2010 - 08
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Dan Baird
I'm doing some judging for novels for a Canadian genre writing organization (I won't say which one yet, as the judging is ongoing).
But I've got a beef. I'm on the third novel to be read (oh trust me, there's more than three). And so far, it took everything in me to not throw the first one at the wall in disgust on an almost per-page basis.
When you think about authors...either those making a living at it, or those attempting to get to that stage, is one of your first thoughts that they should be...well...writerly? By that I mean, that anything they hand off for judging is written as best they can, gone over and over for any grammatical or spelling errors? Yeah? Me too.
So, to be clear, I'm not discussing plots, dialogue, believability of characters, anything like that. That's fine, and it'll be part of my judgement.
What I'm talking about here is basic English grammatical and spelling skills. I'm talking about misspelled words that, when run through a basic spellcheck, will show up in all their glaring erroneous glory.
I know all about the evil bane that is the spellcheck on computers. My most common mistake is to type "fro" when I really mean "for". It also comes out when I'm typing "form"...I get "from" and no spellcheck is going to highlight either word, as they're both fine words...just not the ones I want.
I'm talking about wanting to say "so" and instead typing "s o". Two stray letters floating around, lost in a sea of words.
I get the grammar issue a little more. I understand that many people don't know they have to enclose the comma within the quotes when typing dialogue. For example: "Hello," said John. Instead, I see the comma on the outside of the quotes, or no comma, or a period, or nothing at all. Again, if this was consistent, so the writer is doing the same thing over and over, no problem. They think that's correct. No problem. A little research--say, picking up ANY published book and looking at it--would solve the issue, as would a quick gallop through Strunk & White's brilliant "Elements of Style" but still, I get it.
It's when they do all of the above on a single page that drives me completely bugshit.
Getting back to it. Yes, I'm happily reading away. I'll admit the first manuscript I read was awful on all points. Grammar, spelling, plot, characters, dialogue, you name it. Simply wretched.
The second manuscript was the polar opposite. Professional, all mistakes have been removed with a fine-toothed comb and a great story to boot. Exactly what I expected from all the entries. The third one? Great story, great characters, not bad on the dialogue, but the grammatical and spelling mistakes are killing me.
And the sad thing? Had the author just taken the time to fix that aspect, this novel would have been just as much of a contender as the second novel I read. But I simply cannot excuse sloppiness.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not perfect and my guess is, there will be mistakes in this blog, as I rarely check them prior to posting. But this blog isn't being submitted to someone else for comparison to others with the shot at bragging rights and the good chance that someone will take a hard look at it to get it published.
Lazy. And I don't know why.
Bugs the crap outta me.
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