Into the Forest We Will Go: In vs. Into vs. In To

My goal is to always keep these Five-Minute Writing Tips so simple a child could understand them. In the case of in, into, and in to, I’ll use familiar children’s stories and fairy tales to explain when to use them. I’ll start with a short usage explanation of each, then I’ll give some examples.

In indicates position, place, or location.

He kept telling Sam-I-Am that he does not like green eggs and ham, whether they are in a tree, in a box, or in a house.

If you give a mouse a cookie and then a glass of milk, he will eventually look in a mirror to make sure he doesn’t have a milk mustache.

Into indicates movement of something toward something else.

Frustrated at being asked the same question over and over, Contrary Mary finally goes into her garden to see how it is growing.

Alice and a talking white rabbit plunged into the rabbit hole and began a grand adventure.

In to relates preceding and following occurrences.

The Seven Dwarfs walked in to find a beautiful maiden asleep inside their cottage.

The Three Bears weren’t so lucky. They came in to discover that a strange, golden-haired girl had eaten Baby Bear’s food, had broken his little chair, and had fallen fast asleep in his comfy bed.

We are fortunate to live in an imaginative world in which eating eggs and ham in a tree or giving cookies to mice seems perfectly normal. We have the right to come into our homes and remove intruders we find sleeping in our beds—and, hopefully, we never have to worry about walking in to find our beds occupied by a strange bear!