The story of Emma, by Jane Austen, is by no means recent, and as such, there is likely nothing of value that my commentary could add to its collective cultural impact. However, I will provide a brief review before moving in a different direction.
Emma is about a seventeen-year-old girl that sees herself a little too confidently, and that causes a lot of social trouble for herself and her associates. It was a little slow, I kind of hated Emma as a character, and the primary romance is super creepy because the dude is roughly twice her age. Regardless, I enjoyed it.
With that out of the way, the bulk of this review will focus on something of particular interest to me as a writer: the grammar.
You may have noticed the bizarre spelling in the title of this article (at least I hope you did). It may interest you to know that all of those words occurred within the text of Emma. Shewd for should, chuse for choose, and huswife for housewife. Additionally, many other words are presented in ways that modern readers would consider grammatically unusual. For example, any body as two words instead of anybody as one word. This is far from a complete list, as the entirety of the text is full of archaic grammatical rules; the most bizarre by my standards was a toss-up between the use of exclamation points ! in the middle of a sentence, and using parentheses to denote actions (presently typing), also in the middle of a sentence.
Why does this matter? Old things are old, right?
Well, as a writer I encounter no shortage of people willing to correct my grammar or encourage alternatives to my writing choices. Overall, their efforts are highly appreciated, and in many ways I am extremely reliant upon their knowledge and perspectives; they find errors that I otherwise pass over. However, there is a deeper sort of truth within the weirdness in Emma, and it’s the fact that a story is not bound by its grammatical choices. A good story can be spoken or written, or even sung or danced. Images can tell a story. Music can tell a story. While reading Emma, I realized that a good story is not hampered by the constructs of a written language, because if it was it could not be translated, and even poetry can often be translated, although there are obvious difficulties in the attempt.
To summarize my point, no good story should rely on the quality of your grammar. Yes, it’s important, and yes, sloppy writing can cost you readers, but the truth is, it’ll probably be wrong in a hundred years anyway. If you’re a writer, focus on the quality of your story, the depth of your characters, and the flow of your plot, not the vessel through which all of it is delivered.
