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notleyab
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Rosalind's comments support what I was saying.
Not every piece that makes the TT is that good, but they do tend to be at least competent.
Which is why - yawn, yawn - I keep repeating the argument for hiding the charts until Judgement Day.
That way other excerpts would get a greater chance of being picked up on assignment, instead of people heavily sifting their options until they get a TT (or even 20) to review.
I am sure R is far from being alone in her YWO reading habits.
Let's face, there's plenty of other things - like real books - to read, without having to take on genres that don't interest you or pieces full of punctuation & spelling errors.
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jancarr
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This obsession with spelling and punctuation is so BORING.
This site is a revelation.
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adrian
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Quote: rosalindwinter, Sunday, 20 May 2012 08:59Your inference is simply wrong. I didn't imply that anything outside the TT or T20 lacks basic linguistic competence; what I said was that I do find that most things within the TT and T20 have basic linguistic competence. That's not at all the same thing. I've read and reviewed some terrific pieces that never made the charts, or didn't get very high in the charts: almost all of them were very original/quirky/not easily accessible, which is probably why they didn't achieve the YWO version of success; and a lot of professional writers that I love wouldn't have much success on YWO either. What they do all have in common, though, and have in common withmost YWO chart pieces, is competence in basic English. I clearly misunderstood what you were trying to say, I apologise, it was not intentional.
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notleyab
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Quote: jancarr, Sunday, 20 May 2012 10:07This obsession with spelling and punctuation is so BORING. Obsession with, agreed. But as somebody pointed out on here before - (everything's been said before) - would you show yr house to prospective buyers with broken windows, tiles falling off the roof and a kitchen sink full of a month's unwashed plates? Surely, it's only normal behaviour to check thru what you've written b4 putting it on here - and if you've got blind spots to ask someone to check it for you. Odd typos and missing commas are taken for granted, but there are pieces on here that you take one look at & think - I'm not buying this...... just like the tumbledown house.
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jancarr
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Quote: notleyab, Sunday, 20 May 2012 10:18Quote: jancarr, Sunday, 20 May 2012 10:07This obsession with spelling and punctuation is so BORING. Obsession with, agreed. But as somebody pointed out on here before - (everything's been said before) - would you show yr house to prospective buyers with broken windows, tiles falling off the roof and a kitchen sink full of a month's unwashed plates? Surely, it's only normal behaviour to check thru what you've written b4 putting it on here - and if you've got blind spots to ask someone to check it for you. Odd typos and missing commas are taken for granted, but there are pieces on here that you take one look at & think - I'm not buying this...... just like the tumbledown house. I disagree. Taking the house analogy, I could well buy a tumbledown house if it was in a beautiful spot, had interesting features, was the right price and tons of potential. if it felt good, like home, i'd buy it. Same with a piece of writing - if it has a voice (not necessarily one that I like), believable characters, a world that I can feel part of, a story (whatever genre) that hooks me - I'll read it. Or at least some of that, I'll read it. SPAGs barely come into it. They can be a bit of a smoke screen for poor reviewing and bad writing.
This site is a revelation.
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notleyab
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Quote: jancarr, Sunday, 20 May 2012 10:28Quote: notleyab, Sunday, 20 May 2012 10:18Quote: jancarr, Sunday, 20 May 2012 10:07This obsession with spelling and punctuation is so BORING. Obsession with, agreed. But as somebody pointed out on here before - (everything's been said before) - would you show yr house to prospective buyers with broken windows, tiles falling off the roof and a kitchen sink full of a month's unwashed plates? Surely, it's only normal behaviour to check thru what you've written b4 putting it on here - and if you've got blind spots to ask someone to check it for you. Odd typos and missing commas are taken for granted, but there are pieces on here that you take one look at & think - I'm not buying this...... just like the tumbledown house. I disagree. Taking the house analogy, I could well buy a tumbledown house if it was in a beautiful spot, had interesting features, was the right price and tons of potential. if it felt good, like home, i'd buy it. Same with a piece of writing - if it has a voice (not necessarily one that I like), believable characters, a world that I can feel part of, a story (whatever genre) that hooks me - I'll read it. Or at least some of that, I'll read it. SPAGs barely come into it. They can be a bit of a smoke screen for poor reviewing and bad writing. Yes, but the house you can mproive to meet yr own taste if you buy it, the book you can't....
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youngun
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It's not like me to sound like Pollyanna - perhaps the coffee and toast were especially agreeable this morning - but do you know I'm actually rather encouraged to see people on the site varying so much in their approach to reading and reviewing.
I expect I'll be back to my normal self again quite soon.
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jancarr
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Quote: notleyab, Sunday, 20 May 2012 10:34Quote: jancarr, Sunday, 20 May 2012 10:28Quote: notleyab, Sunday, 20 May 2012 10:18Quote: jancarr, Sunday, 20 May 2012 10:07This obsession with spelling and punctuation is so BORING. Obsession with, agreed. But as somebody pointed out on here before - (everything's been said before) - would you show yr house to prospective buyers with broken windows, tiles falling off the roof and a kitchen sink full of a month's unwashed plates? Surely, it's only normal behaviour to check thru what you've written b4 putting it on here - and if you've got blind spots to ask someone to check it for you. Odd typos and missing commas are taken for granted, but there are pieces on here that you take one look at & think - I'm not buying this...... just like the tumbledown house. I disagree. Taking the house analogy, I could well buy a tumbledown house if it was in a beautiful spot, had interesting features, was the right price and tons of potential. if it felt good, like home, i'd buy it. Same with a piece of writing - if it has a voice (not necessarily one that I like), believable characters, a world that I can feel part of, a story (whatever genre) that hooks me - I'll read it. Or at least some of that, I'll read it. SPAGs barely come into it. They can be a bit of a smoke screen for poor reviewing and bad writing. Yes, but the house you can mproive to meet yr own taste if you buy it, the book you can't.... I thought we were talking about YWO pieces rather than published works (though some have been published prematurely). And we can 'improve' to meet our own taste or at least suggest improvements for. Isn't that the point of reviewing and indeed, YWO? But just going on about SPAGS, in the review, is missing the point in my opinion.
This post was last edited by jancarr, 20 May 2012, 10:54
This site is a revelation.
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notleyab
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I'm talking YWO pieces, but obviously haven't made myself clear enough.
It's presentation I'm talking abt.
let's try another analogy.
Going for a job interview, one tt you really want.
Wd you go in with a stained jacket and sweaty shirt, hair unwashed for 3 weeks, picking your nose right thru the questions & farting as you walked out the door?
If you think abt & rectify all these things before & during presenting, wouldn’t you do so if you want to impress?
You might have the better looking CV - but we all know how they are hyped up, and the next candidate may have a clean shirt & a startling cleavage.
So, why not try to do the best you can with what you've got.
OK, you don’t want a review to focus solely on missing commas & typos & say nothing more. I'm not suggesting that.
But if someone keeps getting their apostrophes in the wrong place it does question thr use of English.
And even with near perfectly written pieces, surely it is useful to know, for example, that you wrote off instead of of – the sort of silly little mistake that spellchecker & yr eye cd miss a 100 times.
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John Dylan
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Jancarr, if you are trying to prove that excellent command of English is not all what it takes to create excellent fiction then save yourself the effort. I do not think anyone disagrees, but this is not the point being discussed. Tedious stains of spelling and grammatical mistakes can spoil the beauty of even the most creative literary work. Comparing those mistakes to discordant musical notes is spot on. Why make the reader suffer? Even if slightly? He is the very nice guy who is willing to pay you for your thoughts. Doesn't he deserve the best you can offer? And the dear reader is not the only problem. Agents are. To have a reputable agent accept your unsolicited work you have to write something better, repeat: better, than the works of established writers. Agents, like everyone else, want to make money. They have limited time which they would rather spend on the works of sure winners than on the unimaginable number of excerpts they receive from unknown authors. They tend to waste as little time as possible on sifting through those. Anything that is far from the industrial standards gets immediately discarded. I've heard from a friend that the industrial standard for grammar and spelling is 2 mistakes per 100 pages. Some say it is 2 mistakes /400 pages. I am not sure of the real figure, but I think If those 2 mistakes show up in the first page, or even the first chapter, one should forget about being published. Besides, if you have managed to bring all the other ingredients on the recipe: the creative thinking, the powerful imagination, the believable characterization, the ability to conjure spot on description, etc. Then why don't you walk the extra mile and invest sometime in proof reading your work? (A piece of advice I keep offering myself). It is easier to accomplish this than to master any of the other skills of creative writings. All it takes is some time and some effort and it doesn't require any talent of any sort. So why not buy that cheap remaining ingredient and get a bit closer to perfection?
This post was last edited by John Dylan, 20 May 2012, 11:15
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The Secret?
20 May 2012, 10:00
