Last week I whined a bit about joining a review group and reading books that just weren’t—well, finished. I received a lot of responses from you all, which I love! Even if you completely disagree with me, I love hearing your perspective.

The responses to last week’s newsletter did remind me how very hard it is to be a writer, especially an Indie writer, and how difficult it is to wade through all the steps we need to in order to become successful.

So, I’ve spent all week gathering books, podcast, websites, etc to help you SAVE money when it’s time to edit and ultimately make you a better writer. Because guess what? The BETTER you are at the CRAFT of writing, the less you need to rely on an editor (especially a developmental editor, which is the most expensive.)

In my twenties, I had an unspoken attitude about that. Editing was the editor’s job and writing was my job. I had good teachers in middle school and high school and was well-equipped to handle grammar for the most part. 

But many of us aren’t. Sometimes we had terrible teachers, sometimes we were too young to care, but whatever the reason, although we are writers, we don’t understand grammar.

A story to learn from

A young writer wrote to me a few months back and asked how she could quickly fix the paragraph formatting of her book. She had contacted an editor who said they wouldn’t take on the project unless she added paragraph indents. I saw the manuscript. There were NO paragraph breaks. At all. Not to mention indents. This wasn’t a formatting issue. This was a grammar issue.

She was lucky the editor said no, because they could have easily said yes and then CHARGED her crazy prices to add in all the grammar. Why? Because it would be an extremely TEDIOUS job to do it.

Where to start?

Although I know you all aren’t like this young author, I figured we would start with the basics: GRAMMAR. I was smart enough to pick up the top book I have below for you in my twenties, a breakthrough moment in my arrogance of thinking I know everything I needed to know. LOL.

If you struggle with grammar or it has been a while since you’ve brushed up on it, you might think about checking out the resources below. Having as good a grammar as possible from the beginning will save you TIME, BACK PAIN (from hunching over to find those pesky commas) and MONEY. The less your editor needs to add in commas and break up paragraphs and change Em dashes, the less they will charge you.

Books to help with grammar

Bird-by-Bird is a great book! That’s the first grammar book I read and I have two copies of it! The English Grammar Workbook I don’t know, but I thought it looked interesting. Grammar For Fiction Writers has tons of good reviews on Amazon. 

Say What? was recommended to me by another author, but I have not yet bought it. Complete English Grammar Rules for the heavy studier in this group. Write and Edit the Damn Book just looked super cute!

WEBSITES

ProWriting Aid When you sign up for a free account you can sign up for their newsletter which sends information about grammar weekly. Learning from the things they flag on your writing helps as well.

Grammarly Same sort of thing as ProWriting Aid. I like PWA better, but many I speak to prefer Grammarly.

Writer’s Digest They have tons of blog posts on grammar. This is a direct link to their grammar blog posts.