One Draft, Two Draft, Red Draft, Blue Draft...

[Guest]

Re: Re: Fie on you, LB

speak for thyself, MG...I am not above depravity

Hugs: I love honest men. Perdita

 

[sailorm72003]

I always feel deprived if I can't be depraved

Sailor

 

[MathGirl]

Re: Re: Fie on you, LB

Originally posted by sirhugs my biggest complaint about Block's books is they are too short.

Dear SH,
Yes, I really like L. Block. In the preface to his latest, he mentions that his mother recently died. He said this would be the first of his manuscripts she hadn't read before publication. His mom must have been very, very broadminded for an elderly lady, because her son has written some very raw stuff. Both sexually and otherwise.
MG
Ps. I'll never forgive him for causing me to attribute a quote to Flaubert when it was really Wilde. And, of course, Perdita for calling attention to my fox paw.

 

[MNGuy]

The two stories I've posted here are first drafts. I wrote them 10 years ago, as practice writing. I submitted the first on a lark, the second on curiousity. Hell, I didn't even run spell checker on either of them. These aren't serious writings, I write erotica every now and then just for fun.

Serious writings I write the first draft, check grammer and spelling, read and rewrite. Then after that it all depends on how happy I am with the product. I find if I rewrite too much, I start changing the story, each change leads to two, leading to four, etc., so I try not to do that.

 

[MathGirl]

Standards

I don't care whether something is posted at Lit. or "The New Yorker." I feel the writer owes it to the reader to at least submit work that is technically sound. An occasional typo may get through, but there's no excuse for misspellings and truly rotten grammar.
MG

 

[gauchecritic]

You tell 'em maths.

Gauche

 

[MNGuy]

Re: Standards

I don't care whether something is posted at Lit. or "The New Yorker." I feel the writer owes it to the reader to at least submit work that is technically sound. An occasional typo may get through, but there's no excuse for misspellings and truly rotten grammar.
MG

There are a couple of misspellings, but no rotten grammer.

 

[sirhugs]

Re: Standards

I don't care whether something is posted at Lit. or "The New Yorker." I feel the writer owes it to the reader to at least submit work that is technically sound. An occasional typo may get through, but there's no excuse for misspellings and truly rotten grammar.
MG

don't let durtgrl hear you said that, she might take it personally

 

[gauchecritic]

Re: Re: Standards

There are a couple of misspellings, but no rotten grammer.

That's Grandma.

Gauche

 

[MathGirl]

Re: Re: Standards

Originally posted by sirhugs don't let durtgrl hear you said that, she might take it personally

Ah, yes. The difference, though, is that she does it purposefully and tries to be creative about it. It's not because she doesn't know any better.
MG
Ps. I hope.
Pps. I just like to feel that the writer cares enough about what he wrote to make it error free. Very few people are good writers, but anyone can use proper spelling and grammar if they make the effort.

 

[sailorm72003]

I agree. I may not be able to properly convey the mood or feeling I am trying to, but that's a limitation of my skills in writing. I do try to make sure the mechanics are correct

Unless the poor grammer is deliberate, in order to have a character stay in character, it's just a distraction.

Sailor

 

[MathGirl]

Originally posted by sailorm72003 Unless the poor grammer is deliberate, in order to have a character stay in character, it's just a distraction.

That's just the point I was trying to make. If I read something like that, I think, "How could this story be any good if the writer didn't even bother to spell correctly?"
MG

 

[Alex756]

Although I spellcheck the bejesus outta my stuff before submitting it. When I read, I don't notice typoes. Seriously, I've interacted in a fast paced typed enviroment too long for some transposition and mis-spelling to even be noticable. I spell very poorly, always have. I use a spell checker on my own stuff, but when I read I read for the story, not for the spell checking.

As long as it isn't that damn code Y do U 4get 2 spell shit out.... like that, I could care less, I'm reading for the story not for the spelling.

I don't see anything wrong with throwing a rough draft up on a free web site. Sure I'd spell check it first, but nearly everything I have up, I'm not sure its done. If it was -done- I wouldn't listen to people's feedback, but its allways work in progress, alyways a draft.

Heck, in school I've turned in rough drafts sometimes when I didn't know what to do next, then did the re-write on it after I got the professor's feed back.

Alex

 

[MNGuy]

Re: Standards

I don't care whether something is posted at Lit. or "The New Yorker." I feel the writer owes it to the reader to at least submit work that is technically sound. An occasional typo may get through, but there's no excuse for misspellings and truly rotten grammar.
MG

Making assumptions is dangerous.

Assumption 1.

I feel the writer owes it to the reader to at least submit work that is technically sound.

The piece submitted is technically sound. Did you read it? I will refrain from making any assumptions on whether you did or did not. Just because it is a first draft, and I didn't run spell checker, doesn't mean it is technically sound. Some people grew up without spell checker or word processors. We learned to write on typewriters, correcting mistakes or changing the story, is a lot more difficult doing it that way. We learned to get it right the first time.

Assumption 2.

An occasional typo may get through, but there's no excuse for misspellings and truly rotten grammar.
MG

Yes, typos get through. I've seen it in New York Times bestsellers. The misspellings in the work are typos. Did I see them, no. Would spellchecker. No. 'Nice' as opposed to 'ice' wouldn't be spotted by spellchecker. I don't like spellchecker too much because I spend almost all of my time telling it to ignore people's names and such.

Rotten grammar. No. Again, did you read it. I shall again refrain from making any assumptions.

Assumption 3.
Is really a general assumption. Just because I wrote the piece for fun, you assume that I didn't take any pride in the piece. Just because I use erotica to practice writing, doesn't mean I still don't take it seriously. Erotic writing is fun for me. An escape from writing more serious work. Keeps me in practice on days when I don't feel like working on other projects, but fulfills the need to write daily, to keep the juices flowing.

I submitted it on a lark, just because I never intended to post any of my erotic writings. Where was Literotica, or the internet back in 1989? I wrote some pieces, filed them away, not even imagining such a creature as Literotica would come along.

So before you go blasting someone on their work, or work habits, check out what you are saying before you make erroneous assumptions.

I wrote the above without the aid of spellchecker or grammar checker. It looks all right to me.

 

[KillerMuffin]

I write one draft, check for red lines, and then submit them to Lit.