Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparrow
I'm not sure I entirely agree. 
I'm not in a position to judge whether a surgeon wields a scalpel with an impressive flourish or not - I judge them on the outcome of their work, not how they achieved it.
If a writer creates a (for me) gripping story, with fascinating characters inhabiting a fully realised world; I don't care how many 'rules' they broke to do it. 
(I'm not claiming that Dan Brown achieved that as far as I'm concerned.) |
There's 'less than elegant' and then there's 'incorrect',
as when Brown writes that "a voice spoke" or a single person "collapsed... in a heap."
I can deal with prose that I think is rough, if it's correct (you're absolutely right that this is a subjective thing
, no argument there). But not when the author doesn't know what words actually mean; this isn't a case of the doctor not wielding the scalpel with an elegant flourish, but of said doctor not knowing what a scalpel is for in the first place.