Writers Please Read

There seems to be a little confusion about how I prefer to be contacted for editing so I will explain my procedures here.

1. I use YAHOO mail for everything. So I accept all files through my yahoo mail.


2. I LIKE for writers to add me as a friend to their messenger so that we can discuss the work which they ask me to do. I DO NOT ACCEPT FILES through messenger.

I welcome any writer who may have a question to message me. My Yahoo Messenger ID - turner28
HOWEVER do not use the windows live version it freezes my computer, please use the regular Yahoo Messenger. My status ALWAYS says BUSY - this is so that when I am working with a writer other friends will respect that. ALL writers all welcome to message me even when the busy status is on. I will tell you if I am working with another writer and what time I will be available.

I am online USUALLY from 7 am CST until 5 pm CST, sometimes in the evenings. If you have difficulty using Messenger I will provide a phone for you if you wish to discuss the project, all I ask is do not give it out.

3. SHORT STORIES typically take one day to edit.
FULL LENGTH I am averaging 4 - 5 days of HONEST reading and editing. I also like to reread it to make sure I didn't miss anything.

I accept ANY file type EXCEPT PDF. I do not have software at the moment to handle PDF I am looking for some though.

POETRY is same day service. I have an extensive resume in poetry and was the ONLY student in my Lit class toPROPERLY write a sonnet and that is difficult if you do it by the rules. I accept ANY poetry.







I do not know how other editors here conduct their relationships with wriers so I cannot comment on that. What I can tell you is that in the 80's when I wrote my first novel I could not find someone cheerful to work with. SO I AM that person for YOU. I am here to assist YOU, the writer. Feel free to contact me anytime you see my messenger online and anytime you wish by email. My email is the same as my yahoo ID. I do not hide from those who seek help.


I look forward to working with you.

ET

Hey everyone,

Just thought I would drop a little note about something some writers may be a bit self conscience about. This post is NOT meant to sound condascending so please do not take it that way.

I know some are not skilled using programs such as MSWord, OpenOffice etc. It's OK. You do not have to be a computer genius to write ok. If you are in this catagory and would like assistance please see the previous post and contact me. I can assist with most word processing applications - however I am currently on an ANCIENT computer and do not have the newer version of MSOffice. I can help with it but it will require a little more time since I will not be able to see what you do.

I currently have installed MSWord 03 and OpenOffice. I also have Corel WordPerfect and will install it in a couple of weeks. The cd is in my storage unit and I haven't had time to get over there. But I will make time now that I see some writers need assistance with this.

The main things I see are simple really. Most word processing applictions have defaults set for these little things, you just need someone to show you how to use them.

For instance, in one story I noticed the author using spaces at the beginning of paragraphs. The default setting on the TAB key is usually 5 spaces in almost every word processing application. There are many little helps that your software can do for you to make your work easier. I am glad to help. I have over 50 college credits hours in MS applications and similar ones. If I can teach a 5 year old child how to make a dynamic web page I can help you.

I will also try to put together a little list of helps in MSWord, and when I have time next week I will do one for OpenOffice. Once I get WordPerfect installed I will do it too - however as I said many of these defaults helps are the same across applications.

Do not be ashamed that you do not know these things. Feel free to contact me for assistance. I do not charge for this all I ask is let's be patient together ok? Sometimes these things are irritating lol. I used to do private computer lessons for people years ago. I have a one 30 minute crash course in most applications.

The reason I bring this up is that some ditors or publishing places require certain types of formatting on submissions. I do not, but some do. Let me help you learn how to do that formatting.

ET


PS - I do not do Mac lol. I just do not know enough about them yet.

Update and addition

I have now installed WordPerfect so it is ok to send me files of that type.

If you are sending me more than one story please state the # of stories in the subject line.


I edited several stories this morning and ran across a few common errors:

1. maam is incorrect - correct ma'am
2. when speaking to or about a Dom the first letter is ALWAYS capitalized.
3. when using contractions some tend to forget a letter - double check yourself on this. ex. havn't - haven't
4. when characters are having a long conversation make sure you identify which character is saying what or the reader will get confused.
5. if your paragraph is longer than 1 page then it is too long, break it up.
6. incomplete sentences are fine in speech and thoughts, but not indescribing scenes.


** This is a pet peeve of mine. an editor HERE has advised several writer's that I have worked with to use SHORT CHOPPY sentences.

This may be preferred by the editor but is in no way a professional writing style AND makes the story hard to read.


If you have doubts about what you have written feel free to contact me. I also recommend reading your story out loud to yourself to see how it sounds to you. This method will catch many little things like using I am instead of I'm. You can hear which use is better suited to the conversation.


That's all for today. I love reading your stories and assisting you.

ET

turner28 said:

** This is a pet peeve of mine. an editor HERE has advised several writer's that I have worked with to use SHORT CHOPPY sentences.

This may be preferred by the editor but is in no way a professional writing style AND makes the story hard to read.

Click to expand...

Depends entirely on the context--what pacing, emotion the author wants to convey. (And that's a professional writing technique.)

sr71plt said:

Depends entirely on the context--what pacing, emotion the author wants to convey. (And that's a professional writing technique.)

Click to expand...

ET's book is full of "short, choppy sentences," and she assures me that it's deliberate, so...

I did not get into details but for the story I referred to it was not a good recommendation. Just clarifing that.

The author was quite upset and thought the story was terrible because this particular editor made some recommendations that were not good for the story. I can say that the story has been published and holds almost a 5 rank.


Oh I almost forgot something else - off topic -- WRITERS - if I have edited your story and you wish me to post a comment on it email me the link and I will be happy to comment. I do not always have time to just go and read. For example I have edited 18 stories THIS MORNING. So if you want me to comment send me the link.

I would also like to compliment the writers I have assisted so far. They have so much talent and can tell a great story! Keep up the great work.


ET

On turner28's advice/suggestion, here are some editing tips I've developed for writing. They are not blanket, of course, but they are what I've learned from a couple of years of writing, editing and being edited.

PennLady's editing tips

Avoid the use of very, really, finally, actually, suddenly and literally
These words are not necessary; they are redundant. Part of my aversion stems from a high school English teacher who despised the word "very," and when you think about it, with good reason. It's a crutch, allowing you to avoid using better words. But you're a writer -- stretch out, if only to get the thesaurus.

If something is "very important," it is "vital." (better word)
If something is "very sad," it is "tragic." (or perhaps, sorrowful)
If something is "very big," it is "huge."

The same goes for really, finally, etc. Be decisive. If something costs a lot of money, it is expensive. "Really expensive" adds nothing to the description. If you need more than "expensive," find another word, don’t just add these weak qualifiers.

If you have a character who has been waiting for something, you don't need "finally" to tell the reader it's happened. We know -- we've been following as the character as they have waited, and so once the action occurs, we know it's "finally" occurred.

"Literally" is another weak addition (worse is: quite literally). If something happens, say so -- again, be decisive and sure in your writing.

Eliminate adverbs
Adverbs can be useful, and we all use them, but in writing, they are repetitive. You think I'm being repetitive, don’t you, after I've just gone on about "really," etc., above. However, here I mean those other descriptive adverbs that we use without thinking.

"A hand touched her shoulder and she shrieked loudly."
A shriek, by definition, is loud. "Loudly" adds nothing.

"He strode quickly across the room."
Well, of course he did. A stride is a fast walking pace. If someone is "striding slowly," then they are either on a slo-mo replay, or they are "sauntering."

You might be surprised how much is apparent from your story itself. If you've laid our your situations, the adverbs will be unnecessary. We will know that someone is walking swiftly, talking loudly, shouting crazily, or anything else. Trust your readers to pick these things up.

Exceptions on adverbs
Dialogue. You can use them—not to excess—in dialogue, because that is how we talk.

Punctuation
I have to admit I'm baffled by the number of people who don't seem to know basic punctuation rules. Whether it's something that was always there and I never saw it, or perhaps I caught on to it better than some, I don't know. However, bad punctuation will kill a story. It ruins your rhythm, it makes a reader scratch his/her head, and will turn some off completely. I can't lay out all the rules—there are too many, and too many exceptions—but I can say most errors I see happen in dialogue.

A common line of dialogue:
"Let's go out tonight," he said.

Note the punctuation: a comma before the close quote, and a lowercase "he" in the dialogue tag, or dialogue attribution. When you have a dialogue tag (and my editor despises them so I keep them to a minimum) like this, there must be a comma before the close quote, not a period, and the pronoun or article should be lower case.

Other correct ways of writing that line are:
"Let's go out tonight," said John.
"Let's go out tonight," the man said.
"Let's go out tonight," she said.
"Let's go out tonight." John looked over at her.
"Let's go out tonight." He leaned on the counter.

Note that in the last two examples, there is a period before the close quote. This is because instead of a dialogue tag, there is a description of an action. Hence there is the period and the uppercase "He" in the last example.

Let's move on to statements with no commas.
"What are you doing?" he asked.

A ha! A definite punctuation mark! Yet even so—the "he" is lower case. The same would apply with an exclamation mark. What's the official rule here? I'm not sure. The way I think of it is this: the question mark ends the statement within the quotes, but not the entire sentence. The quote and the tag all make up the sentence, hence the lowercase "he."

Dialogue
Dialogue is the most difficult part of a story, I think, as it almost requires you to bend or break the usual rules of expository writing. Here we can be informal, and use contractions, and use sentence fragments, and even (shudder) adverbs.

So:
"I will not go with you," Jane said.
Vs.
"I won't go with you," Jane said.

Which sounds more natural? The second, of course. Although the first may be more appropriate, depending on the situation.

Your dialogue will depend on many things, such as the education level of your characters, the setting, the social circles you establish for them, etc. If you are using Jane Austen-type settings, you will have far fewer contractions. If your characters are average college students, they'll talk like, well, college students.

I don’t advise starting right off with Mark Twain-type dialects and things like that. Keep it simple, and you can work up to the rest. What's most important is get across the words so that the reader knows what's going on, and gets to know the characters.

Dialogue Tags
My editor for my e-books hates dialogue tags, and despises them in scenes with two people. They are useful and necessary in multi-person scenes (three are more), but you can get around the tags by doing other things, such as describing what the speaker—or listener—is doing.

"What's that?" He gestured to the box on the table.
"I don't know." She shrugged. "It came in with the mail and I haven't had a chance to open it."
"Aren't you curious?"
"Yes, but it's addressed to you."
He grabbed the utility knife. "Well, let's see what it is, then."

There you go—not a "said" to be seen, and you know who says everything. Using no tags is all right, but you should go back every few lines and put something in to make sure the reader (and you) don't lose track of who is talking.

Common mistakes
These are the types of problems you must be alert for, or have an extra set of eyes to help find, as a spell-check will not find them, and a grammar-check may not either.

It's vs. its
"It's" is a contraction of it was, it is, or it has.
"Its" is the possessive adjective (The book had lost its cover.)

If you aren't sure, read the sentence aloud to yourself and if you've used the contraction, speak the separate words. "The book has lost it is cover" will demonstrate that you need "its."

They're/there/their
"They're" is they are or they were; "there" is a location; "their" is a possessive adjective.

Waist vs. waste
"Waist" is the part of your body above the hips. "Waste" is trash. I see this more often than you'd expect.

Numbers
Numbers should most often be spelled out, but it depends on the context, and whether it's dialogue or not. I've heard various theories on this, such as always spelling numbers under twelve, twenty, or thirty-five.

Here are some loose rules:
If it's an address, write the numeral. (233 Maple St.)
If it's a phone number, write it as numbers, even if someone is speaking.
If it's a number under at least fifteen, spell it out.
"I'll be there in 2 minutes," he said. (Come on—you can't spell out "two?")
If it's a road number, like Route 66, either is fine, even if it's spoken.

There must be style books -- Chicago, AP, Strunk and White -- that spell these out better.

Active/passive
Write in an active voice unless you're trying to make a point. When a character "was doing" something, or has things happen to them, that's passive and boring. Get rid of the "-ing" words and switch to "-ed" words.

She did, not "was doing."
He drove, not "was driving."

It makes your story move faster and feel more urgent, more in the moment.

Since there's a "share writing tips with the writers" going here, here's one I have on avoiding pitfalls in writing. (These are American style; British style might differ):

There are many habitual writers’ practices that either are clearly grammatically incorrect, even though commonly used, or do not match the presentation practices of most publishers. There also are some practices, like the use of serial commas, that may be optional in writing but that are usually uniformly rendered one way in published works. It is helpful when writers have folded the publishing style norms, because although the problems usually are easy for editors to see and correct—since they crop up so frequently—when these nonconforming styles are not present, the editor can spend more time concentrating on other elements of the manuscript. Here are some common errors (in alphabetical order) to keep in mind (and to try to avoid) while you are writing:

Affect, effect: “Affect” is usually used as a verb, meaning “having an influence on.” Its less-used noun form means “an emotion.” “Effect” is most commonly used as a noun meaning “a result.” Its verb form means, “to bring about or execute.” If you “affect” something, you are likely to have an “effect” on it. When you use the word, you usually will be using the “affect” version.

Appositives: Novelists may be the world’s biggest promoters of bigamy through the habitual use of the construction “Tom’s wife Mildred went to market.” If Tom only has one wife, the sentence should read, “Tom’s wife, Mildred, went to market.” The sentence in this instance is nonrestrictive, meaning the name could be dropped and the meaning would still be clear. The sentence should read “Tom’s wife Mildred went to market” only if Tom has more than one wife and “Mildred” has to be included (ergo a restrictive sentence) for the meaning of the sentence (specifying which wife) to be clear.

Compound Sentence Clauses: Independent clauses with subjects and verbs are usually set off by commas, while dependent clauses (ones with only verbs) usually aren’t. It is precisely the presence or absence of such commas that unconsciously signals to the reader what sort of clause to expect next (and thus to smoothen their journey through your work).

Comprise, compose: Careful writers don’t use these terms as synonyms, because doing so will cause picky readers and editors apoplexy. The whole “comprises” the parts and the parts “compose” the whole. If you really want to see such readers and editors choke, use the verbose phrases “are comprised of” or “are composed of.”

Due to: The only legitimate uses of “due to” are in the contexts of loan-sharking or the date you are supposed to turn in your term paper. In most cases in which you have the urge to use that phrase, you should be using “caused by,” “because of,” or “as a result of.”

Farther, further: “Farther” and “further” are actually interchangeable as adjectives, but so many people have come to think that they aren’t that you might as well make a distinction in your writing, so that people don’t point mockingly at you in their ignorance. “Farther” is thought to be restricted to meanings connected to distance, while “further” is thought to be restricted to meanings connected with addition.

Fewer, lesser: “Fewer” is used with countable units (e.g., people and distinct items: “fewer than five ballerinas and fewer than four kumquats”); “less” is used for spans of things (like time: “less than five nanoseconds.”)

Foreign Words: Unfamiliar foreign words are set in italics (but only the first time they occur if used often in the work); familiar foreign words are set in roman type. Deciding which is which can be as simple as looking in the dictionary. If the word is there, it’s a familiar foreign word (e.g., de facto, a priori, dacha, fait accompli, mea culpa, status quo).

Impact: If your car has hit a brick wall, you can use “impact” as a verb to describe your experience. If you use “impact” as anything but a noun in any other context, you have been writing memos for the Pentagon too long.

Insure, Ensure, Assure: When writers reach for one of these words, they almost always use “insure,” and they almost always should have made another choice. “Insure” is only used for taking out an insurance policy. “Ensure,” the most commonly meant variation of the words, means, “to make secure or certain.” “Assure” is usually used in reference to a person, as in “setting the mind at rest.”

Hopefully: Most word experts, which would include most editors in publishing, insist that “hopefully” cannot be used as it almost always is used: “Hopefully, we will survive until spring.” They do not offer up very good substitutes for all instances where the writer would be encouraged to use the word, however. Whether or not they are right, if you use it, they will mark it out—so it’s best to try to write without using it.

Most Importantly: Whenever a book editor sees this phrase, the “ly” will be excised in one swift stroke. You might save editors (and readers) from being distracted by this by writing it “most important” in the first place.

Not Only/But Also: This is a “complete set” combination. Writers often leave out the “also,” but the book editor won’t let it go without the “also.”

On the Other Hand: The “On the one hand/on the other hand” construction is another complete set. Writers often use just the “on the other hand” part and send intelligent readers running back up the page looking for an “on the one hand” they missed. The isolated “on the other hand” should really be something else, such as “however,” “conversely,” or “in contrast.”

Parallelism: Much editing time is spent in making clauses in series and such things as subheadings parallel (e.g., if you use a verb in one element of a series, every element of the series should use a verb, or vice versa). These also are among the hardest errors to see before the book is published, but the easiest for snickering readers to see afterward. Time spent going over your manuscript, checking on parallelism, is time well spent.

Personal Titles: Personal titles in apposition (e.g., U.S. president George Bush) are more often rendered incorrectly than they are rendered correctly. That’s because proper usage looks like it can’t be proper. This is the proper progression (and I’m using the U.S. president’s title to make a point that, if it’s right for this position, it’s right for all other positions, even—in U.S. publishing, at least—for British queen Elizabeth, or “the queen”): the president; U.S. president Barack Obama; president of the United States, Barack Obama; former president George Bush; President Barack Obama; President Obama.

Serial Comma: Use of a serial comma, or the comma before the “and” or “or” in a series (e.g., blue, green, and purple cows) has become optional in U.S. market word usage, and the trend is toward not using it. Conversely, the majority of U.S. publishers do use it. So, if you don’t know your publisher doesn’t use it, you’d best do so.

That/Which: There are convoluted rules on when “that” and “which” can be used for independent clauses (thus set off with a comma) and dependent clauses (thus not set off with a comma). Most publishers make it quite simple. If it’s a dependent clause, use “that”; if it’s an independent clause, use “which.” Therefore, if you’ve written a “which” clause and not put a comma in front of it, you may have been grammatically correct, but most publishers will insert a comma or change the word to “that” (and they’ll also be grammatically correct in doing so).

Trademarked Names: Some company and product names are trademarked (e.g., Coca-Cola, Kleenex, Styrofoam, Band-Aid, Barnes & Noble, Kool-Aid). The myths have become established either that trademarked names can’t be legally used at all in creative writing or that they have to be rendered with a trademark sign on them. Neither of these assertions is true, but they do legally have to be rendered exactly as trademarked. You can find an updating list of trademarked names on the Net. Google USTA (U.S. Trademark Association).

Unclear Antecedents: In following up a reference to a formal noun (e.g., “Gertrude”) with a pronoun (e.g., “she”), writers will often let another formal noun intrude between the antecedent and the pronoun (e.g., “Hector”) that can be confused as intended as the antecedent. This is anathema for the writer, because the reader invariably will stop reading and backtrack to figure out where they went off track. Do what you can to keep your antecedents clear.

U.S./United States: “U.S.” is the adjective; “United States” is the noun. They are not interchangeable.

Verb-Noun Agreement: Everyone knows that singular nouns require singular verbs (even when a prepositional phrase with a plural objects intercedes) and plural nouns require plural nouns. Wonder why writers fail to correctly match them so often.

Word Capitalization: Writers are habitually cap happy and publishers aren’t. When in doubt, don’t.

Word Hyphenation: The rules for word hyphenation are very complex, and authors can be forgiven for not being experts on this. However, it’s hard to forgive them when whether or not the word they are using is hyphenated is very clearly explained in black and white in the dictionary and they still render it incorrectly. This happens an astonishingly percentage of the time.

Youths: Although it’s becoming a losing battle, the word “youth” has a perfectly good plural form: “youths.” Thus, you don’t grammatically send twenty youth over the cliff in a bus, no matter how much these youths irritate you.

PennLady said:

Avoid the use of very, really, finally, actually, suddenly and literally
These words are not necessary; they are redundant. Part of my aversion stems from a high school English teacher who despised the word "very," and when you think about it, with good reason. It's a crutch, allowing you to avoid using better words. But you're a writer -- stretch out, if only to get the thesaurus.

If something is "very important," it is "vital." (better word)
If something is "very sad," it is "tragic." (or perhaps, sorrowful)
If something is "very big," it is "huge."

Click to expand...

Nice point, PennLady.

In my book, the same holds true going the other way with wussy equivocations like slightly, lightly, almost, mostly, rather, and nearly.

Folks, the love of your life doesn't have "almost perfect blue eyes." S/he has "perfect blue eyes." The same goes for his "rather deep voice" or her "nearly flawless legs."

Writing is our chance to be bold, gang. Lose the weasel words.

PacoFear said:

Nice point, PennLady.

In my book, the same holds true going the other way with wussy equivocations like slightly, lightly, almost, mostly, rather, and nearly.

Folks, the love of your life doesn't have "almost perfect blue eyes." S/he has "perfect blue eyes." The same goes for his "rather deep voice" or her "nearly flawless legs."

Writing is our chance to be bold, gang. Lose the weasel words.

Click to expand...

Love "weasel words!" I need to add that to my file. Paco, you're absolutely right, and I tell writers that all the time. Be assertive. A voice is deep or not, eyes can be shades of blue, so describe it, and if your character thinks those eyes (or legs) are perfect, let them say so.

The qualifier I would make is for dialogue, as it is for most things. But when you're just writing -- be assertive.

PennLady said:

If it's a number under at least fifteen, spell it out.
"I'll be there in 2 minutes," he said. (Come on—you can't spell out "two?")
If it's a road number, like Route 66, either is fine, even if it's spoken.

There must be style books -- Chicago, AP, Strunk and White -- that spell these out better.

Click to expand...

CMS 9.3 general rule is to spell out whole numbers from one through one hundred, round numbers, and any number beginning a sentence.

Hello people,

I’ve been trolling this thread for a while.

This one is simple, yet the complexity stopped me cold.

“It’s been a long time”

All right. Using PennLady’s test.

“It is been a long time”

That’s not right, so how about this?

“Its been a long time.”

Its is the possessive adjective. Ah phooey, that’s not right, either.

“It’s been a long time” is correct. ( It’s = it has ) It took a long time for me to track down the proper grammar on a five-word sentence.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is a simple one. Not everyone, me included, have the God given talent to write. I like to. I turned some good stories in. But, I struggle, damn do I struggle. It’s not for lack of ideas or stories, it’s the lack of skill. I’ll never be another Dan Brown.

I suffer from a form of dyslexia. I have no problem reading words— I can’t spell the words I just read. I switch vowels and consonants so the words are close, but never right. It’s something I’ve had do deal with since I was in the middle grade.

Here’s what I mean. Write the word cigarette down across an entire sheet of paper. Let me look, study and memorize that word. Leave it with me for an hour, day or a week. Take the sheet away from me, hand me a clean sheet and ask me to spell cigarette.

I won’t be able to do it. Sorry. Put a gun to my head. Sorry.

So, to compensate and allow me some degree of writing, I fall back to technology. In the background of my computer, I run software that constantly checks the spelling on most everything I write. It won’t work on the Lit forums, so I have to write my reply in word, and then cut/paste it into the forum.

I make my best guess and usually the software will produce a list of from one to twenty ‘guesses.’ The software learns how my spelling is and adapts to it.

But, sometimes in my haste, I accept a word that’s not the one I wanted. I may want angel but I end up with angle. They look really close, just two letters swapped, but two entirely different meanings. Even when I read the story out loud, my mind doesn’t see the problem. Even the volunteer editor missed that one.

To combat that problem, from that story on, every word that I suspect I run through the thesaurus to verify its meaning. But that slows things down.

This reply has taken me nearly two hours of work. Here’s a snapshot of what I had to do.

Complexity---difficult. Used thesaurus
Dyslexia---used Google to look up reading problems in children
Consonants—used thesaurus to look up vowel to reference back to
Volunteer—thesaurus looked up enlist

You see, it’s not that I don’t try, it just agonizing to me that I can’t fix what’s broke inside me.

Books. I amassed an army of books that help, but even the best book on golfing, won’t turn you into another Tiger Wood. Armed with a copy of ‘house building for dummies’ we could all manage to get walls and a roof up, but the house would be full of errors and mistakes. Perhaps some even dangerous.

Dialogue tags? One editor tells me I use too many. Story reads like a Dick and Jane reader. Another editor told me I don’t use enough.

Use sentence fragments? Okay. Caught hell for that one, too. Allow me to quote an editor I used. “Tell me, did you fall asleep in English class when they taught you that every sentence needs a noun and a verb?”

Word choice? Beet red or crimson red? Or ruby red or cherry red? To me, word choice is in the writer’s own voice.

Lie, lay, and laid? Good lord. Make me an appointment for a root canal.

Switching tense. Yup, sure do. I fight this dragon all the time, and usually the dragon wins.

All right, I’m done. Sorry to dump on everyone. I’ll crawl back under my rock, let the snow pile up and I’ll slowly, languorously chill out.

RWS

rwsteward said:

Hello people,

I’ve been trolling this thread for a while.

This one is simple, yet the complexity stopped me cold.

“It’s been a long time”

All right. Using PennLady’s test.

“It is been a long time”

That’s not right, so how about this?

“Its been a long time.”

Its is the possessive adjective. Ah phooey, that’s not right, either.

“It’s been a long time” is correct. ( It’s = it has ) It took a long time for me to track down the proper grammar on a five-word sentence.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is a simple one. Not everyone, me included, have the God given talent to write. I like to. I turned some good stories in. But, I struggle, damn do I struggle. It’s not for lack of ideas or stories, it’s the lack of skill. I’ll never be another Dan Brown.

I suffer from a form of dyslexia. I have no problem reading words— I can’t spell the words I just read. I switch vowels and consonants so the words are close, but never right. It’s something I’ve had do deal with since I was in the middle grade.

Here’s what I mean. Write the word cigarette down across an entire sheet of paper. Let me look, study and memorize that word. Leave it with me for an hour, day or a week. Take the sheet away from me, hand me a clean sheet and ask me to spell cigarette.

I won’t be able to do it. Sorry. Put a gun to my head. Sorry.

So, to compensate and allow me some degree of writing, I fall back to technology. In the background of my computer, I run software that constantly checks the spelling on most everything I write. It won’t work on the Lit forums, so I have to write my reply in word, and then cut/paste it into the forum.

I make my best guess and usually the software will produce a list of from one to twenty ‘guesses.’ The software learns how my spelling is and adapts to it.

But, sometimes in my haste, I accept a word that’s not the one I wanted. I may want angel but I end up with angle. They look really close, just two letters swapped, but two entirely different meanings. Even when I read the story out loud, my mind doesn’t see the problem. Even the volunteer editor missed that one.

To combat that problem, from that story on, every word that I suspect I run through the thesaurus to verify its meaning. But that slows things down.

This reply has taken me nearly two hours of work. Here’s a snapshot of what I had to do.

Complexity---difficult. Used thesaurus
Dyslexia---used Google to look up reading problems in children
Consonants—used thesaurus to look up vowel to reference back to
Volunteer—thesaurus looked up enlist

You see, it’s not that I don’t try, it just agonizing to me that I can’t fix what’s broke inside me.

Books. I amassed an army of books that help, but even the best book on golfing, won’t turn you into another Tiger Wood. Armed with a copy of ‘house building for dummies’ we could all manage to get walls and a roof up, but the house would be full of errors and mistakes. Perhaps some even dangerous.

Dialogue tags? One editor tells me I use too many. Story reads like a Dick and Jane reader. Another editor told me I don’t use enough.

Use sentence fragments? Okay. Caught hell for that one, too. Allow me to quote an editor I used. “Tell me, did you fall asleep in English class when they taught you that every sentence needs a noun and a verb?”

Word choice? Beet red or crimson red? Or ruby red or cherry red? To me, word choice is in the writer’s own voice.

Lie, lay, and laid? Good lord. Make me an appointment for a root canal.

Switching tense. Yup, sure do. I fight this dragon all the time, and usually the dragon wins.

All right, I’m done. Sorry to dump on everyone. I’ll crawl back under my rock, let the snow pile up and I’ll slowly, languorously chill out.

RWS

Click to expand...

That was part of my point in post three on this thread.

Keep at it. Your determination shows in this post.

Determination or stupidity?

Sometimes I wonder.

rwsteward said:

Determination or stupidity?

Sometimes I wonder.

Click to expand...

I see it as determination. Stupidity is giving up because it's too difficult, in my opinion.

rwsteward said:

Determination or stupidity?

Sometimes I wonder.

Click to expand...

It's absolutely not stupidity. I edited a friend of mine in grad school, and she had dyslexia and her sentences were occasionally unintelligible. But she knew what she wanted to say and she did try, and did the best she could.

As long as you keep trying, and making the effort, I don't think any editor will penalize you.

sr71plt said:

Depends entirely on the context--what pacing, emotion the author wants to convey. (And that's a professional writing technique.)

Click to expand...

I think what I am trying to say is like "he said she said etc with no description" I mean tell me how is a reader to see this is their mind without some kind of description??

One story, and only one that has been submitted to me for editing was like this. The specific author and I have some disagreement on this issue. His story is almost entirely conversation with little to no scene description, little to no description of the characters and little to no description of emotions during these conversations. It is basically all he said she said etc. In this particular story, although the idea was sound, plot well constructed the story was emptry and emotionless. It did not flow well. AND this particular author IS a technical writer by profession. I think the issue was that he was trying to apply technical writing rules to creative writing, and sorry it just doesn't work that way.

I made suggestions in a supportive way and await the email of the updated version.

I do hope he submits it here after he gets the editing and some description put in because overall it is a good story. And yes I told him that many times.

ET

Another peeve of mine that I forgot to mention!

One example I had recently was cost was mentioned in the story and it was # not words and not identified with $. I had to reread the sentence several times to figure out what was 120?!?

ET

Thank you rwsteward.

I was once told by an instruction that the only STUPID question was the question never asked.

My definition of stupid would be similar, giving up - not pursuing your goal. It took me over 20 years to see my life goal reality. My book on the market that is. I took that long because I took time to have my family. I wrote as often as I could, but did not have the time nor energy to give it what it deserved. Now, I can though and I am.

ET

rwsteward said:

Hello people,

I’ve been trolling this thread for a while.

This one is simple, yet the complexity stopped me cold.

“It’s been a long time”

All right. Using PennLady’s test.

“It is been a long time”

That’s not right, so how about this?

“Its been a long time.”

Its is the possessive adjective. Ah phooey, that’s not right, either.

“It’s been a long time” is correct. ( It’s = it has ) It took a long time for me to track down the proper grammar on a five-word sentence.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is a simple one. Not everyone, me included, have the God given talent to write. I like to. I turned some good stories in. But, I struggle, damn do I struggle. It’s not for lack of ideas or stories, it’s the lack of skill. I’ll never be another Dan Brown.

I suffer from a form of dyslexia. I have no problem reading words— I can’t spell the words I just read. I switch vowels and consonants so the words are close, but never right. It’s something I’ve had do deal with since I was in the middle grade.

Here’s what I mean. Write the word cigarette down across an entire sheet of paper. Let me look, study and memorize that word. Leave it with me for an hour, day or a week. Take the sheet away from me, hand me a clean sheet and ask me to spell cigarette.

I won’t be able to do it. Sorry. Put a gun to my head. Sorry.

So, to compensate and allow me some degree of writing, I fall back to technology. In the background of my computer, I run software that constantly checks the spelling on most everything I write. It won’t work on the Lit forums, so I have to write my reply in word, and then cut/paste it into the forum.

I make my best guess and usually the software will produce a list of from one to twenty ‘guesses.’ The software learns how my spelling is and adapts to it.

But, sometimes in my haste, I accept a word that’s not the one I wanted. I may want angel but I end up with angle. They look really close, just two letters swapped, but two entirely different meanings. Even when I read the story out loud, my mind doesn’t see the problem. Even the volunteer editor missed that one.

To combat that problem, from that story on, every word that I suspect I run through the thesaurus to verify its meaning. But that slows things down.

This reply has taken me nearly two hours of work. Here’s a snapshot of what I had to do.

Complexity---difficult. Used thesaurus
Dyslexia---used Google to look up reading problems in children
Consonants—used thesaurus to look up vowel to reference back to
Volunteer—thesaurus looked up enlist

You see, it’s not that I don’t try, it just agonizing to me that I can’t fix what’s broke inside me.

Books. I amassed an army of books that help, but even the best book on golfing, won’t turn you into another Tiger Wood. Armed with a copy of ‘house building for dummies’ we could all manage to get walls and a roof up, but the house would be full of errors and mistakes. Perhaps some even dangerous.

Dialogue tags? One editor tells me I use too many. Story reads like a Dick and Jane reader. Another editor told me I don’t use enough.

Use sentence fragments? Okay. Caught hell for that one, too. Allow me to quote an editor I used. “Tell me, did you fall asleep in English class when they taught you that every sentence needs a noun and a verb?”

Word choice? Beet red or crimson red? Or ruby red or cherry red? To me, word choice is in the writer’s own voice.

Lie, lay, and laid? Good lord. Make me an appointment for a root canal.

Switching tense. Yup, sure do. I fight this dragon all the time, and usually the dragon wins.

All right, I’m done. Sorry to dump on everyone. I’ll crawl back under my rock, let the snow pile up and I’ll slowly, languorously chill out.

RWS

Click to expand...

Amen. I have same / similar issue and I rarely write as I speak, because the words are in my head and don't translate to paper. I was 2 yrs into the military before someone figured out my dyslexia problem. I would pass physical tests and fail the written tests on the same exact subject. The civilian teacher said if it were the other way around he would have suspected me of cheating. The live spell check in the forums has caused me more than once to not post because I couldn't say what I wanted to. Also the system logs me out before I can finish longer posts, and have had to take it to the off line word processor and c&p into the forums. I also have physical limitations to typing, writing that make it difficult some days. In the end all the obstacles make the work my valuable to me.

Peace

Ooh, know your pain. If it wasn't for a biology teacher than notice my problem, I may have failed high school.

He allowed me to tell him the answers to his tests.

That gave me an idea. So I purchased voice to text software for my computer.

It worked, after a fashion. But, it destroyed any creative thinking. The software would translate voice to text, but it didn't know the finer arts of grammar, so you had to tell it. Like this:

(open quote) (Capitalize first) Did you see sarah (question mark) (Close quote) he asked (period)

Now, try and write more than a simple email reply and you can see what a waste of time that was, along with the $300 bucks.

Like I said, I keep on slugging away.

RWS

For those feeling downhearted, you might find it interesting to learn that one of the best-selling ebooks on Amazon is currently self-pubbed and unedited, and her grammar etc are not great at all. While it's not something I would reccommend doing, her readers actually come to her defence on the matter. So not everyone is going to read your stuff and say, "what a pile of asshattery," if you have a story that touches people.

The only issue here is that a commercial publisher wouldn't have looked at it twice because of the issues, and statistically, you're more likely to make more money with one of those than you are self-pubbing. (That is to say you have more chance of flogging 180,000 odd copies -- as she has -- with a big publisher than you do if you self-pub. That's why you'd stand to make more money).

With iPhone in hand, I have been trolling some of the publishing sites from work. Several things stood out.

An agent is almost 99.9% of the time a requirement. Two, the agents seem to appear to be god. The amount of hoops one has to jump through is simply mind bogging. From the font face, to the amount of words to be used in your email. Most don't use snail mail.

Makes one wonder how a new comer could ever get his/her foot in the door.

I asked, via email, what percentage the success rate was. They told me three percent of all submissions. That sucks!

How many of us would travel by plane is only three percent made it to their destination?

I'm travelling it at the moment, rwsteward. It's confusing, stressful and requires a lot of research, but if I don't try, I'll never get there.

Would be interested I your travels down the road of publishing.

PM me if/when you can.

RWS