Quote:
Originally Posted by anamardoll
I will add that good authors can use bad spelling and bad grammar judiciously to make a stylistic point. See also the "spiraling into madness" chapters in Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury".
And I will ALSO say, as an Amazon reviewer, that I don't award demerits for errors unless they're just truly distracting. I mean, hey, errors happen. If I can figure out what the author meant, I don't worry about it.
BUT. If you're an author, you don't argue with a reviewer. That's just common sense. Even if the reviewer is wrong, you just ignore it or -- if appropriate -- you say "thank you so much for your review. I will keep your points in mind as I move forward on my next book and I hope it will be more enjoyable for you" or something similar.
Authors who do that, get MORE reviews because it's classy and the reviewer realizes they aren't going to be stalked for eternity if they give anything less than 5-star glowing praise. And I suspect they get more readers because, hey, classy and anybody can make mistakes and maybe the next one is better.
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Exactly. On both counts. I'm not an indy author--my books are boring old print--but I don't even read most reviews of my books. If people didn't like it? That's their opinion, and I certainly would never argue with them. And everyone has different taste anyway, so there may be some people who enjoy my work and some who don't. I don't take it personally.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xanthe
If an author can't be bothered to spell or punctuate correctly, then I can't be bothered to read his/her work. If they can't be bothered to learn and use their own language intelligibly, then I'm not going to waste my time trying to decipher their meaning. Laziness like that shouldn't be rewarded with either my time or my money.
That's my bottom line.
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I agree wholeheartedly. I'm also really surprised by how many people seem to think they will get an editor who will just magically fix everything for them. Sure, it happens sometimes. Mostly, though, those people who claim they'll end up with an editor who will fix their poorly written prose for them don't ever sell their work to the big publishing houses in the first place.
It's a HUGE pet peeve of mine though, not only those who can't be bothered to use language correctly, but who don't even read. If you don't read, you're not a writer. It's like someone else said in this thread earlier: it's not writing; it's just typing. I can't even understand why people WOULD write if they didn't have an interest in the written word, and that means reading it too.
As for this guy....well, he's not a writer in my opinion. Just another loudmouth who has found a platform for his spewing of (uninformed) opinions. I'll leave him to it.