The other night at my critique group, I brought up the fact that a lot of the newly published authors’ books are full of mistakes. What I’m seeing makes my mouth drop, my brain twist, and leaves me saying to myself “they didn’t”. Oh but, they did. Oh. My. God. They really found someone to publish them or they were brave enough to publish themselves, talk about balls and guts.
Pages and pages of ‘then’s’ and ‘just’s.’. Lots of ‘as’ man. Lots of them. Newer writers are beginning their sentences with “finally” and “suddenly”. Instead of describing what their characters see, hear and feel, they are telling us they saw, heard, and felt.
Maybe the current and next generation won’t care how to spell (I mean the kids text today and teachers don’t correct spelling mistakes…not all, but too many don’t follow the old protocol) or what action verbs are. This new generation lacks love for English and the written word(not all, but too many). It amazes me how few love to read (too busy texting) and when a young person expresses their love for reading, it’s euphoric.
For the kids that love to read, how are they ever going to know any better with the smattering of stuff that’s out there. What are we teaching them? That it’s okay to be mediocre? Total ugh.
Publishing companies and self-publishers are putting first drafts of dribble-babble out on the market. I’d be embarrassed to have my babbles published as serious work, and I do a lot of babbling before I get it write. This is probably some hideous babble because no one is editing this piece, but me.
In my critique group, I get a good “YAK!” from my group queen, but newer writers are getting away with sloppy writing. Wow man! Wow! I mean, I know, I’m a novice at writing stuff, but at least I admit it, and I don’t shove it out there in the market for the world to see. Free is good, but you get what you pay for.
"Pages and pages of ‘then’s’ and ‘just’s.’. Lots of ‘as’ man. Lots of them. Newer writers are beginning their sentences with “finally” and “suddenly”."
ReplyDelete*Cringes and shudders* My first draft was like that. The story was brilliant, but the writing was terrible! I'm so glad I didn't go and try to get it published right away.
I've learned so much this past year. I learned heaps from WriteOnCon, and discovered that the draft I'd been querying wasn't ready enough to be queried. It was still full of beginner's mistakes. I'm now taking my time to fix those mistakes, and this time I'm going to be patient enough to wait until the writing is as brilliant as the story ;)
Okay, I'm way behind on things, but I just found your blog today and wanted to go back to your earlier posts where you were just starting out, since that's where I happen to be.
ReplyDeleteI like the way you see things and freely admit that you're a novice, or were at least back in 2010. You may not be a novice anymore though, but I'm really enjoying reading these earlier postings.
I must admit, my blog, if you happen to look at it, is full of first drafts. I have to do it because school severely cuts into writing time and in order to post anything to the blog, it has to be first drafts or I'd never get anything posted.
I look forward to reading more of your postings.