Well-written vs grammatically correct

[oneagainst]

Did I go and make an assumption again?

Is there a comma fetish?

He went through the sentence, taking his time, working through the words, running the clauses together, breaking the rules of good writing, but unable to stop now, caught in the flow of commas, unable to stop.

[Cold shower]

There's someone out there in AH for whom that was as good as it was for me.

 

[Cagivagurl]

What makes a good story?
A good question.
For me there are two elements, and only one of them really matters.
Story telling... Has the writer told a good story?
Did it hold my interest until thee end. Did it make me, Laugh, Cry, Feel anger, Excitement, Sorrow, Elation, Joy...
If the story spoke to my motions, and made me feel something, then it was a good story well told.
Was it well written?
Were the words connected in such a way, that I understood without losing interest. If the answer is yes, then it was well written.
That is my opinion, and worth nothing.
Cagivagurl

 

[XerXesXu]

But what does well-written mean to you?

Em

Fluent, articulate and imaginative use of words.

 

[HordHolm]

Well-written to me does include the proper use of grammar, not because I'm a fanatic about it, but because the proper use of grammar enables the story to actually make sense (grammar is, after all, only the method we use to correctly ascribe 'what', 'when', and 'who'). Bad grammar doesn't offend my sensibilities so much as make what I'm reading less intelligible.

But well-written also includes (in no particular order) a coherent plot, internal logic, a use of language which conveys place and mood and, if necessary, conflict, and some sense of completion - as in beginning, middle and end (though not necessarily in that order).

 

[saintcero]

Can one communicate effectively while using bad grammar? I suspect so.

 

[lustychimera]

It's more about the flow of a story than the grammar. The rules can be flexed and broken---but there needs to be a clear reason why. Pacing or accentuating a word or any other semantic reason, it's gotta serve a purpose otherwise it's just shoddy editing. A slipped comma or run on sentence here and there isn't a big deal, but the blatant stuff is very distracting. Breaks the 4th wall for me, and I have to re-immerse back into the story.

That being said, these stories are going on here for free. It's a lot of fucking effort to write, and I don't know about anybody else, but I'm the type who can re-read a passage a hundred times and my brain still will fill in the blanks and errors. (Same with plot holes) I really appreciate reader feedback in that regard. So, tempered expectations. I'm not going to send my stuff through rounds and rounds of critiques and re-writes. My hobby's got it's limits.

Edit: And actually, in some regards, I prefer creative grammar. A story that takes Grammarly's suggestions to the max doesn't have any soul.

 

[lustychimera]

To become a trained editor and the undisputed checkers champion of Lit.


And I strongly reject the defamation of me as arrogant. After all, I have not yet declared myself as the son of God (I do not have any sons as far as I know).

You seem to know exactly who you are, and that confidence in your flaws is endearing in a way that makes me want to keep you at arm's length. It's intriguing only from afar.

 

[lustychimera]

Rest assured, my dear. The kind aunt from the park, who lovingly feeds the pigeons, harbors no ulterior motives to capture them for food or even to keep them as pets. She simply enjoys watching them as they comically walk and bob their heads.

As the pigeons mate and play and frolic among their own kind, the kindly aunt only has her day old bread crumbs.

 

[other2other1]

I know that I am not the greatest when it comes to spelling and grammar. My staff and my family all tell me this. However, I would like to think that as I get further into writing stories that i'm getting better. There is a big difference between the mistakes in 'Forced Perspective' (My first story) and 'Guilty Until Proven Innocent' (My last big story published).

I work with some good editors that clean up most of my mistakes, and I now read my stories several times to try and find issues. But I guess I also like to ensure I am enjoying telling the story rather than just spending all my time getting each comma or full stop in the right place. As we do this for passion as opposed to $$$, I think the reader should have a certain understanding of mistakes that occur. I know that doesn't stop those who are dedicated to their spelling, grammar and certain phrases (I get at least a half dozen emails a week on what I have done wrong). Twice I had fixed and republished due to errors. But once I publish something, unless its really phrased the wrong way or the word takes away from the story, I'm moving on to the next story.

You should write what you want to write, you will likely never get it all perfect. That's okay, I'll still read your stories

 

[Emilymcplugger]

I’ll be honest I am terrible for constructing bad sentences that are technically correct but read like shit.

Thankfully I’m able to reverse many of them at the editing stage but a few of them do get through. I think well-written has little to do with grammar but largely is about mood, humour, excitement, character development and of course… graphic detailed fornication by the bucket-load.

Which is probably why I have such a low opinion of Roger Hargreaves’s Mr Men series.

 

[lustychimera]

Not bad for poultry. Should you ever have the pleasure of frolicking with my "breadcrumbs," you will be the luckiest of men...

Hmm. Baleful flirtations. Oddly enough, I'm into it.

 

[lustychimera]

Oh boy, do I have an Ero Guro story for you...

 

[MelissaBaby]

Can one communicate effectively while using bad grammar? I suspect so.

Hemingway, Twain and Cormac McCarthy would all say yes.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Can one communicate effectively while using bad grammar? I suspect so.

Yes - it’s called normal conversation.

Em

 

[KeithD]

To become a trained editor and the undisputed checkers champion of Lit.


And I strongly reject the defamation of me as arrogant. After all, I have not yet declared myself as the son of God (I do not have any sons as far as I know).

You're not going to become a trained editor here. Historically, most became trained editors by working in the editorial section of publishing houses under the mentoring of an experienced editor. Now there also are academic training programs. Lit. is neither.

 

[SimonDoom]

Hemingway, Twain and Cormac McCarthy would all say yes.

That opens up a whole new debate, though it's related. Is their grammar bad? I would say "no." I think of all three of them as extremely meticulous writers who deviate from conventions knowingly and for clear artistic purposes. I'd analogize them to Picasso, whose early work shows that he had mastered the art of drawing people in a realistic way but decided to go in a completely different direction later in his career.

The key difference between their works and what you often find at Literotica is that they knew exactly what they were doing. The bad grammar one finds here usually is the product of carelessness or ignorance. For example, a seemingly little thing that gets under my skin is the careless handling of punctuation with dialogue. It's such an easy thing to master because there are only a handful of rules one has to know, but when I see dialogue handled in a way such that the author clearly has not taken the time to learn the craft, it diminishes my enjoyment of the story. Everybody who aspires to write should, IMO, take a little time to master some of the basic rules. There are plenty of how-to guides right here at Lit to help one do that. Then, if one wants to deviate from the rules for creative purposes, go ahead.

 

[djrip]

Nonsense. If you learned to fly the Blackbird here, I could easily become a trained editor.

My favorite plane when I was 8.

 

[yowser]

Grammar and mechanics matter when they interfere with your reader's work of digesting a story. Done poorly or clumsily and your reader tends to depart.

Nabokov insisted that good writing required three aspects. A writer needed to be:

A good teacher

An engaging storyteller

An enchanter

I never quite understood what he meant with the first one, perhaps just that a writer needs to clearly impart to the reader what is necessary to enjoy and engage with the story. Storytelling is absolutely an art, we all know some people who just tell a superior tale.

Of the three, Nabokov thought enchanting the most important quality. Word magic, seducing the reader, luring you in, keeping you enthralled, wanting more.

 

[SoCalAshley]

I'm certainly not writing comments telling people their stories are well written because I liked how they placed their commas! I doubt anyone else is either.

I'd say it's all about what the writing means, and how well it gets that across. Clarity, and having something worth being clear about.

I completely agree that writing is about clarity and plot. But I can tell from first-hand experience that readers do care about punctuation. In my case, that was not a bad thing. I've become a better writer because of the constructive criticism I received. But as another writer said, "Poor grammar can make writing poor, but good grammar can't make writing good."

 

[djrip]

I completely agree that writing is about clarity and plot. But I can tell from first-hand experience that readers do care about punctuation. In my case, that was not a bad thing. I've become a better writer because of the constructive criticism I received. But as another writer said, "Poor grammar can make writing poor, but good grammar can't make writing good."

I do like that quote.

 

[Comshaw]

I ain’t the bestest at grammar. And my, punctuation; could (be better?). Also my vocabulary and spelling are both a little out there.

But…

I still get compliments about stories being well-written.

I know bad grammar and, misplaced, commas are very, frustrating for some. But what does well-written mean to you?

To me it means evocative, drawing you in, making you feel or care (or both), painting a vivid picture, making you think, reconsider maybe. Basically leading to you wanting to read more.

I’m not advocating for anarchy with writing rules, but what does well-written mean to you?

Em

What does well-written mean to me? If I'm drawn into whatever world the author has constructed, emersed so deeply in the tale that my imagination allows me to live it, feel what the characters are feeling, that is a well-written story. As long as the mechanics (grammar, punctuation, word choice) are mostly correct, with only a few potholes and bumps to deal with, it is well-written. Grammer, punctuation and word choice are a framework. A guide that allows the reader, who knows that framework, to be carried along by the tale without having to stop and decipher what this or that sentence means.

The mechanics of writing are tools, a skill to be mastered and to be used. It isn't any different than a set of wood carving tools, a paint pallet and brushes or a pen and ink to put those pretty little notes for music down on paper. A painted portrait isn't any less a masterpiece if a brush stroke is wrong here and there. So it is with a story. An occasional absent comma, a misplaced adjective, a word used in error isn't going to destroy (well for most anyway) the enjoyment of a good story.

Comshaw

 

[Rollinbones]

I was criticised for characters whose grammar was poor. People don’t speak grammatically correctly. If you write people who speak like that, they better be stodgy old literature lecturers.

 

[PandemicReader8]

Spelling is a must have. But I'll take well written over grammatically correct any day, especially if proper grammar would get in the way of the narrator's voice.

 

[MissPrim]

I ghostwrite romantic fiction for other authors. In doing so, I've researched how best-selling authors write and developed a series of metrics to help me measure whether the prose does the work. Bear with me. I write whole novels, not stories. These areas are what I find to carry the story:
1.) Planning. Yep, I plot, perhaps to a ridiculous degree. In my story plan, I work with the client's proposed word count. I chose the number of chapters to render the story and divide that number into the word count to get the word count per chapter so I can render the:
2.) Structure—Each chapter has a specific job to do. Some people call this aspect story beats. This keeps the story on track with:
3.) Pacing—Readers want to see the story progress along its natural course. They also want to see the chapter progress and to this end I divide the chapter into three parts and choose an emotion to govern that section, then escalate it to the next more intense emotion for the next section. Etc. If you have structure and pacing down, you have conquered half the wrangling of the story.
I work in Google Docs, which allows me to use a couple grammar programs at once, so as I write, I make the grammar corrections. I know people wait until after, and if that works for you, that's fine. I despise editing for grammar, so I reduce the need by working as I write.
After I finish the chapter I look at these metrics:
a.) Lexical density—the percentage of words with meaning as opposed to filler words. Best-selling authors regularly hit 52% of lexical words.
b.) Pronoun percentage. This is my biggest problem, so I have to watch it. Less than 15% as calculated by Pro-Writing Aid.
c.) Pro-Writing Aid score, which measures spelling, grammar and writing clarity. 100% if possible.
d.) Auto-Crit Score. Anything above 80 in the summary evaluation is good. Also, it points out problem areas to address, such as repeat word.
e.) Weak verb percentage as noted by the free online program Expresso-App.org. This should be less than 40%. This ensures your prose sparkles instead of reading flat.

Readers, I've found, can overlook some things, but keeping the words and pacing engaging is what keeps them coming back for more.

 

[SimonDoom]

I ghostwrite romantic fiction for other authors. In doing so, I've researched how best-selling authors write and developed a series of metrics to help me measure whether the prose does the work. Bear with me. I write whole novels, not stories. These areas are what I find to carry the story:
1.) Planning. Yep, I plot, perhaps to a ridiculous degree. In my story plan, I work with the client's proposed word count. I chose the number of chapters to render the story and divide that number into the word count to get the word count per chapter so I can render the:
2.) Structure—Each chapter has a specific job to do. Some people call this aspect story beats. This keeps the story on track with:
3.) Pacing—Readers want to see the story progress along its natural course. They also want to see the chapter progress and to this end I divide the chapter into three parts and choose an emotion to govern that section, then escalate it to the next more intense emotion for the next section. Etc. If you have structure and pacing down, you have conquered half the wrangling of the story.
I work in Google Docs, which allows me to use a couple grammar programs at once, so as I write, I make the grammar corrections. I know people wait until after, and if that works for you, that's fine. I despise editing for grammar, so I reduce the need by working as I write.
After I finish the chapter I look at these metrics:
a.) Lexical density—the percentage of words with meaning as opposed to filler words. Best-selling authors regularly hit 52% of lexical words.
b.) Pronoun percentage. This is my biggest problem, so I have to watch it. Less than 15% as calculated by Pro-Writing Aid.
c.) Pro-Writing Aid score, which measures spelling, grammar and writing clarity. 100% if possible.
d.) Auto-Crit Score. Anything above 80 in the summary evaluation is good. Also, it points out problem areas to address, such as repeat word.
e.) Weak verb percentage as noted by the free online program Expresso-App.org. This should be less than 40%. This ensures your prose sparkles instead of reading flat.

Readers, I've found, can overlook some things, but keeping the words and pacing engaging is what keeps them coming back for more.

This is very interesting. Thanks for posting this.