Saturday, August 1, 2009

The Fanatic Grammatic Goes Way Past Participles

Before I start eating my nominative cases, I'd like to recommend two more grammar websites. This one from my BFF Rose Mary: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/default.aspx which, you can tell from the title, is quite as user friendly as http://www.grammarbook.com/. Moreover, it has direct applications for authors.

Next is for you technical types. It's from Mary Sell -my editor, as you might guess: http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA99&lpg=PA99&dq=grammar+%22as+him%22&sig=cBx1pFlnFy618RoiJf-ONJejoSw&ei=iitvSqrhKJLmM-rC5NYI&ct=result&id=IrfUf5nE4VUC&ots=fZc2VFyUok&output=text. That came about when I went into a panic over a sentence I loved, but GrammarCheck didn't. She finally hauled out the big guns over the issue. Oddly enough, it still remains a judgement call. But there it is.

Now, then. After all this angst over perfecting my product, here comes Geraldine Sutton Stith. We met online when she was seeking info on my publisher. Since she had already published a couple of novels, I went to her website and became intrigued. Alien Legacy, a true story of her family's experiences, looked familiar. It was a case I'd discovered when researching UFO sightings for a formal debate. (I drew 2nd affirmative.) I immediately ordered it.

It was August 21, 1955 in Kelly, Kentucky; a night burned forever into the memory of the Sutton family. This poignant tale of terror - and the resultant, enduring ridicule - could only be told exactly the way Geraldine told it - in the words of her salt-of-the-earth, God-fearing family. How else could she have communicated their thoughts and feelings in those extraordinary events?

It felt as real as listening to her tell it over the kitchen table. I could hear her soft accent, see the steep, wooded hills of Kentucky that enfold you like a mother's embrace; yet understand fully the stark horror of strange lights and unhuman beings curiously exploring the grounds and peering through windows.

Yes, Geraldine Sutton Stith told it like it was, and grammar be hanged. If my publisher accepts her, I hope they accept her completely.