Knowing when and how to break the rules is the other half of the battle.

Mrs. Crabapple would write sentences on the blackboard and ask “What is the subject of this sentence?” and half the class would raise their hands.  Then she would draw a sharp-edged box around that portion of the sentence.  We learned our grammar, or else suffer the displeasure of Mrs. Crabapple.

You don’t want to write like a 6th grader

Because grammar rules are not absolutes.  Being slavishly bound to form can stifle our creative instincts.  Mrs. Crabapple would be horrified with the way I started this paragraph, with a conjunction.  It breaks the rules.

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Everyone should have a copy of Strunk & White’s “The Elements of Style”.  Have it.  Know it.  Be able to use it.  Because (oops there I did it again) one must be thoroughly familiar with the rules before one can break them successfully.

The most important thing

Real writing shouldn’t be sterile, or sanitized.  As a writer your first duty is to capture and hold the interest of the reader.

“The pen must at length comply with the tongue” — Samuel Johnson

What that means is that language, and grammar, isn’t frozen, it’s fluid, changing, evolving, as we do.  The writer who understands this and can use it effectively will be 3 steps ahead of those who don’t.

The rules work best, when they are our servants, not our masters.