Writing Tips for the Grammatically Challenged: 5 Tricks That Will Turn Your Sentences from Sloppy to Savvy

There’s a rumor floating around that the English language was created specifically to confuse and frustrate innocent people and cause unnecessary stress every time a complex sentence is in need of construction. Whether or not that’s true, I will admit it takes time and a whole lot of patience to learn all the ins and outs of our complicated and beautiful language.

If you were lucky enough to have a few fairy godmothers for teachers — like I did — then you had inspiration floating around you like pixie dust every time a story was read aloud or a new book was assigned. And whenever it was time to practice complex grammatical subjects, you tossed the entire contents of your desk to find the precious red pencil that would help you work magic.

The Nerds Know

It didn’t take me long to find my nerdy niche in life, and trust me, I embraced it fully, devouring book after book and finding joy in opening the dictionary to random pages to scour for obscure words. My point is this: it’s important to go to the right source when you’re trying to perfect a specific skill.

I suck at math…really, abysmally suck at it. I mean, I can do “sale math” like a whiz. I can figure out a pretty close total at a BOGO book sale or a 33% off shoe sale. I’ll walk away with a bargain, no doubt. But ask me to figure out how many gallons of gas a plane flying from Dallas to D.C. will need if the wind is blowing from the southeast at 12 mph and the pilot is 6'2" tall, and I can guarantee that plane will run out of fuel and fall from the sky in a flaming blaze of glory.

You should most assuredly go to a MATH genius for that kind of hard-core brain pain.

Gather Those Who Love the Rules of Grammar

The English language is daunting. It’s full of inconsistencies and irregularities that sneak up on every one of us and try to trip us up. The language makes itself pretty darned impossible, and unless you love to sit around and read grammar tutorials from cover to cover, it’s easy to step in a pothole every now and then.