Lists come up in writing all the time when you want to keep together multiple items. They can be made up of words, phrases, or entire clauses. For the list to make the most sense and flow well, each item in the list needs to be parallel to the others. This means each item of the list must make sense independently with the list introduction. That’s confusing. Here’s an example.

Imagine someone telling you a story at a party. It would be a hilarious story—except that they suck at telling it. Their words are jumbled, and they’re so long-winded, and they messed up the punchline. It’s just a mess. This is what line editing fixes in your story.

Language changes and develops with the people speaking it. We do not speak the same in 2022 as we did in 1622. Not even the same as we did fifty years ago! Conventions and meanings change. This means we may have been taught rules that are no longer important. And somehow, some of us have been taught things that were never rules in the first place.

I want to go through some of these grammar “rules” that aren’t rules at all so we can stop worrying about them.

There is a lot that goes into writing a book. Then, after you finish writing the book, there’s still a million more things to do! I hope this post will help you stay on track and take all the necessary steps to publish your book.