Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
Actual mistakes in grammar are not, of themselves, necessarily a problem. However too many mistakes suggest a lack of knowledge which, in a writer, suggests they don't know how to use their tools - the words on the page. A few mistakes will, hopefully, go unnoticed when the writer gets the rest of it right, but all the mistakes will become obvious when they add up to the writer getting the sum-total wrong.
|
A lack of knowledge, or a lack of care for details.
As a reader, I like it when my writers pay attention to detail. When they know that if you live in a cold climate, then in winter when you come into a house from the very cold winter outside, your glasses fog up and you can't immediately see what's right in front of you (unless you take your glasses off). Extremely few natural blondes have dark eyebrows and eyelashes. Someone who is severely allergic to peanut butter will not eat cookies if you can't tell him or her the exact ingredients list first, because it might kill them. Pet owners think about their pets when they are out of town.
And the list goes on.
It's one thing to let little mistakes slip. It's another to be openly careless because "it's not a big deal". Rightly or wrongly I assume that a writer who treats grammar and spelling that way, also treats characters and plot that way, and that's why it bothers me. Typos happen. But sloppy writing? That's unforgivable.