12% of ebooks are self-published; most are rubbish, claims editor

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Precisely. Reasonable grammar and spelling are a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for a good book.

Couldn't agree more. Just disagreeing that finding something that meets those standards of reasonability in the indie ranks is as difficult and/or time consuming as many people seem to make it out to be. That it's easy to find crap you don't want to read isn't all that relevant when it's always been easy to throw a dart and hit a ton of crap you don't want to read.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Soldim

Well, if they'd be any good they would have been contracted by a real publishing house, isn't it?

Like they did with 50 Shades of Grey?

[crich70]

Originally Posted by rhadin

I think the fallacy with that approach is that the authors who chose to ignore the rules of grammar did so with knowledge of what the rules were and found that the rules stifled the message they were trying to convey.

The rules of grammar are designed to ensure that communication is understandable. Isaac Asimov, to use one of your examples, deviated from the rules of grammar only after many years of writing that adhered to the rules, that is, after having mastered the rules. Twain deviated to make a point.

I also think you mistake the rules of grammar for a straitjacket. They are not rigid, unbendable rules; they are guides to ensure what you write can be understood by any reader. The rules are always in flux; the only immutable rule of grammar is to write clearly so that any reader can understand your message.

I didn't mean to imply that the rules weren't needed or anything like that, just that past authors (or living authors) who I read the work of do show good examples of how to write for clarity and good pacing, among other things. You can study the rules of Chess all you want but until you see a game played (or play one yourself) you will miss out on some of the substance of the game itself.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by crich70

I didn't mean to imply that the rules weren't needed or anything like that, just that past authors (or living authors) who I read the work of do show good examples of how to write for clarity and good pacing, among other things. You can study the rules of Chess all you want but until you see a game played (or play one yourself) you will miss out on some of the substance of the game itself.

Definitely. As I said before, good grammar (and spelling) is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition, of a good book. Just knowing the rules of chess won't make you a good chess player, but you can't be a good chess player without knowing the rules.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Just don't dangle your participles.

I had to look this one up.

That text gives some examples, such as:

Hiking the trail, the birds chirped loudly.
Wishing I could sing, the high notes seemed to taunt me.

Even if I didn't know that this kind of mistake was called a hanging particle (and I didn't, as I had to look it up), I'd still be able to immediately see that there's something wrong with those sentences.

Probably, the birds are not the ones hiking the trail, and the notes are not wishing that the singer could sing.

Maybe my natural feeling for language is just better than that of many people, or something, as I really cannot understand how a native English speaker (writer) could make such a mistake. To me, those sentences just "feel wrong" the moment I read them, without even having to dissect them.

There's a sentence in Dutch, that often appears in application letters, by the way: "Hierbij ingesloten zend ik u mijn CV." ("Enclosed within, I send you my resumé.") Grammatically, it actually means that you are the one that is enclosed (in the envelope), along with your resumé. What is meant is that the resumé is enclosed in the envelope, along with an application letter.

While it's wrong, this sentence is still widely taught in schools as a "polite ending" of the application letter.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Maybe my natural feeling for language is just better than that of many people, or something, as I really cannot fathom how a native English speaker (writer) could make such a mistake.

Because we tend to speak in sentence fragments, not grammatically complete sentences, and dangling participles are essentially a written form of the type of "shortcut" that people use in the spoken language. (Eg if someone asks you what you're doing, you might reply "reading a book", rather than "I'm reading a book".) It's perfectly understandable, even if grammatically wrong. The reason it's grammatically wrong, of course, is that the participle clause has no verb, but the verb is clearly implied - eg "Hiking the trail" is really "While I was hiking the trail". But it really shouldn't be used in written English.

[hidari]

Hence... HarryT your example is not grammatically wrong... "Hiking the trail" in the correct context is grammatically and linguistically correct...It may be incorrect for Grammarnistas but it is not incorrect linguistically... Thus my problem with anal retentive grammarians.... linguistically correct context trumps grammar everyday...as you said... the difference between a good chess player and a great chess player...

Originally Posted by HarryT

Because we tend to speak in sentence fragments, not grammatically complete sentences, and dangling participles are essentially a written form of the type of "shortcut" that people use in the spoken language. It's perfectly understandable, even if grammatically wrong. The reason it's grammatically wrong, of course, is that the participle clause has no verb, but the verb is clearly implied - eg "Hiking the trail" is really "While I was hiking the trail".

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by hidari

Hence... HarryT your example is not grammatically wrong... "Hiking the trail" in the correct context is grammatically and linguistically correct...It may be incorrect for Grammarnistas but it is not incorrect linguistically...

It's grammatically wrong because it's not a sentence: it doesn't contain a verb. But sure, as I said in my previous post, it's perfectly understandable. It is, though, generally regarded as a very poor writing style.

[hidari]

You win HarryT... ... while considering that you are slightly more pedantic than me.... I could ask you where did you find that stone?.... you could say "the trail" implying many things... The verb is understood or the context or what have you....no verb spoken but it is understood...ie "(I found it while hiking on) the trail"... I am just surprised at the pedantic nature of some people on MR...not you in particular...but... if one speaks or reads more than one language... grammar becomes more of an ocean not a canal....but maybe with Latin or Ancient Greek the view is different..I am seeing it from Russian, Spanish, French...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by hidari

You win HarryT... ... while considering that you are slightly more pedantic than me.... I could ask you where did you find that stone?.... you could say "the trail" implying many things... The verb is understood or the context or what have you....no verb spoken but it is understood...ie "(I found it while hiking on) the trail"... I am just surprised at the pedantic nature of some people on MR...not you in particular...but... if one speaks or reads more than one language... grammar becomes more of an ocean not a canal....but maybe with Latin or Ancient Greek the view is different..I am seeing it from Russian, Spanish, French...

hidari, I'm not disagreeing with you - nobody's "winning" or "losing" here . We all speak in sentence fragments, and it's perfectly understandable. You're absolutely right and I completely agree with you.

But rightly or wrongly, we don't write the language the same way we speak it, and things which are perfectly normal in spoken English are considered wrong when you write them down. The same is probably true in every language.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's grammatically wrong because it's not a sentence: it doesn't contain a verb. But sure, as I said in my previous post, it's perfectly understandable. It is, though, generally regarded as a very poor writing style.

The fun part is that in some languages it seems to be perfectly all right (or even considered correct) to drop large parts from sentences, if those parts are considered to be obvious. For non-native speakers, that can be quite confusing.

If I remember correctly, Japanese is one of those languages.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

The fun part is that in some languages it seems to be perfectly all right (or even considered correct) to drop large parts from sentences, if those parts are considered to be obvious. For non-native speakers, that can be quite confusing.

If I remember correctly, Japanese is one of those languages.

It is also correct in fiction when the character speaking/narrating would be expected to speak that way.
A novel where a street punk speaks in full grammatically correct sentences would at a minimum raise eyebrows.

Narrative writers have a lot more freedom than academic, business, or technical writers; they are very different forms of writing aimed at different kinds of communication. One seeks to convey moods and emotions as well as factual data while the other seeks clarity and precision. Both require mastery of the language but have different constraints and expectations. An emotionally charged business proposal might be cause for dismissal while a cold, emotionless precisionist novel had better be about robots or vulcans.

Way back when, my Plant Design professor had a running war with the english department because he wanted to teach a class on Technical Writing for engineers and they insisted all* writing instruction belonged to their grammarians.
The Professor responded by adjusting the format of our Plant Design Course, cutting out the reviews of component design that other professors started with and instead, the first day, he assigned us a project to research, develop, and *report* on for the full semester.
(He gave us two references: a paper on a chemical process and a book on technical writing.) Along the way he critiqued our technical report writing and taught engineering economics. We were expected to write weekly progress reports and at the end we delivered a business grade proposal evaluating the technical and economic merit of the proposed project. (My partner and I rejected the proposal as technically feasible but a marginal investment. There were better uses for investment funds.) Nobody could prove he was teaching technical writing, but the end result...

When I got to my first job all I needed was to take a look at one memo to figure out the preferred format; the boss was impressed.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Because we tend to speak in sentence fragments, not grammatically complete sentences, and dangling participles are essentially a written form of the type of "shortcut" that people use in the spoken language. (Eg if someone asks you what you're doing, you might reply "reading a book", rather than "I'm reading a book".) It's perfectly understandable, even if grammatically wrong. The reason it's grammatically wrong, of course, is that the participle clause has no verb, but the verb is clearly implied - eg "Hiking the trail" is really "While I was hiking the trail". But it really shouldn't be used in written English.

But even something that is technically correct can look a bit odd when written. I had someone have a character say "To whom?" not so long ago. I told him only 60-year-old English teachers would say something like that, and that he should change it to "Who to?"

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

But even something that is technically correct can look a bit odd when written. I had someone have a character say "To whom?" not so long ago. I told him only 60-year-old English teachers would say something like that, and that he should change it to "Who to?"

I would (and do) say that . But you're right; dialogue should of course be an accurate reflection of the sort of person speaking.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Narrative writers have a lot more freedom than academic, business, or technical writers; they are very different forms of writing aimed at different kinds of communication. One seeks to convey moods and emotions as well as factual data while the other seeks clarity and precision. Both require mastery of the language but have different constraints and expectations. An emotionally charged business proposal might be cause for dismissal while a cold, emotionless precisionist novel had better be about robots or vulcans.

Same distinction applies in editing. Editors and copy editors who are used to working with academic/technical material are not always a good fit for fiction and popular nonfiction mss.