Grammar-crammer… who cares about how verb tenses; dangled, misplaced, and squinted modifiers; and that dreaded passive voice? You should! 

Most people would rather have a paper cut on the inside of their lip than learn better grammar. But good writing requires good grammar. Without it, you can’t really be sure your reader will understand the information you’re trying to convey, the story you’re trying to tell, and the mental picture you’re trying to paint. 

The Grammar Divas (an English teacher and a professional copywriter, both budding novelists) do something most “grammar-for-better-writing” books, courses, and websites don’t do—focus on grammar for fiction writing. 

First, we’ll go over the basics to ensure you haven’t forgotten everything from school. Then, we’ll move onto issues that affect sentence structure and paragraph development. Next, we’ll review the finer points of punctuation and style as well as common grammar errors. Then, we’ll show you how to enhance your writing’s curb appeal to make the most of your writing’s appearance, readability, and impact. After that, we’ll demonstrate how cutting the fat from your writing is the quickest and surest way to improve your writing. Finally, we’ll solve some crimes against sentence, sharing the grammatical forensics you can use to uncover evidence of poor writing and troubleshoot problem sentences.

This workshop has been canceled.

This workshop will be conducted via a Yahoo! email loop.  Email invitations will be sent 48 hours prior to the beginning of the workshop.

Just register for the workshop and complete the payment process via PayPal.  The cost is $10.00 for FFnP members and $25.00 for non-FFnP members.  If you are a member of FFnP be sure you are logged into the website before you register to get the member price.  Payment is due at time of registration.  

Grammar wasn't Annie Oortman's first love (actually, it was a cute boy in her second-grade class named Henry Talley) or even her second (avoiding barn work). However, after getting an A for content but an F for readability on a third-grade book report, she learned having great ideas was one thing, communicating them well on paper another. Annie became a disciple of the church of Proper Grammar and card-carrying member of The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar (www.spogg.org). Nowadays, she diagrams sentences for fun (yes, for fun), corrects her children when they say "I did good on the test" (I did well.), and argues with fellow grammar devotees on the acceptability of ending a sentence with a preposition (don't do it).

BTW, Annie is hoping to see her name on the cover of a fiction novel soon... very soon. (And, if you’re wondering, Henry Talley never even noticed Annie as he had a mad crush on blonde-haired, blue-eyed Libby Boxler.)


Darlene Buchholz fell in love in the first grade with a boy named Neil. He shared his crackers and milk at recess after someone took her snack and never got caught. She’s loved romance and intrigue ever since. By the third grade, she discovered Nancy Drew mysteries and developed a great passion for perky heroines who drove convertibles (proof they were in charge of their own lives). She wrote her own one-hundred-page mysteries, giving the heroine a much better hero than wimpy Ned Nickerson, who seemed more fashion accessory than hero. What woman wouldn’t prefer a cowboy or a cop named…well, Neil, of course? 

Darlene never thought of grammar as a challenge. It was, instead, a tool to help her express the ideas she felt passionate about. She served as a peer mentor in junior high and high school. Becoming a high school English teacher was a natural for Darlene. She loved sharing ideas expressed in great literature and exposition. 

Now, family raised, Darlene has decided to write stories again. She writes romantic suspense, and sometimes her heroines drive trucks rather than convertibles. Her heroes are still cowboys and cops. She hopes to publish soon.