Ratings for First Time Stories

[The Pecman]

A number of skilled professional writers deliberately violate the standard "rules" of punctuation from time to time for the sake achieving something they want with the cadence of the sentence. Of course, to do that effectively, you really need to know your "rules." You need to understand the standard from which you're deviating, and you need to understand the literary consequences of that deviation, good and bad.

 

Good point, but there are a few things that really drive me batty. I've seen quite a few authors who are guilty of run-on sentences, and those bother me even more than the use of a semi-colon. One properly-placed comma (plus the word "and") would generally solve the run-on sentence problem, but there are authors who foolishly believe their individual style overrules proper grammar. To me, you gotta enforce rules like that just for clarity and to help ove the mechanics of the words out of the reader's way.

 

There are quite a few authors and teachers who say "the road to hell is paved with semi-colons," but I'm a never-say-never kinda guy. I'll use a semi-colon once in a blue moon; more than that, and I get in trouble. [see?]

 

 

I find it interesting that you both think I was being uncomplimentary in my comments. I had done nothing but praise the author for sixty some chapters, but that particular chapter took a major plot turn out of the blue and I asked about it. I thought I had been polite but somewhat confused. He apparently did not agree with me however. Oh well. It was the last review I left for the man.

 

I once sent what I thought was a very complimentary email to an author who posted a complete novel. I praised him very highly, but just gave him two minor criticisms: one was that he set the story in an unidentified California town, and I told him I thought the story would benefit from being in a real place (or at least giving the area a name); the second was that in a December scene, two characters referred to "Father Christmas" for the holiday, and I felt that no American would say anything except "Santa Clause" or "Santa" or maybe "St. Nick." 

 

The guy was on me like a mad dog, ripping my throat out in email, convinced I had just insulted his mother or something. I was genuinely surprised, because 92% of my email was completely positive, and the two points I raised could have been easily fixed. I pointed out that he had ended each chapter by saying, "hey, send me comments!" and his email address, and you gotta take the good with the bad. He did not take this well.

 

There's nothing wrong with a writer shrugging and saying, "hey, I see your point, but I'm going to live with what I've got for reasons X, Y, and Z." Me personally, I'm big on knowing the location and time of all the events within a story, and when this is vague, I think it detracts from the story's reality. If he had given the town a fictitious name, like "Tierra Verde" or "San Fransokyo," I would've been fine with it... but Father Christmas is right out.

Edited May 25, 2015 by The Pecman

[Adam Phillips]

I find it interesting that you both think I was being uncomplimentary in my comments.

 

Um...if you're talking about me as one of the "both," I didn't think that. I was just oversharing the various kind of thoughts on the subject that arose in my excessively-wordy-and-often-confused head.

[Adam Phillips]

I once sent what I thought was a very complimentary email to an author who posted a complete novel. I praised him very highly, but just gave him two minor criticisms: one was that he set the story in an unidentified California town, and I told him I thought the story would benefit from being in a real place (or at least giving the area a name); the second was that in a December scene, two characters referred to "Father Christmas" for the holiday, and I felt that no American would say anything except "Santa Clause" or "Santa" or maybe "St. Nick." 

 

The guy was on me like a mad dog, ripping my throat out in email, convinced I had just insulted his mother or something.

 

Yep. I don't think this is true for all of us who write, but for many of us, a critical suggestion or observation--even a well-intended suggestion--causes us automatically to bristle. I came to recognize this early on when I was working with an editor who was actually an editor for a large publishing house. I'd originally asked him to come on board as a proofreader/second set of eyes, and he was a great e-friend of mine before that. His first pass at "proofreading" demonstrated that he couldn't resist being an editor. And in my response, I said, "Well, okay, good points, but I only asked you to proofread, so stick to that, will ya? I'll handle the substantive matters, thank you." He cheerfully ignored me in subsequent chapters, and I realized that this was how it was gonna be.

 

And I learned so much from him as the days went by. But I did have to supress my original combativeness and reluctance to let someone make "suggestions." This was my baby, not his, and don't tell me what to write, dammit.

 

Probably lots of writers don't have that same combative/possessive nature, and those people are surely bigger men and women than I am.