All Comments on 'Why I Will Read Your Work'

Yes Finally I thought I was the Only Grammar Snob on hare as you Coined it. Thank You Finally Some Else On Hare Cares about Grammar at Least. I've Been Begging and Pleading with Authors on Lit and else where as a whole to Please Use Grammar Check. And as for clichés I think this does in fact a lot of them especially when it comes to Authors Describing their characters. And Yeah I Agree with you about the Inaccuracies, as well. now Historical Inaccuracies may not happen as often on Lit but I think Other Inaccuracies replaces that. I just wish Author's would just take the time to do their Research. Yeah I Agree also on that last part, as it makes the Author come off like an Idiot. Actually I think it would be easer fir the Author to Read And Editi as they go. As so they don't have to go back and reread Everything from the Beginning as if they are the Reader and no longer the Author of their Own Works.

Thanks, I enjoyed reading your writing tips, and I plan on looking at my writing in a new light from now on. The OCD history buff in me wants to point out that Egyptian mummies were wrapped in cotton, Arab traders brought cotton to Europe in the 9th century and it was very common coming back from the Crusades. Sorry, I'm a history nit-picker.

D.

Had a second read of this since the first time was a basic scan and something didn't sit right with me.

What didn't sit right with me, I found, was that you don't have a sodding *clue* about how to write fiction.

A prime example of this is your "example" provided in your little article about the wind.

You wouldn't use the third one outside of a dramatic or tension scene since it gives the impression that things are far too quiet. The first two (since they are basically the same sentence) would be used in a sadness scene where bad news has been given or even in a love scene. It's that flexible. The second one would be used in a more victorian point of view depending on the theme and who is narrating it.

So yeah, until you actually learn how to properly write yourself. Don't put down other people's work. Especially like you tried to do with mine. I don't appreciate poor amatuers making bad judgements.

To be honest you really should post up an example of your own work to prove you have any right to judge other people's works.

Especially since you don't know the proper purpose of an elipses or dash. They arn't good replacements for commas. Now I don't claim to be good at judging other people's work. But I sure as hell know when someone can't do it themselves.

Yeah, I did proofread this at least five times, and obviously I didn't catch everything. No one's perfect, and I know I'm certainly not. I will edit this again ASAP. As far as the descrepency about "dark and stormy night," my thought is that you don't have to use "dark" to describe nighttime; most people tend to connotate night with darkness. It would be more descriptive if you were not planning on having a well-lit night with the moon or some such thing than the other way around.

Hi!

I submit for your consideration, perusal and review, the following opening paragraph of a story entitled, “The Crystal Rainbow.”

Chapter One – Night

Cliché though it may be, it was a dark and stormy night that Erik finally gathered the necessary courage and ran away from his mother’s home. He really had no other choice. The boy had overheard the pompous fop while in earnest conversation with the woman that birthed him. He knew it was only a matter of time before the man wore away her thin veneer of social propriety and convinced her to send him, a malformed child, away to a mental institution, which would leave the two free to marry without a care in the world. Their plan: hide the freak. The boy she refused to call son. Hide the child that was the woman’s greatest shame away from the prying and judgmental light of day. And, that banishment from the light was something Erik vowed he would never allow.

I would like a candid critique. What could I add to or detract from the story to entice readers to review? I am a fellow grammar snob and have a deep love of words, but for reasons unknown to me, my story fails to garner any votes…not even bad ones!

Help!

Fondest wishes,

--ny

but I really can't believe the comment:<BR>

<I>"I had an English teacher say that the line, "It was a dark and stormy night..." was one of the worst ever written. Why? Unless one lives in the Arctic Circle in June, night tends to be dark. It might not be stormy, but describing night as "dark" is fairly redundant."</I><BR>

While she/he <I>may</I> have been an English teacher, whoever it was had no literary knowledge and no soul whatever.<BR>

Have you ever been outside at night? Outside at night and could see?<BR>

I don't know about where you live, but in Australia we have the moon shining most nights. Often, it is actually quite light at night. Many years ago we would go out at 2am and move irrigation sprinklers quite easily in moonlight which was almost as bright as daylight.<BR>

So, if a moonlit night is dark, how would <I>you</I> or your <I>English teacher</I> describe a cloudy or stormy night? Still the same sort of dark? Or maybe it should be, by that ridiculous earlier reasoning, called 'a darker and stormy night'. Would that keep you and the English guy happy??<BR>

Have neither of you heard of emphasis by repetition? Of poetic licence? Did he rag Shakespeare because Mark Antony repeated the expression 'for they are honourable men'? Save me!<BR>

We could also quite easily argue over the expression <I>fairly redundant</I>. <B>Is it redundant or not???</B> Are you not sure?<BR>

But, enough is enough (if that isn't another redundancy... LMAO

The word is "dialog" not "dialect". See in your paragraph five (5)....,Hey, just saying if you are going to be a snob...., you should practice what you preach!

Sorry. But I agree with you. Writers should proof their work. You make good points. Nothing spoils a story more than bad grammar and misspellings.

Thank you for shedding some light on the reasons some folks do and some folks do not read a story. It would be refreshing, as a writer, to receive more constructive comments from anonymous readers as opposed to, “Learn to spell, dummy”.

I can’t speak for other writers but I know I’m not the best wordsmith on the net. I write because I enjoy the erotic reminiscence and fantasy, giving other people vent to their fantasies and the positive feedback resulting from reader appreciation.