For November, I got the chance to dig into my How to Create an Alien Language series again over at the Apex Book Company blog. This month, I talked about developing the grammar for your alien language and offered a suggestion for a simple exercise.

Take a look:

To streamline the rules for your alien language’s grammar, I recommend using your names as an anchor. From there, figure out what you don’t want to use. For example, does your alien language have prepositions? Articles like “a,” “an,” or “the?” What about adverbs? Without any modifiers, your grammatical structure can be easier to write because you’re taking out some of the elements that can make grammar pretty complicated. By doing so, you’ll also minimize the need for punctuation or contractions. The minute you throw a comma into the mix, for example, you’ll probably wonder what the rules for comma usage are. Again, here the trick is to limit yourself to what you will and won’t do rather than what you could do. For right now, you’ll be better off focusing on the fundamentals of your grammar rules rather than getting distracted by dangling participles or prepositional phrases. — SOURCE: How to Create an Alien Language: Grammar Fundamentals

Based on the success of this series, I’ll probably write a few more articles about grammar before I wind things down. There are so many different directions to go in that I know I’m not quite done yet. To read the rest of the article, be sure to hop on over to Apex Book Company and check out ,em>How to Create an Alien Language: Grammar Fundamentals.

I’d also like to take a moment to mention that Jason Sizemore, Apex Book Company’s editor-in-chief, is looking for a blog editor and a slush wrangler. Both are volunteer positions at the present moment, but Jason is a savvy guy who knows exactly what he needs. If you’re looking to get your foot-in-the-door with a growing small press publisher, this is the way to do it.

Cheers!