Grammar: The Bones of a Writer's Voice

When most people hear the word "grammar," they think of red ink and rules they half remember from school. This article is about a different kind of grammar: the habits that shape a writer's sentences.

In the old trivium, grammar came first because it teaches how language is put together. In the Trivium System, the framework Legacy Publishing uses to study an author's voice, grammar is also the first layer. It asks a simple question: how does this person build words and sentences?

The answer turns out to say a great deal about a writer. Grammar habits run mostly below conscious thought. A writer who loves the dash, or who almost never uses the passive voice, usually does it without deciding to. That is exactly why these habits are so useful. They tend to hold steady no matter what the author is writing about.

Here are the main features we look at in the grammar layer, and the terms that go with them.

Sentence types

English grammar sorts sentences into four types based on their clauses. A clause is a group of words with a subject and a verb. An independent clause can stand on its own as a sentence. A dependent clause cannot.

• A simple sentence has one independent clause. The rain stopped.
• A compound sentence joins two or more independent clauses, often with words like and, but, or so. The rain stopped, and the children ran outside.
• A complex sentence has one independent clause and at least one dependent clause. When the rain stopped, the children ran outside.
• A compound-complex sentence has two or more independent clauses and at least one dependent clause. When the rain stopped, the children ran outside, and their mother followed.

Every type has its place, and every writer leans toward some more than others. One pastor builds a sermon from short, simple sentences that land like hammer blows. Another layers clause on clause, the way a teacher lays out an argument. When we profile a voice, we note which types the author favors and where. Some writers open with simple sentences and save the complex ones for the middle of a chapter.

Sentence length and rhythm

Closely tied to sentence type is length. We look at how long the author's sentences usually run and, just as important, how much they vary. Some writers keep a steady, even pace. Others swing from a three-word sentence to a forty-word one and back again. We also notice fragments, those short bursts that are not full sentences. Used on purpose, a fragment can carry real force. Like this.

Rhythm is the music made by that variation. Read your own writing aloud and you will hear it. It is one of the first things a reader feels, even if they could never name it.

Voice: active and passive

Grammar uses the word "voice" in a narrow sense. In the active voice, the subject does the action: Grandpa built the barn. In the passive voice, the subject receives the action: The barn was built by Grandpa.

Most writing guides prefer the active voice because it is direct and clear. The passive has its place too, especially when the doer is unknown or less important than what was done. What we measure is the author's natural balance. That balance is part of their sound.

Mood

Verbs also carry a mood, which shows the writer's attitude toward what they are saying.

• The indicative mood states facts and opinions. God is faithful.
• The imperative mood gives commands or requests. Trust Him.
• The subjunctive mood speaks of wishes and things contrary to fact. If I were braver, I would have spoken up.

A teaching book may be full of imperatives. A memoir may lean on the indicative, with the subjunctive showing up in moments of regret or longing. The mix tells us how the author likes to address a reader.

Tense

Tense places action in time: past, present, or future. Many authors tell stories in the past tense and teach in the present. Some slip into the present tense to make an old memory feel alive. We note the author's main tense and how and when they shift.

Punctuation

Punctuation is a quiet signature. Some writers love the semicolon. Some never use one. Some lean on the dash, the colon, or the question mark. Others avoid the exclamation point entirely. These choices are small, but readers feel them, and a book that suddenly changes its punctuation habits can start to sound like a different person wrote it.

Diction: the words a writer chooses

Diction means word choice. Here we look at several things at once: how plain or formal the vocabulary is, which words the author returns to again and again, which words they would never use, how often they choose concrete words over abstract ones, and how strong their verbs are.

English gives writers an unusual choice. Its vocabulary draws on two great streams. Many of our most basic words come down from Old English, the language of the Anglo-Saxons. Britannica lists pairs like heaven and earth, love and hate, life and death, and day and night among them. Many more words came into English later from Latin and French. A writer who says help instead of assistance, or begin instead of commence, is leaning toward the older, plainer stream. Each choice gives a different texture.

Register and dialect

Register is the level of formality a writer uses. Everyone shifts register. You speak one way in a board meeting and another way at a family barbecue. We look at how far up and down that ladder an author moves on the page.

We also listen for the words, phrases, and turns of speech that come from a person's region, culture, faith community, or profession. Linguists use terms like dialect and sociolect for these patterns, and code-switching for moving between them. For us, the most useful question is what makes an author code-switch. A writer might slip into the language of their home church when they tell a testimony, then return to plainer speech to explain a point.

Why grammar comes first

The grammar layer is the foundation the rest of the Trivium System sits on. Logic and rhetoric, which we will cover next, deal with bigger moves: how ideas connect and how a reader is moved. Those moves are made of sentences, and sentences are made of these small, steady choices.

That is why our editors start here. When we know an author's grammar habits, we can edit a chapter without flattening it. We can fix what needs fixing and still leave the sentences sounding like the person who wrote them.

If you want to try this yourself, take a page you have written and read it aloud. Notice how long your sentences run. Circle the punctuation you use most. Underline the words you reach for again and again. You are already beginning to hear your own grammar, and that is the first step toward putting your true voice on the page.