Write right.

A captive audience!

Talk right, write better was a great panel. It was witty, well-prepared, and definitely valued the importance of the Oxford comma. Through all of the speeches about grammar, one thing which stuck out was a question from a 15yo audience member. At question time, this boy stated that he reads a lot of YA fiction, and wondered whether or not the panelists think that writing with grammatical correctness is important when penning YA dialogue. This made me think of one of my pet hates – YA books where the characters are incredibly witty and not at all awkward. Is grammar important when writing the dialogue of a character whose background and interests clearly show that they wouldn't be grammatically correct? This is the sort of writing that throws me out of a story. It causes this massive disconnect when I read about a teenage boy speaking the way an educated, 20-something would. I'm a little pedantic – I'll admit that – but dialogue is a completely different ballgame. This is a bold statement, but I think it is impossible to write a YA novel and have the characters be grammatically correct. There are some exceptions to the rule, but not many. Nicole Hayes brought up an interesting point in answer to this question, which was that although she tries to write teenage dialogue which stays true to life, she also tries to avoid inserting any year-specific slang. This helps the book age well, and keeps a reader in 2014 from feeling that the novel is too 2004. Is grammar important? Absolutely. One must remember that there is always a middle ground, and that it's there to keep from alienating readers. Just because a book is written well doesn't mean that it has to be written perfectly. There are certain rules that a writer should stick to, but sometimes the best books are written simply. I'm a sucker for beautiful prose and I always really appreciate a well-written book, but there are also books written simply that I've fallen in love with. Sometimes the story is enough to carry a book, but I often find that downright bad writing turns me off completely.