Master Your Tools

s creative writers, we aspire to wield the English language to powerful effect. However, in our passion to write creatively, we sometimes compromise the imperatives of clarity and precision. And so, after many years of professional copyediting, I share what I know with other writers in this workshop.

Grammar for Creative Writers

Be an Artist—and a Craftsman

A photographer may see through her lens images of unparalleled beauty and originality, but if she is not in command of the camera, of light, of time—her tools—she will never be able to share what she sees. If we as writers are to translate our personal visions into words in a way that readers can fully appreciate, we must cultivate a firm grasp of our tools. That means understanding grammar.

Grammar Is About Self-expression

For many people, the very word grammar is loaded with negative associations. “Grammar” may be something you vaguely recall sleeping through in high school. You may think it’s something practiced by uptight people who care nothing for self-expression, something that, like an overprotective parent, restricts you. You may imagine it to be impossibly arcane. But I promise you that grammar is in fact a means, not a hindrance, to self-expression—I’m certain my years of professional copyediting have only made me a stronger, more lucid, more self-assured writer.

Write With New Confidence

I do have to concede that grammar can be impossibly arcane. However, you needn’t concern yourself with its most obscure rules and terms unless you’re so inclined. After all, they’re obscure for a reason: they don’t come up that often. So this workshop focuses on the things that do come up often, on the rules and principles that will bring a potent clarity to your writing. It will keep the soporific terminology to a minimum. And it will, I hope, empower you to approach your writing with new confidence and craft.

What You’ll Learn

• Tense: Critical in storytelling; we’ll spend a lot of time on this
• Sequence of tense
• Mood: It comes naturally ... until it doesn’t
• Commas: Most used, most abused
• Subject–verb agreement: not always simple
• Handling quoted material
• The many faces of redundancy
• Common troublemakers
• Rules that aren’t
• Successful rule breaking (with examples from renowned writers)
• FYI: How fiction is copyedited
• Recommended resources

> Contact me to arrange a workshop: ljmackay@ymail.com or 413-585-9975

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Copyright by Laura MacKay, www.copywriter-editor.com