Story writing
Dahlia Bartley, Contributor

I hope you have been paying close attention to the lessons we have done so far on story writing because today is the final lesson on that topic. Now, many students fail to get a good mark for the story they write in the exam because they commit one of the following 'sins'.

• Undeveloped storyline
• Undeveloped characters
• Unconnected series of episodes
• Too much 'static' dialogue, which serves little or no purpose
• Total disregard for the title or stimuli given
• Failure to bring the story to a climax
• Long, tedious and irrelevant build up to the climax
• Immature writing style
• Careless grammatical errors.

You should not make these mistakes. Of course, you must practise to write stories. Share them with your friends, as I have previously suggested, and ask your teachers to vet some for you.

Let us do some work on grammar. I realise that there are some students who still do not know the difference between 'students' and 'student's'. Some persons are using the 's to form the plural form of a noun! This is definitely wrong. We will focus, therefore, on one use of the apostrophe - to show possession. Carefully examine the following sentence:

Apostrophe

I am holding Mark's bag until he returns from the canteen.

The apostrophe is added to Mark to show that the bag 'I am holding' belongs to him. The 's is added to nouns that are animate. Note, also, that sometimes a country or a place is referred to as a person, hence, we speak of a country's cultural heritage, or of May Pen's domestic water supply. I must quickly point out that there is an exception to this rule with regard to time and money. So we may talk about five hundred dollars' worth of gas or in an hour's time.

I am sure that you have heard of the school's cricket team or the government's position on crime. The collective words school and government have been used. In light of the previous discussion about nouns which are animate, can you figure out why the 's is used with school and government?

Here is another sentence:

The legs of the table were covered by the tablecloth.

You should never say, or write, The tablecloth covered the table's legs or The car's wheels turned rapidly as Mr Brown drove down the hill. So what do we notice, then? We notice that when the object does not have life (in other words, is inanimate) the words of are used in place of the 's .

Correct placement

Now, what of the correct placement of the apostrophe? The 's comes immediately after the last letter in the word, which identifies the owner of the object. For example, Laurel is the owner of an item. We write, then, Laurel + 's = Laurel's. What if we replace Laurel with a word which ends with the letter s? Let's try James. Oh, yes, I see the minds ticking! We apply the same rule, that is, James + 's = James'. (This time we do not need the second s). Many of us refer to this as the apostrophe outside. See how easy this is? You can do a quick check to test if you have placed the 's in its right position by looking carefully at the word to which you have added the apostrophe. Think of the word without the apostrophe. Are you left with a word which you recognise? So, if you had thought of writing Jame's in the example above, you now know that it would be incorrect. If you remove the 's, you would be left with Jame and not James. To write babie's toys or childrens' games is simply a no, no! After all, neither you nor I will ever meet the word babie or childrens. Now, let's examine the use the apostrophe to show ownership in the following:

Warren team: Warren's team

Jamaica cricketers: Jamaica's cricketers

Bag outer flap: The outer flap of the bag

puppy - nose: The puppy's nose

puppies - bowl: The puppies' bowl

Ladies - shoes: The ladies' shoes

A dollar - worth: A dollar's worth

Carlos - goal: Carlos' goal

blouse - collar: The collar of the blouse

House - roof: The roof of the house

Five years - time: Five years' time

Possessive form

Note carefully where the apostrophe is placed.

To indicate the possessive form of a compound noun, use the 's with the last word of the compound, for example, mother-in-law's (singular); mothers- in-law's (plural). Please look at this carefully. What happens in the case of joint ownership? The apostrophe is used with only the last name. Again, we will examine this. If Dimples and her brother, Donny, owned a bicycle, we would write Dimples and Donny's bicycle, or Donny and Dimples' bicycle. I hope you understand why the position of the apostrophe is different in each case. Should you write Dimples' and Donny's bicycles, then you are indicating that Donny and Dimples each has a bicycle.

Let me close with your homework.

Use the apostrophe, where necessary.

• Marcia - car
• Kitchen - cabinet
• Mr Jones - office
• Spain- dominance in the New World
• Car - horn
• Charles and Mary restaurant (joint ownership)
• House - window

Dear Readers,

It is with great regret that we inform you of the recent passing of Dahlia Bartley. We wish to extend our deepest condolences to her family, friends, colleagues and her students in this time of bereavement.

Sherifa Munroe, NCB Foundation scholarship awardee looking at a chart at a recent expo with students from Winston Jones High School. - Contributed

Dahlia Bartley teaches at Glenmuir High School.