A few quick notes on grammar issues I’ve seen a lot lately in my reading. First, may vs. might. An example:
Hero worried as he watched Heroine disappear into the cave.
She may find more than she expected there.
Nope! (Insert game-show buzzing sound here.) Simple rule: might is the past tense of may. If you’re writing a narrative in the past tense, use might.
Hero worried as he watched Heroine disappear into the cave.
She may might find more than she expected there.
The next issue is a bit trickier. There are a bunch of verbs in English that have the same pattern of vowel shifts from present tense, to past tense, to past participle: i to a to u. I sing, I sang, I have sung. Other verbs that follow the i-a-u pattern (not an exhaustive list) include ring, spring, swim, drink, and sink.
The problem I notice most often is that people use sunk where they should use sank. The easiest rule here is: No sunk without a helping verb.
English, of course, is chock full of helping verbs, aka auxiliary verbs, which signal all sorts of useful information depending on the sentence. Now I hope you brought your tortilla chips, because I’m about to get cheesy enough to make extra-deluxe nachos. Here is the poem I was taught in 7th grade that lists every single one of those verbs:
Is are am was were can could;
May might must ought to shall should;
Do did have has had will would;
These are the helping verbs so good,
Plus be, being, been, and does.
Mmm, nachos.
So if you want to say the ship was sunk, or has been sunk, fine. But without one of those nifty little auxiliaries, the ship sank.
But this is English, land of irregularities! So we also have i-verbs like blink, which forms the past tense in the usual way, by adding -ed; fling, which goes straight to flung for both the past and the participle; and bring, whose past tense is … brought. Doncha just love this language?
Not sure which conjugational (I think I just made that word up) category one of these pesky verbs falls into? Thanks to the glory of the Interwebz, there are sites like Verbix and Reverso that will conjugate verbs for you. Scientificpsychic.com shows the different forms of all parts of speech, not just verbs.
One final note: “alright” is not a word in English, or at least American English — I can’t swear for other dialects. Some authors use it anyway, as a stylistic choice. But for the record, there’s no such animal. So if you don’t have a compelling reason for using it, say “all right” instead, and spare picky readers like me. 
Question:
I mentioned this in email to you, but I use alright in dialogue (if I use it otherwise I need to go back and fix it) because when I hear people say ‘all right’ my brain hears “alright” and when i see “all right” on a page it trips me up. Does “all right” not make you do a double take?
I think we’re probably stuck with alright. If it’s not a word yet it’s going to become one, IMO.
On a side note, would you be willing to be a beta reader for me for when I get ready for them for Save My Soul?
No, it’s the opposite for me; “all right” looks normal and “alright” trips me up. Part of it is just that the editor in me cringes at “incorrect” usage.
In general, lots of words are run together when spoken, but they’re still written separately, so my brain hears “all right” however it would be said in the scene where it’s written, because it’s not always spoken all run together. For instance, “Are you all right?” often tends to sound more like “alright,” but someone giving assent to a proposition, say, after some thought, is more likely to say “All right,” more drawn out.
I think you’re probably right that eventually “alright” will be accepted as a word, but I still have that instinctive discomfort with it, so I’m fighting a rearguard action for now.
And yes, I’d be happy to be a beta reader!
Awesome, I’m adding you to the list! Thanks! I can always use more grammar nazis in my life.
wow that looks really weird “nazis.” Is that right? (See how needed you are?)
LOL, yeah — I suppose it should be capitalized, but yeah. Isn’t it funny how words just sometimes look wrong? An everyday word can suddenly become alien.
I know! It happens with talking, too. Like if I say a word out loud too many times it starts sounding stupid. Like it’s not even a real word anymore.
Yes, exactly! I think it happens even more with spoken than written language, in fact, at least IME. One of the weirdnesses of the hoomin brain … something my inner linguist would love to study.
You’re quite right with this blog!!!