Grammar Woes?

Anyone who talks to me about writing quickly discovers my passion for grammar. Ok, passion may be an understatement. I love participial phrases and appositives and subordinate clauses and the rest. They are the tools of the writing trade; the words we choose and the order in which we place them in a sentence comprises part of the lofty "author's voice."

In the past, I've questioned whether it is the author's responsibility to have a strong grasp of grammar, or if that lies under the purview of an editor; I've concluded that, in a market as competitive as this, an author can't give an editor any reason to reject his or her manuscript--which includes sloppy grammar.

Because I truly love teaching grammar and believe every writer can gain something from reviewing the basics, I'm starting weekly "lessons" on my blog called SMUG Mondays.

SMUG, or Syntax-Mechanics-Usage-Grammar, encompasses four areas of sentence creation that adheres to basic, universal rules.

Here's where you come in: There are a vast number of topics that could be covered in SMUG that need to be pared down. To do so, I need a little input. What grammar questions do you have? What do you think would be most useful to have explained?

Also, feel free to stop by the skylarverse to see the first SMUG post!

SMUG Monday, Week 1: The Basics