Ho hum Ho hum.
Reviewers that don't read your book?
Here they come.
Leaving mass destruction behind,
With a star or two.
You're a babbling idiot behind a keyboard, she said.
If they only knew.
You've worked hard on your book,
You've believed in it from the start.
Secured by their anonymity,
Like a dagger through your heart.
Other reviews come in,
Lavishing praises here and there.
But you'll never forget those harsh words,
There will be more, so beware.
Recently I read another forum post where all of these people, most who have never written or published anything, were taking many writers to task over simple mistakes. We all make them. Even books published by major publishing houses have major grammatical and spelling errors.
If there are one or two errors, MOST people move on, possibly even forgetting that they existed.
But TOO MANY errors become distracting. If your reader is so busy correcting your grammar, then they aren't getting lost into your story. You want your readers lost in your story. You want your reader to look up at the clock, amazed at the amount of time that has gone by while reading your words.
It is the ultimate compliment.
I read a book once about a young woman that was dealing with Lupus. Since I have lupus, I was very interested in hearing her story.
The problem? The first sentence lasted for an entire page without one punctuation mark. I desperately tried to get into the book, but I liken it to listening to someone's thoughts. Here is an example: (NOTE: These are not the actual words of the book)
Lupus is an autoimmune disease okay like your cells going haywire and instead of attacking diseases and bacteria that's not supposed to be there it attacks your organs like your kidneys, liver, brain, and other things and it does not discriminate because my friend has lupus and it attacked her heart when it attacked my lungs.....
I hope you get the picture. That was probably the worst I've seen so far. I try to give each writer the benefit of the doubt and ignore spelling and bad punctuation. Hell, I even cringe at a misplaced comma in my own work. Thankfully, you can edit the changes, and upload a corrected copy to Amazon. I took full advantage of that. So no one is perfect.
But if the reader can barely make out what you're trying to say, it's time to take it back to the drawing board and rewrite my friends.
But after reading the forum posts, I have concluded that SOME people LOOK for errors your book. I just made an error. Did you catch it? I didn't...not while I was typing it. I caught it on the third read and I'm going to leave it there as a great example. They are not interested at all in your story but will sit there and count the mistakes you make. Bored people? Maybe. Unemployed editors shaking their fists at society by taking it out on a few amatuer writers? That would be kind of funny but not really. Or are they consumers who feel like they are spending their money and time, wanting nothing more than a quality product? I could see that too.
But God help you if you misuse a comma or a homonym.
Okay...I have to agree with the homonym thing. Your and You're or there and their. Mixed up homonyms are my pet peeve. They seriously are. Many writers aren't the best grammaticians. Hell if we were, then we'd be editors...not writers. But using the wrong homonym? Not acceptable.
My advice? Read your book over and over again until you damn near have the words memorized. Join a writer's group and have them read it. It is very helpful to get feedback from different people. It will help you in the long run. Then read your damn copy again and again. There are things that I missed when I read my current book, Sex Therapy, when I began editing it the first time.
We will talk about formatting in another post.
Tea Of The Day: Ginger Peach, Tangy Tangerine
