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    sat8997
  • sat8997
  • Author
  • 02/06/2011
  • 318 Words
  • 1,648 Views
  • 8 Comments
The content presented here is for informational or educational purposes only. These are just the authors' personal opinions and knowledge.
Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are based on the authors' lives and experiences and may be changed to protect personal information. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 

So You Want To Be an Author? - 1. Learn it and Use it

So You Want To Be an Author

Good for you! But take it from a veteran editor and reader, it takes more than the desire to put pen to paper. Or keys to screen. Trust me…it took me two days to write this article. And it’s not very long.

If I could give just one piece of advice to a new author, it would be to brush up on the basic rules of grammar. We’re not talking about anything fancy here, just good old spelling and dialog punctuation. If these are not your strong suit, find a good book or website to use for reference. There are plenty of them out there that present information in a fun and entertaining way. Find one, or like me, ten that works for you. Also, check the options on whatever word-processing program you use and set the spellchecker, grammar, and style functions to the highest level. Don’t take the suggested corrections at face value, though. Most spellcheckers won’t catch everything. But at least things that may need a second look are highlighted. Spend the time to understand what these tools are telling you. Correcting mistakes in spelling, grammar, and style will make your writing more enjoyable to read.

As a reader, these basic errors act as speed bumps for the eyes. They break a story’s ebb and flow. You may think your plot is wonderfully entertaining, your characters extremely well developed. And they very well may be. You could have the next Pulitzer winner for fiction all ready to flow off your fingertips. But if a reader has to stumble over the incorrect use of ‘there’, ‘their’, and ‘they’re’ too many times, you’ll lose them in the first chapter.

So you want to be an author? Then do it. Write. Write with passion, heart, and flair. But learn your craft first and give your future readers your best effort.

Copyright © 2011 sat8997; All Rights Reserved.
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The content presented here is for informational or educational purposes only. These are just the authors' personal opinions and knowledge.
Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are based on the authors' lives and experiences and may be changed to protect personal information. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 
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Will Hawkins

Just because this article of advice was written several years ago does not mean the suggestions it contains are outdated. I have only in the last 5-6 months discovered GA and have been reading several stories. I have discovered that even stories submitted in recent days have many of the same 'speed bumps' that are described herein. I place the blame for these oversights, however, on a different person -- okay, the author of a story, caught up in the throes of creativity, is supposed to be inspired and may, therefore, slip up in grammar or punctuation from time to time, but the EDITOR is selected to find and correct these slips. So when I am reading a story and encounter an error in grammar or punctuation, I blame it on the editor. Though the author may have some residual guilt for having selected a bum editor. Two of the most common errors I have discovered are too many or too few commas, but that is a small error and may be forgiven, and HOMOPHONES! (Editors, look it up!).

Misterwill

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BigBen

H.W. Fowler, in his masterwork, Modern English Usage, repeatedly makes the point that it is bad strategy to make the reader have to stop and puzzle out what you are trying to say.  You want your reader to be focusing on your ideas and your story; to put the focus on careless punctuation and shoddy proofreading is counter-productive.  Writers who think, "But my mening is kleer why to I have to get the speling write?" ignore this advice at their peril.

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