Quote:
Originally Posted by frahse
[...]It is the story and the telling that is important, is most important, and indeed all that is important.
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I don't agree that it is "all that is important" - not if you intend to publish (as opposed to writing a story and keeping it entirely to yourself). One of the objects of publishing (self or otherwise) is to make the story presentable for reading by others, and in that case other things do become important (not as important, but still important).
Something that gets reinforced from surveys such as this one is that you can't please everyone, but what this one (and Jon's) does tell us is that the split is close enough to 50-50 that a writer's choice probably doesn't matter. Had it turned significantly one way or another, then that could have been important information for writers that preferred the alternative.
Reading the posts that go with these surveys, my guess is that whichever option you pick you are probably going to offend somewhere around 25% of readers, delight around 25% and make little difference to the other 50%. (Although obviously our statistical sample is too small for those figures to be anywhere near accurate.)
But I do agree with what I think is the sentiment expressed in your post. Spending excessive time worrying over the minutiae is not a good thing (and you know me well enough by now to know that I do*
). The minutiae can be important, but it shouldn't be blown out of perspective either.
* I think it's a form of procrastination.