Now what?
I?m writing in the first person present tense for goodness sakes!
Tomorrow, or today, since it?s 1:30AM and I?ll be up writing for 2 more hours, have a conversation with a friend.
By the end of that conversation wouldn?t it be ridiculous to say, ?um, you?ll need an editor to make all your words grammatically correct if you want to put that in writing.?
I used to hate reading books in the 1st person that had all of this poetic flair. Those books that just chopped all the connection to the real person out. Who says, ?I gazed upon the metallic sun, which leaned eastward in the dawning day.? Who speaks like that????? Nobody. That?s why, when I decided to write in the first person, I committed to this literary tool.
You know what, I have two degrees. A lot of my friends are PHD?s. When I sit down and talk to my close friends, we always end up in some critical discussion about art or literature or something. I kid you not. Most of the time, that?s where the conversation goes. I guess because most of my friends are artists of some sort. Some work in H-wood. I have one who?s self proclaimed poet and is waiting for the next Irish uprising?(um, no, not even joking there). They are well studied, have read the most complex texts of our time and before, and yet, when they speak, they?re not ?grammatically? correct. Especially if they?re speaking to me as a friend. Of course, if they?re explaining some concept of some sorts then a few academic words seep in and a sentence is spoken that can appease the grammarians but that?s not often. Especially when they want to sound off about the ?asshole upstairs who was running the vacuum cleaner at three o?clock in the morning.? Or the ?f?ing assholes who were playing their music in the street at three o?clock in the morning.? Of course we would go from there and deconstruct what kind of individual would partake in such behavior. Yes. See that?s what education does. Makes you think deeper but doesn?t really make you speak grammatically correct all the time in every situation.
I?m so tired of reading that I need editors, when I?ve had a book edited multiple times. It?s so misleading. And I know I should ignore it. But it?s misleading on so many levels. First, it implies that I as writer am a novice. Second, it implies that I as an author am sloppy. Third, it implies that I?m stupid and can?t write a sentence. I have a lot of college under my belt. I?m not stupid!! (none of what I just wrote is grammatically correct, however) Not even that sentence or this one. But aren?t you in my moment? Don?t you feel my passion? Can?t you hear me speaking?
THAT my friends is why Parched?nope?(shaking my head) for the most part is grammatically in?correct?. And if an editor tried to edit the verve out of my novels, then I would fire them. But you know, it doesn?t even apply to indies books. A lot of us have embraced 1st person but traditional publishers know that it?s a risk. That?s why they turned our stuff down when we used to knock on their IRON gates. Read the reviews on ?The Catcher in the Rye? and their are plenty of comments about bad grammar. It?s written in the first person, past tense.
Readers need to be savvy enough to ignore those comments. If you want to be transformed out of your everyday life and put into a new experience, then try a well told, first person present tense or past tense story with ?bad grammar? that even the critics find themselves getting to the end of.
However, I do expect the editor to catch a ?there? instead of ?their? and stuff like that. They of course won?t catch all of them but by the time it clears editor three most of them will be cleaned out of the text. And sometimes punctuation is used to set the cadence of a sentence. I may not be grammatically correct but when you as a reader read it, you?re able to read it just as the character is speaking it, which is as the writer imagined it.
Anyway? Once again? don?t let the unimaginative, grammarians ruin your reading experience.
Anyway. Back to writing. At 70k words. About 10k ? 15k left.
Peace.
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Source: http://zuleikaarkadie.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/yes-the-parched-series-is-grammatically-incorrect/
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