gentledemands
Really Really Experienced
- Joined
- May 31, 2012
- Posts
- 428
My big thing was then.
'He struggled to remove the wheel, then pulled the spare out of the trunk.'
'Then', a conjunctive adverb, tripped me up for a long time. There's a slew of them. Like: however, therefore, also, and the like.
So what's my point? It's this. Getting rid of crap nobody seems to argue with. Adding the correct things that help the reader along and make clear what you intended, is not a valueless pursuit.
While it is true these began as simple 'printers marks' the question still needs to be asked, "What did that want to accomplish?" The answer is clarity. That's not a bad thing. In my writings (Gentle is not my name) I use the occasional semi-colon when the writing seems to demand it. I used to try and get rid of them at every turn. I like ellipsis and I use m-dashes. Why? Because it suits my style and, to me, the content demands it. Ellipsis tend to explain that the character is struggling with an idea, which to me is better than saying 'He struggled with the idea'. Yes, it's fiction published here on lit. I've also published close to 30 non-fiction books.
I'm here to get better at writing. While Elfin claims to be ready to get rid of punctuation (think the Bible and classical literature is hard to understand now?) it seems to me the stories written under that name are well punctuated. On the other hand, he seems to really lean on italics at times. Very hard on the eyes.
I often wonder if some people who offer advice saying "don't sweat it", are actually trying to stop the development of their competition. I'm just suspicious this way. If you think that you can write whatever you choose without taking any interest in grammar because you can get an editor to clean it up, I'd suggest you check how much professional editors charge. They are in high demand and and will choose to work with someone who's got things together. If you plan on writing romance, a genre with short books, you're looking looking at 60k words as a ballpark figure for publication. Many editors charge 6 cents a letter. Cheap right? 60k x .06 = $3600
Let them earn their money you say? They will... off of someone who knows how to write. Want too be a writer? Learn to write.
While this has been fun, I need to beard the lion in its den. Anyone up for a discussion on hyphens?
'He struggled to remove the wheel, then pulled the spare out of the trunk.'
'Then', a conjunctive adverb, tripped me up for a long time. There's a slew of them. Like: however, therefore, also, and the like.
So what's my point? It's this. Getting rid of crap nobody seems to argue with. Adding the correct things that help the reader along and make clear what you intended, is not a valueless pursuit.
While it is true these began as simple 'printers marks' the question still needs to be asked, "What did that want to accomplish?" The answer is clarity. That's not a bad thing. In my writings (Gentle is not my name) I use the occasional semi-colon when the writing seems to demand it. I used to try and get rid of them at every turn. I like ellipsis and I use m-dashes. Why? Because it suits my style and, to me, the content demands it. Ellipsis tend to explain that the character is struggling with an idea, which to me is better than saying 'He struggled with the idea'. Yes, it's fiction published here on lit. I've also published close to 30 non-fiction books.
I'm here to get better at writing. While Elfin claims to be ready to get rid of punctuation (think the Bible and classical literature is hard to understand now?) it seems to me the stories written under that name are well punctuated. On the other hand, he seems to really lean on italics at times. Very hard on the eyes.
I often wonder if some people who offer advice saying "don't sweat it", are actually trying to stop the development of their competition. I'm just suspicious this way. If you think that you can write whatever you choose without taking any interest in grammar because you can get an editor to clean it up, I'd suggest you check how much professional editors charge. They are in high demand and and will choose to work with someone who's got things together. If you plan on writing romance, a genre with short books, you're looking looking at 60k words as a ballpark figure for publication. Many editors charge 6 cents a letter. Cheap right? 60k x .06 = $3600
Let them earn their money you say? They will... off of someone who knows how to write. Want too be a writer? Learn to write.
While this has been fun, I need to beard the lion in its den. Anyone up for a discussion on hyphens?
