in what he was doing and why.

BAGGED AND TAGGED

An attendee at a writer’s conference complained on her assessment, “The instructor you stuck me with kept talking about grammar. That crap is a waste of time.” Only a tyro would say something that dumb. A professional writer thinks about grammar every time they sit down to a blank screen or empty page. When the temptation arises to leave the laws behind, it is done with full knowledge of the transgression, making the result as sweet as the most daring crime. Good writing is subversive, criminal, and much more fun to write and read.

ANOTHER PLUG IN A SERIES OF PLUGS

Cool autumn comes in and a writer’s fancy turns to The Dog Walked Down the Street: An Outspoken Guide for Writers Who Want to Publish (Cypress House, $13.95). Your local independent bookstore has copies available for reading after an afternoon of raking leaves and putting up preserves. You deserve the relaxation provided by this thin volume of thick thoughts. Summer was too hot for doing much anyway, except drinking adult beverages. Perky salespeople at your local independent bookstore will accept either cash or credit, and offer a receipt in return for next year’s taxes. The Dog promises and delivers what you need to know now. Log on to www.indiebound.com for the store nearest you.

NEXT: You Call That a Collar?

SIMILES FOR RENT: De-worming Makes New Friends

(NOTE: I got the key to the highway / Billed out and bound to go / I'm gonna leave here running, people / Because walking is most too slow / I'm going back to the border / Before they put up the fence / Where I'm better known / Because you haven't done nothing, baby / Except drove a good man away from home / When the moon peeks over the mountains / Baby, I'm gonna be on my way / I'm gonna roam this mean old highway / Until the break of day)


Mr. Detroit is on the telephone, loud as an over-aged Arrowsmith roadie who spent his formative years too close to the amplifiers. This limits the exchange expected in a conversation. Quotation marks for Mr. Detroit are used anyway.

“What’s with not including similes in your post about metaphors and analogies? That’s like building a house out of sugar cubes and expecting to move in after the rain lets up. You got to have it all, otherwise language just sits on the page without any animating force. Analogies use ‘as,’ metaphors just are, and similes use ‘like.’ Push this rule so the confusion is cut down.”

I thought I did.

“Nope. I have a close personal friend who looks like she would make a bishop kick in a stained glass window, and she agrees. A writer knows the names of the tools in his or her box and their proper usage. The reader wants only the experience of the story, not to stumble over the hammers and wrenches of grammar left lying around after the job is finished. Tidy your mess.”

You’re hard to please.

“The division of similes and metaphors is a matter of degree. A simile states that this is like that, while the metaphor is less explicit and encourages the reader to find a connection. A lot of hairs get split on this, and pulled out in frustration.”

So if a character sticks out like spats at an Iowa picnic, this is a simile?

“Excellent illustration. Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) started writing short stories for the pulp magazines when he was forty-five, two years younger than Lawrence Sterne when he turned to the novel. What set Chandler apart from other detective genre writers was his approach to American English as a foreign language. He played with the figures of speech and turns of phrase that came from the American tongue in novels like THE BIG SLEEP, THE LITTLE SISTER, and THE LONG GOODBYE. When he was good, Chandler’s descriptive sentences shined like the gold in old paintings. When he was bad, he was still Chandler, walking down the mean streets a man must go who is himself not mean.”

GEORGE WHITMAN (1913–2011)

In exchange for reading one book a day and writing a biographical sketch in any of the blue exercise books scattered around, George Whitman gave shelter to the broke and busted traveler in Paris. He started out selling books on the street after World War II until he had enough to open Le Mistral on rue de la Bûcherie in the Quartier Latin, later changing the name to Shakespeare & Co in honor of Willie the Shake’s 400th birthday and the book shop begun by Sylvia Beach in the 1920s. In his quieter moments (and there were few), George confessed to being the great grandnephew of Walt Whitman. On the outside of his shop he installed a plaque commemorating his relative that read in French, “Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me? And why should I not speak to you?” Thousands spoke to George over the years. Shakespeare & Co remains, run by his daughter, Sylvia.

HAVE A HOLLY JOLLY WHATEVER

For the generous of heart and wallet, no holiday stirs the soul like Christmas. Why? Advertising. From television and print to the giant junkyard of the internet, ads shuck off their regular somber colors and get bouncy in red and gold and green. Ever heard of Santa dressed in dour tweed? I thought not. To commemorate the holiday season and wrench the last dollars from your pocket, purchase several copies of THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH (Cypress House, $13.95). These make great gifts, even stocking stuffers if the socks are big enough, and will provide chuckles and insight throughout the years to come. Run to www.indiebound.com for the nearest independent bookstore that sells this award-winning, gosh-almighty book.


NEXT: Scratching and Napping