How to avoid a badly written story.

[Zombie]

No contractions. I am instead of I'm.

 

is puzzled... if this refers to dialogue surely that's how we naturally speak?

 

We writers may write the way we want as long as we are aware that there are rules and principles in fiction and as long as we are prepared to take criticism when the rules of the craft are not adhered to.

 

I'm not sure if you're saying web stories are / should be subject to different "rules" than published writing and, if so, why? Or is this mainly about short story writing? Also "rules" can be driven by fashion - and nothing dates quicker than fashion. Personally I like variety and style

 

Occasional variation is good and sometime necessary. I can't think of a way to indicate that something is muttered/whispered without varying from "said", using adverbs ("said quietly") or excessive narration. Shouted is a little easier. The use of an exclamation point, the sparing use of all caps, or using italics are ways to indicate shouting without explicitly calling it out. I find using "said" instead of "asked" when it's a question grating.

 

Agreed Here's Stephen Fry

 

    "Yes?" sneered Bennett-Jones.

 

A single word conveys the precise tone of BJ with delicious precision. How else would you write this with such economy and humour? As LJH said earlier "a story should employ the principle of economizing words. Tell the story in as few words as possible" - because life is short, so economy and humour [cram as much as you can into your short life] are things I definitely look for in good writing

 

When a character asks a question, should the attribution be he asked or he said? Some feel that the question mark makes he asked redundant. Still, asked is as invisible as said, so if you wanna use it for variety on occasion, go ahead.

 

Yes, "asked" is fine and sometimes necessary:

 

"Are you happy here?" he asked reads more naturally and concern is implicit, whereas "he said" would seem lifeless and make the question stilted.

 

Homophones. Using the incorrect word, like there/their, irritates the hell out of me. I wonder where the writer was on the day teacher taught that. It's pure laziness.

 

Yes! Trouble is I do this myself - all the time *flicks through Yellow Pages for brain rewiring procedures...*

 

A reader buys a book because he wants it to be flawless. 

 

That's not me There can be beauty in flaws - your ungrammatical extracts from Arundhati Roy show this well - and beauty is never perfect I read because I want to be taken on a ride, bumps and all

 

[LJH]

For some reason the Quote button is not working for me today...sigh

 

Zombie: Here's my opinion. Whether writing for the web or for mainstream publishing, or self, yes self, the rules remain. A rushed manuscript, and by that I mean where the deadline has passed and the publisher now rushes it to print without proper editing, to me, is like a flopped cake. The critics will have a field day. I buy books under the impression that the story has been polished to perfection. Why would I want to buy a book or read a story on the web where an author has, by mediocre writing, not offered me a creation of excellence? Why should I invest my time on a substandard product where the author has not invested a semblance of perfection? Not being cocky, just thinking out loud. Nope, some may say well that's just fine with me. I love spotting mistakes in a published novel or an online story. If a writer wants to be classed as a writer, h/she would do well to invest in a writing course. Forget about high school writing. In mainstream it doesn't work because in high school we are taught to TELL it as we see it. Essay form. What I am trying to get at is that a writer should invest time in self editing, and I mean pedantic editing, before submitting to anywhere. My early writing sucks. I thought I could write. To hell with anyone who doesn't want to read my stuff, I thought. My work was riddled by errors. I still make mistakes, but I know that my name is on the line when I offer a substandard work, so I have learned how to edit so that I can be the very best I can be when I write. Not everyone thinks the same way.

 

Hope the yellow pages helped. LOL.

Edited January 22, 2014 by LJH

[Zombie]

Ah, yes, the need to have someone else - a good editor - and satisfactory editing I understand (at the very least a fresh pair of eyes). That aside, though, I'm puzzled by the notion that to be a good writer necessitates going on a writing course when so many successful writers have never been near one, from Doris Lessing (acclaimed Nobel laureate) to Jeffrey Archer (best selling trash).  Maybe for editors (and Archer must surely have a whole team... ), although I'd guess those at the major publishing houses will have read English at university, will have read extensively, and will have learned by experience what sells.  The fact is that of those who go the writing course route only a tiny fraction will ever achieve writing success - it is dishearteningly miniscule

Language never came with a rulebook, people invented it and shaped it, often according to their own will, and grammar and syntax evolved so meanings would be clear. Beyond that, though, what's important for me is imagination, wit and style (the facility to arrange words in a way that captivates and delights the reader).  I think some of the best writers learn these things from their own life experiences rather than from writing classes
 

*still looking through Yellow Pages *

[Aditus]

Do we measure a story by the use of correct grammar? I think not, at least not me. If it's a beautiful, witty inventive story I can overlook errors, in English easier than in German of course, but I do it in both languages. Sometimes a story would even lose its charm would it be written by the book.

That said I am very thankful to have my editors and beta, because when I write a story in English I hate making mistakes, at least grammatical mistakes, spelling errors etc. How I write a story though, which words I use or not use, whether I follow certain/common stylistic requirements or not that's my decision and I stand by it (this is not correct, huh?)

[LJH]

Do we measure a story by the use of correct grammar? I think not, at least not me. If it's a beautiful, witty inventive story I can overlook errors, in English easier than in German of course, but I do it in both languages. Sometimes a story would even lose its charm would it be written by the book.

That said I am very thankful to have my editors and beta, because when I write a story in English I hate making mistakes, at least grammatical mistakes, spelling errors etc. How I write a story though, which words I use or not use, whether I follow certain/common stylistic requirements or not that's my decision and I stand by it (this is not correct, huh?)

 

 

 

Ah, yes, the need to have someone else - a good editor - and satisfactory editing I understand (at the very least a fresh pair of eyes). That aside, though, I'm puzzled by the notion that to be a good writer necessitates going on a writing course when so many successful writers have never been near one, from Doris Lessing (acclaimed Nobel laureate) to Jeffrey Archer (best selling trash).  Maybe for editors (and Archer must surely have a whole team... ), although I'd guess those at the major publishing houses will have read English at university, will have read extensively, and will have learned by experience what sells.  The fact is that of those who go the writing course route only a tiny fraction will ever achieve writing success - it is dishearteningly miniscule

 

Language never came with a rulebook, people invented it and shaped it, often according to their own will, and grammar and syntax evolved so meanings would be clear. Beyond that, though, what's important for me is imagination, wit and style (the facility to arrange words in a way that captivates and delights the reader).  I think some of the best writers learn these things from their own life experiences rather than from writing classes

 

*still looking through Yellow Pages *

 

 

I'm enjoying this discussion.  It's wrong of me to be a discerning reader. I am wrong about all of this.    Doctors of Literature/Letters/ Professors of English who have studied languages and set the rules, they are all wrong too. Why, because language never came with a rule book.    Grammar doesn't mean anything.   Mistakes are cool.  It's okay to write a trashy sentence and pass it off as imagination. Students pass English by making mistakes in their English exam and not following the rules of grammar.   Let's have every book in the future riddled with mistakes on every page and every line.   So I want a doctor to tend to my illness, hey, hang on, maybe a lawyer can help.   To become a doctor I go to medical school.   To become a lawyer I go to law school. Just like the English language, the rules of medicine and law evolved. But these two disciplines have rules. 

 

To become a good writer, I need to learn the craft. 

 

When I  submit my novel or short story to a publisher, and some websites, especially those who pay, they will take special notice of how I write, what I write, and how I involve the reader.  Publishers have House Standards.  My work WILL be changed.  Style - well, that's where I come in. Maybe it's the fashion to delete every comma.  I may THINK I have written the story in the correct POV and style, only to be told to rewrite using another POV and style.  In various instances of language and rules, it's really not my decision.  I don't like it, well, they will simply tell me to take it elsewhere. 

 

It's all about what is acceptable for submission to an agent/publisher.  Elementary mistakes = slush pile.  Incredible talent has to be tethered and honed before a publisher and some online sites will look at it.  Remember, they don't need me. I need them.    I read substandard work all the time.  I recognise a beautiful story/plot and it is trashed by not applying the correct techniques. 

 

Yes, I do measure a beautiful story by the grammar used, because a beautiful story must be told well and yes, if the grammar stops me from reading I will not read further.  The author has a beautiful story, a brilliant idea but useless when it comes to following the rules that have been created over thousands of years as Zombie said.  Sorry, not interested.  Close the book, throw it in the trashcan.  Exactly what I did with Fifty shades. Millions of people all over the world read it.  I read the first five pages and threw it in the trashcan.  Boring. But she made millions. Publishers have a knack of knowing what will sell at the right time.  They study trends. Hmmmm, that reminds me, I have a trendy, marketable book in my bottom drawer.  LOL

 

If a book is written according to the rules of fiction and grammar in a beautiful style, has a brilliant plot, characters with whom I can identify or care for, characters I hate or love, the story can never be diminished by following the rules. It simply makes everything better.  Take Mark Haddon's "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time," or even Anita Shreve's "The Pilot's Wife" and any other book by her; beautiful language, different styles. Nothing diminished because their English is immaculate. 

 

If a novice thinks he can write better than Doris Lessing, well, so be it.  Yes, there are hundreds of authors who can write well and have never been taught.  But they are avid readers.  They observe.  They watch.  It's called learning.

 

So back to my pet peeve.

 

Writing is a craft.  And like all crafts it has to be learned.  We have to discard the essay style of writing of our schooldays and put the rules of fiction into practise.  We have a misconception about writing.  Everyone thinks they can do it.  They can if they apply the rules.  And there are rules.  If you want to become a doctor, you go to medical school.  If you want to become a writer, you go to writing school.  It certainly won't harm you.  In fact, it will make you even better than you dreamed. 

 

Everyone is allowed an opinion.  I admire readers who are able to skip over the errors and read on and learn from that writer's mistakes.  I wish I was like that, and I'm sure I have thrown away many a good storyline because of it.  But then I think to myself, it's not the beautiful story that makes the story.  It is everything.  Language.  Grammar.  Punctuation.  Style.  Mechanics. POV. Setting. Characters etc. 

[Kitt]

Sometimes the character dictates just how grammatically correct a passage can be.  To have a cowboy who never finished school and has spent their life chasing cattle sound like a Harvard graduate would come across to me as wrong.

[Mann Ramblings]

Sometimes the character dictates just how grammatically correct a passage can be.  To have a cowboy who never finished school and has spent their life chasing cattle sound like a Harvard graduate would come across to me as wrong.

 

You're absolutely right. In dialogue you have to be faithful to the character if you want the story to be plausible. First person narration can follow the character's traits but you still have to walk a fine line about not alienating your readers in the process. Granted, there is a difference between a character's poor grammar and writing that is filled with errors.

[Zombie]

It's wrong of me to be a discerning reader. I am wrong about all of this.    Doctors of Literature/Letters/ Professors of English who have studied languages and set the rules, they are all wrong too. Why, because language never came with a rule book.    Grammar doesn't mean anything.   Mistakes are cool.  It's okay to write a trashy sentence and pass it off as imagination. Students pass English by making mistakes in their English exam and not following the rules of grammar.   Let's have every book in the future riddled with mistakes on every page and every line. ...

 

Yes, I do measure a beautiful story by the grammar used, because a beautiful story must be told well and yes, if the grammar stops me from reading I will not read further.  The author has a beautiful story, a brilliant idea but useless when it comes to following the rules that have been created over thousands of years as Zombie said.  Sorry, not interested.  Close the book, throw it in the trashcan. ...

 

No-one has said it is wrong to be a discerning reader. Where we seem to disagree is on areas that you feel disqualify writing from being considered as "good" writing because it doesn't comply with various "rules" - such as speech tags, or never telling always showing. Which means that, by your terms, pretty much all the classics by the great authors can't be good writing because they consistently breach these "rules" (examples available if you want them ). Even a modern classic like To Kill A Mocking Bird which begins:

 

"When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem’s fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. His left arm was somewhat shorter than his right; when he stood or walked, the back of his hand was at right angles to his body, his thumb parallel to his thigh. He couldn’t have cared less, so long as he could pass and punt."

 

All that telling. Who'd want to bother with that?

 

You held up Arundhati Roy as an example of excellent writing - and I agree - but the passages include several sentences with no subject and no finite verb, thus breaking the very rules of conventional grammar you set so much store by. Yet, despite the "rules" not being followed, those passages are, as you rightly say, beautiful.

 

As I said earlier, for me - and like you this is just my personal opinion - good writing is more about imagination, wit and style than slavish adherence to the rules of grammar which, by the way, were only formulated by those "Doctors of Literature/Letters/ Professors of English who have studied languages" after the language had already been created, developed and "road tested" by its users

 

As for publishers' "rules", well that's a whole different ball game which has nothing to do with "good" writing - just like the rules of music theory v. what Simon Cowell wants

~~~~~~~

Edit to add: your point about publishers' rules has historical resonance. When William Caxton introduced the first printing press into England in 1476 he wanted to print and sell a book of the King Arthur stories but there was no standard English just huge variations and dialects across the country. In order to maximize his potential market, and therefore book sales and profits, he re-wrote Malory's stories into a form that would be understood by as many regions as possible. So, yes, publisher's "rules" go all the way back to the 1400s and William Caxton

 

 

 

Edited January 22, 2014 by Zombie

[Thorn Wilde]

I agree with a lot of points from both sides of the aisle here. I love English. There's a reason why I write in it even though it's not really my first language. Whether I'm writing it or speaking it, none but the most practiced philologist would be able to tell that I am not in fact English. The truth is, I have used English creatively for so many years that it has in many ways become my first language. I can express myself in English in ways that I can't express myself in any other language. In no other language can I create poetry. English is the language of my heart. I'm telling you this because I want you to understand what I mean when I say that I truly love the English language.

 

And, yes, I consider writing to be a craft. It is a craft that I practice daily. The reason why I never use text speak (aside from the occasional lol), why I always use proper capitalisation and punctuation, is that I refuse to develop any bad habits. I need all my writing to be as perfect as I can possibly make it. I self-edit vigorously. I work hard at making my stories as good as I can make them. This is my craft. I know it well. I still don't know everything, and it consistently amazes me how many new things I learn about language every day. And I use them, the new things I learn, when I write, to make my craft even better. I read, and I write, and I write and read and write, and stories happen.

 

I love music, too. And science. I mention this because these, too, are fields with established rules, things you can do and things you can't, accepted truths. But the truly great music happens when someone who knows all the rules systematically breaks them in order to create harmonies, melodic turns, musical imagery that is new and exciting and fresh. When someone says, 'No, everything has not been done. No one's ever done this.' And breakthroughs in science happen when someone takes an established, accepted truth and says, 'But what if it isn't true?' Like when Einstein said, 'What if there's no ether?' and his Theory of General Relativity happened. Or when Hawking said, 'What if the universe is not a steady state?' and discovered that the universe is, in fact, expanding. 

 

Writers do this all the time. Excellent writers do it more often than mediocre ones. They look at the rules and they say, 'What if I use a run-on sentence/remove all the commas/ignore the subject/use a mixed metaphor/change tenses/write a whole chapter within parentheses/invent a new word/write backwards?' and then beauty happens.

[Persinette]

I'm enjoying this discussion.  It's wrong of me to be a discerning reader. I am wrong about all of this.    Doctors of Literature/Letters/ Professors of English who have studied languages and set the rules, they are all wrong too. Why, because language never came with a rule book.    Grammar doesn't mean anything.   Mistakes are cool.  It's okay to write a trashy sentence and pass it off as imagination. Students pass English by making mistakes in their English exam and not following the rules of grammar.   Let's have every book in the future riddled with mistakes on every page and every line.   So I want a doctor to tend to my illness, hey, hang on, maybe a lawyer can help.   To become a doctor I go to medical school.   To become a lawyer I go to law school. Just like the English language, the rules of medicine and law evolved. But these two disciplines have rules.

 

Whoa, Dorothy, careful with those matches - you'll have that scarecrow up in flames.

 

But seriously, I don't think you can Rules Lawyer a story in or out of being good. Grammar is very important, yes - see the old joke about helping your uncle to disengage from a domestic beast of burden - but largely as the base for actual talent. You can make a great writer out of somebody who muddles up their there's and theirs; but you cannot fashion so much as a mediocre one from somebody who has all of the rules and none of the verve.

 

Which is a fancypants way of saying I'd rather read something riddled with basic errors but a great plot, than something technically flawless but goddamn bloody dull.

 

There's also the issue that grammatical accuracy is something wars have been waged over. Ask five different English lecturers and you stand a chance of getting yourself six different answers. The rules have been assembled by people with strong feelings about how they're the only ones doing it right, and applied to a language that's half nicked from other countries. It's madness, I tell you. Madness.

Edited January 23, 2014 by Persinette

[Kitt]

I tend to get somewhat bemused when a discussion like this one takes a turn into personal preferences. Who has the right to say which personal preferences are right and wrong?

 

There are exceptions to every rule.  The "Law of Gravity"  says what goes up must come down. That can now mean hundreds of years from now if at all and not necessarily on our own planet. While using good, even perfect, grammar is important, there are times and places that "poor" grammar not only fits but is necessary. To quote something Thorn wrote in a forum a while back,"If i split an infinitive, I damn well want it to stay split."

 

But if these variations from the rules of language irritate someones sensibilities and s/he chooses not to continue reading, no one else has any right to tell them otherwise. The best that can be done within the rules of etiquette (yes, yet another set of arbitrary rules) would be to politely point out that the grammar aficionado might be missing out on an excellent story.

Edited January 23, 2014 by Kitt

[Zombie]

I tend to get somewhat bemused when a discussion like this one takes a turn into personal preferences. Who has the right to say which personal preferences are right and wrong?

 

Hahaha! but that's the thing about grammar, many people do get worked up into a lather As Persinette perceptively pointed out "grammatical accuracy is something wars have been waged over" Well maybe the bloodshed's been relatively modest but a glance at the huge number of websites and discussions shows this is a subject that generates real passions - especially in the US

 

In Britain there are three camps: those who know all the "rules" and zealously defend them from attack, like the Apostrophe Protection Society (yes! it really does exist! ); those who don't know them and blunder on happily ignorant of the trail of distress they leave in their wake; and those that know them - and choose to ignore them!

 

Curiously in Britain most state schools abandoned teaching English grammar a long time ago. I learned my grammar from studying Latin and, interestingly, that's the way grammar teaching came about historically - as a method to study and learn Latin. In fact if you consider all the grammar terminology like noun, verb, adjective, gerund and so on, these are all Latin based concepts which were used to fit around and explain the "rules" of English.

 

The printers were, essentially, the first grammarians - driven by the commercial objectives to maximise book sales - and they brought about a more or less standard form of English from all the various regional dialects that had evolved and existed across the country (see previous post). Only much later did academic grammarians start poking their noses into these "rules". And, of course, all of this has led to the problems that fuel the grammar wars - a bit like bashing a square pin into a round hole - because although English incorporates a lot of Latin, along with language elements from French, German and other languages, it is a very different language from Latin. For example, Latin is a very ordered language, English isn't so much. And Latin is a highly inflected language, English less so - just look at all the irregular verbs! - although it used to be highly inflected.

 

So, yes, the war goes on. Passions, personal preferences and extreme Latinists continue to run amock

 

 

Edited January 23, 2014 by Zombie

[LJH]

... Grammar is very important, yes ...

... I'd rather read something riddled with basic errors but a great plot, than something technically flawless but goddamn bloody dull.

 

There's also the issue that grammatical accuracy is something wars have been waged over. Ask five different English lecturers and you stand a chance of getting yourself six different answers. The rules have been assembled by people with strong feelings about how they're the only ones doing it right, and applied to a language that's half nicked from other countries. It's madness, I tell you. Madness.

 

I agree that grammar is important.  So are the characters, even formula, reading, recording observations, assimilating, learning the craft,inspiration, ideas, POV, scenes, the beginning middle and end,showing vs telling,voice and style,setting and description, exposition, theme, anticlimax, climax, revision, revision, revison until it's perfect for you.

 

 

I can't agree on reading something riddled with basic errors.  I stand fast on this: A writer invests long lonely hours to write something riddled with errors and then expects the reader to read all that? Why would h/she do that?  I can tell where the grammar is erroneously written on purpose and I have no bone to pick with that.  It might form the style of the story and The Grapes of Wrath comes to mind.  The dialogue in Of Mice and Men comes to mind.  One of my own characters recently out of a coma cannot pronounce S and so he substitutes S with T.  I love interesting characters.  Edmund White's, A Boy's Own Story.  I love interesting narrative, like Larry Kramer's novel, Faggots.  The first paragraph of this novel was unique for the time - around 1980. 

 

A dull story might be interesting to someone else.    See, here we go around the mulberry bush, around and around and around.  It certainly does come down to individual opinion, doesn't it?

 

Allow me to mention the doctor/lawyer analogy once again:  I am due for an operation, a minute before going under, I overhear a surgeon saying that he won't be following the prescribed procedure. Well, kill me please. Procedures and techniques have been put into place because they work, not because they destroy. Not every procedure will be successful but that's more because there is another, underlying problem.  A writer has a plethora of information at his fingertips regarding technique and rules.  Maybe he has discovered a new technique.  Perfect.  I say go for it.  But if he has no technique, no passion and makes a lot of grammatical errors, then there is something underlying that failure, and I say it's learning the craft.

 

Please forgive me if you find this a lecture, it's not intended.  I'm just passionate about this subject.

 

Hmmmm, who is next?

 

 

You're absolutely right. In dialogue you have to be faithful to the character if you want the story to be plausible. First person narration can follow the character's traits but you still have to walk a fine line about not alienating your readers in the process. Granted, there is a difference between a character's poor grammar and writing that is filled with errors.

Touche! Mann.  A character's poor grammar must fit the characterization.  And if the character is first person and continues for 200 pages with poor grammar, I say that character must offer something damned big for me to follow him for 200 pages. 

 

Well, that's you on my side I hope LOL.  Bring it on ladies and gentlemen.  We are ready for this

 

 

I tend to get somewhat bemused when a discussion like this one takes a turn into personal preferences. Who has the right to say which personal preferences are right and wrong?

 

There are exceptions to every rule.  The "Law of Gravity"  says what goes up must come down. That can now mean hundreds of years from now if at all and not necessarily on our own planet. While using good, even perfect, grammar is important, there are times and places that "poor" grammar not only fits but is necessary. To quote something Thorn wrote in a forum a while back,"If i split an infinitive, I damn well want it to stay split."

 

But if these variations from the rules of language irritate someones sensibilities and s/he chooses not to continue reading, no one else has any right to tell them otherwise. The best that can be done within the rules of etiquette (yes, yet another set of arbitrary rules) would be to politely point out that the grammar aficionado might be missing out on an excellent story.

 

Let's start at the top.  Who has the right to ....wrong.  I think we all do.  Every writer has that right.    As I said, it's all healthy opinion.  Of-course there are exceptions to every rule.  As a writer, and an editor you know and fully understand this: Learn the rules, then break them! But first, learn.  And every writer is learning some way or the other so that h/she can deliver that masterful work of art. As I said before, a writer should read, observe, assimilate - or take a writing course to get better.  It's not a MUST, dear heaven, no way.  As Zombie said, few writers have made it big coming out of a writing course.  But at least they will learn the craft. 

 

Poor grammar fits the style of the narrative, or is it the other way around.  Same as dialogue. But I do have the right to inform a writer if the grammar does not fit the style.  And if the writer ignores me,  and says well, it's my story, I can write it how I want, well then, it shows the writer is unwilling to learn and I withdraw.  H/her reputation is at stake. 

 

 

Hahaha! but that's the thing about grammar, many people do get worked up into a lather As Persinette perceptively pointed out "grammatical accuracy is something wars have been waged over" Well maybe the bloodshed's been relatively modest but a glance at the huge number of websites and discussions shows this is a subject that generates real passions - especially in the US

 

In Britain there are three camps: those who know all the "rules" and zealously defend them from attack, like the Apostrophe Protection Society (yes! it really does exist! ); those who don't know them and blunder on happily ignorant of the trail of distress they leave in their wake; and those that know them - and choose to ignore them!

 

So, yes, the war goes on. Passions, personal preferences and extreme Latinists continue to run amock

 

 

 

Hilarious.  I had no idea.      Zombie. 

 

What do you mean they've stopped teaching grammar?    

[Kitt]

 

 

 

 

Let's start at the top.  Who has the right to ....wrong.  I think we all do. 

 But I do have the right to inform a writer if the grammar does not fit the style.

 

 

 

 

Hmmm - I find your reaction odd Louis. I wrote my response as a statement that you HAD THE RIGHT TO YOUR OPINION, and if you chose to stop reading a book for what ever reason, it was your decision, that no one else has a right to tell you that YOU are wrong.

 

Perhaps I should just shut my mouth now and not participate any further.

[Aditus]

What do you mean they've stopped teaching grammar?    

We learn all the fancy words and rules for every language we attempt to learn, including our own, from day one in school. Does it help? Ask my editors.

[LJH]

Hmmm - I find your reaction odd Louis. I wrote my response as a statement that you HAD THE RIGHT TO YOUR OPINION, and if you chose to stop reading a book for what ever reason, it was your decision, that no one else has a right to tell you that YOU are wrong.

 

Perhaps I should just shut my mouth now and not participate any further.

:facepalm:I am sorry, Kitt.  I did read that, and I fully understood it. I should have said that. I do agree with you that there are exceptions to rules et al,. I was merely pointing out that I cannot keep it to myself when a writer uses bad grammar that doesn't fit the style, and it actually irks the writer.  Just you dare stay away from this discussion.  I shall find you.   I love reaction to my opinions.  I'm not saying I'm right.  Hell no. But it's interesting to get reaction from passionate folk like yourself, and Zombie and everyone else who has participated in this discussion.   

[LJH]

^{We learn all the fancy words and rules for every language we attempt to learn, including our own, from day one in school. Does it help? Ask my editors.}

 

^{Kill me now!  In this country it's the spelling that's bad.  Our teachers deducted one point per spelling  mistake in every exam, including mathematics.  Nowadays that doesn't happen.  Seen on a board at a street corner:  Plummer...phone 086753000 for the best survis.}  

[The Pecman]

Technically well-written stories that have no soul. If I can't connect with what I just finished reading five minutes ago in your first chapter, I'm not coming back for the second.  

 

I refer to this as "no guts," but it's the same thing. There has to be something beyond just the characters, the setting, the description, and the dialogue. You need some real emotion and a visceral quality to grab people's attention. 

 

I'd say the #1 thing that kills me wanting to read any online fiction is changing character points of view. Hate it. I think it can be done in some (very rare) cases, but I've never seen it done well, ever, online. Just use 3rd person omniscient and be done with it.

 

#2 thing: cliched openings and cliched scenes. We know what those are.

 

#3 thing: scenes that are too long. 90% of the time, just starting the scene in the middle is much more efficient, and you can compress everything you need to say in half the time. Start the dinner scene in the middle as they're finishing the main course, start a driving scene halfway through when the characters are lost, and compress mundane elements of life down to their essentials. It's amazing how much driftwood you can eliminate from fiction this way.

[layla]

I struggled with grammar when I was growing up and I still don't feel as if I understand all the rules, though I understand more from having spent time reading and writing and having pieces of writing picked apart by those who knew what they were doing. Making mistakes and having people edit for me that were brutal in pointing those mistakes out was the only way that I was able to improve my writing into something that I don't mind sharing with others. If i hand a story or a chapter off to someone else that I have spent hours working on, and in it there are cliches and grammar that doesn't fit the character or scene, then I fully expect to be called on it so that I can see where I went wrong, understand why it was wrong, fix it and not let it happen again. I recently had one of my editors ask me if I felt like she hacked my story to pieces when she was editing it and I told her that if she was having to hack up a story, then obviously I was the one doing something wrong, not her. Why give something to someone else to edit and then be angry when it comes back covered in red, i just don't understand that. It's been stated several times above that writing is a craft, well I firmly believe that. To me writing is no different than any other art in the need for repetition and refinement to make it stronger. When I look at the first pieces of digital artwork I created before I started taking classes, I can see where I started to develop a particular style and tried to head in a particular direction, but could not fully get there due to lack of knowledge of the software and lack of technique. With each new series of artwork I've worked on, much like with each new story I've written, I've seen the growth and changes in my work that reflect the things I learned along the way. I hope there never comes a time when I am too stubborn to learn something new. One of my martial arts instructors has a saying: "A class where I don't learn something is a class wasted." 

[knotme]

I expect purchased fiction to be free of errors and problems, but I'm more tolerant of free stories from aspiring authors: When a story engages me, negatives must pile up to drive me away. (Negatives are well explored above.)  I usually leave because I'm not engaged.  sat8997, The Pecman, and perhaps others I've missed, have touched on this. I'll add a few generic examples. (1) First-person narration, jumping frequently from person to person, is always annoying, but when I realize that the author is milking the contrast between the omniscient reader and the clueless actors, and that there seems to be no other plot, it's time to go. (2) Stuff happens. Lots of stuff happens. As far as I can tell, none of the characters care much one way or the other. If they don't care, why should I?  (3) A main character spends a whole lot of time in the hospital, perhaps in a coma. Red flag. Maybe the plot continues (Nephalim's wonderful Recovery comes to mind), but if grief and sympathy substitute for plot while the author figures out what's next, I get bored. (4) The plot is getting ridiculous, characters less and less plausible. The author has been writing on the fly and is losing control. I lose interest.

Edited March 10, 2014 by knotme

[Aditus]

Yes, I do measure a beautiful story by the grammar used, because a beautiful story must be told well and yes, if the grammar stops me from reading I will not read further.  The author has a beautiful story, a brilliant idea but useless when it comes to following the rules that have been created over thousands of years as Zombie said.  Sorry, not interested.  Close the book, throw it in the trashcan.

For the very first time I did just that, threw a book in the trashcan aka deleted it from my kindle. I might be decidedly more tolerant than you, Louis, but yeah that was too much, even for me.

[Thorn Wilde]

For the very first time I did just that, threw a book in the trashcan aka deleted it from my kindle. I might be decidedly more tolerant than you, Louis, but yeah that was too much, even for me.

 

May I ask which book?

[Aditus]

I'd rather not. Sometimes I buy self-published books of unknown authors just to support the idea. Although it is a terrible book, I'd feel bad to out him.

[craftingmom]

The use of a speech tag/said-bookism/attribute with most dialogue is an older writing style. It's fallen into disuse in the recent times where use of narration to set the scene and show who is speaking has become the norm.

 

My pet peeve? Homophones. No, not gay guys who won't get off the phone! I really hate it when folks write and use the wrong one. Sure, it's a basic thing... but drives me nuts. If you want to use a word, you damn well better know the right word. Rein/reign, cereal/serial, complement/compliment, conscience/conscious, morning/mourning, pray/prey, principal/principle, root/route, waist/waste, weigh/way, week/weak... and many, many more! The trouble is that these words aren't 'wrong' except when read in context. There's no way to have a machine or program find these and know that you're using the wrong word.

 

All writers should be readers. Absorption occurs a lot more than one might think when you read a lot. Sure there are a ton of grammar rules, punctuation, writing styles, etc... that you can follow or ignore but if you don't know the words themselves--you have serious problem!

YES!  This is so my pet peeve too--your/you're, then/than, its/it's, too/to/two, vial/vile... I read one story on Amazon that was HORRIBLE with this, just about every page had at least one homophone error.

[WestcliffWriter]

The title says: How to avoid a badly written story? Well thats impossible for me so I normally just get an editor to sort the thing out