Standards? What Are They?

by Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson

I admit I spend waaaay too much time on email loops, especially those for writers. Some are aimed at and restricted to working professional writers and I love them! Some are open to anyone and sometimes I love them, sometimes I don't, because the view of the wider writing community is occasionally terrifying.

On one open list a writer proudly announced that she had finished her first book and then asked if she reeaaally needed an editor before publishing it on Amazon. If that weren't bad enough, over half the answers said no - that she just needed a friend or two to look it over, or she herself should go over it a couple of times.

What?

I suppose sometime somewhere there is a writer who doesn't need an editor, but I sincerely doubt that a first time novelist is one of them. Especially one whose post had two grammatical errors.

Grammar is important. Grammar gives structure, meaning and coherence to our writing. It shouldn't be ignored, because bad grammar says two things - either that the writer is excruciatingly ignorant, or that he/she has complete disdain for his/her readers, believing that they are too stupid to notice. Of course, this applies only to the narrative part of a book. Whatever is said/thought by a character should be congruent with that character. A dock laborer is going to speak differently than an Oxford don. A wealthy teen-ager is going to speak differently than an aged, unschooled farm widow. So I have always held that anything in quote marks or this-is-a-direct-thought-italics is exempt from the rules of grammar, but the narrative prose of a book is not.

Don't they teach grammar any longer? Apparently not, because a couple of days later, on a different - but another open - list, a different poster asked a very elementary question about how to start a book. Now there is nothing wrong with asking a very elementary question; we all have been there at some time and every writer has to learn. Two things made my blood run cold.

The first was the post was written with such execrable grammar that a third grader should have been ashamed to own it. I replied, mentioning that she might want to brush up on her grammar, then gave a reasonably detailed answer to her question. The second thing was that without exception others on the list attacked me, saying that anyone could make a grammar mistake (which I agree - ONE mistake in a questioning post, not multiples, nor such huge ones), that someone later in the editing process could catch the 'mechanical' errors, that this new writer could probably reach more people's emotions than I ever could with my perfect grammar... You get the idea. I even received a few threats to boycott my books because I am such a heartless grammar Nazi who puts rules above True Feelings.

So when did holding to a standard become not only passé, but almost dangerous for those who do? Language is the means by which we communicate. If the rules of language are disregarded and allowed to crumble, communication is imperiled. And that threatens all of us - readers, writers, and everyone else.

On another note, I would like to say that my YouTube channel is up and running - and I would be most appreciative if you would drop by. It's called Janis' Tips and Tales, and a new episode is released on the fourth Thursday of every month. Thank you!

Lazy Fingers & Cognitive Assumptions

Every writer faces the task of proofreading at every stage of the writing process. We sometimes do this onerous task at the end of a writing session or we wait until the entire work in progress is commented to paper or even to the last minute before the novel is published.

Competent typists are usually accurate to within a very small percentage point. Two-finger typists, commonly called the “hunt and peck” variety can actually be better at accuracy but much slower. Whichever we are, we occasionally make assumptions about the manual aspects of producing a written work.

Last year, I happily published my seventeenth novel of twenty written works with my name on the cover. While considering a new cover and further research into that period of American history, I reviewed a small section of the novel and—shock horror—even after careful and intense proofreading of the “Advanced Reader’s Copy,” I discovered a typographical error.

Not much further along, I found another error—the “My brain thought this word but my fingers typed that one” kind. During proofreading, the brain often wins the argument, making the assumption that the word typed was the word thought.

With more than one such error, I began at the beginning of the novel, making note of the errors in pencil and marking the pages with strips of multi-colored plastic stickies (my stash of these useful writers’ tools are well-used).

The whole process of re-proofing an already published novel taught me yet another lesson: Proofread more than once and proofread backwards. If you’re self-publishing, asking a friend or paying a professional editor are options. Even so, there will be the occasional missing letter, word or punctuation mark.

In that instance, take the philosophical approach: No one is perfect.

Spring Cleaning

Part of the process of moving is opening drawers and lifting lids you may not have touched for years. Other activities may be preparing household plants and opening closet doors.

Although we have lived in this home for only six years and had moved from a large house into this much smaller apartment—which meant serious weeding out—the acquisition of books and artwork, furniture and clothing, memorabilia and notebooks, statements and documents has continued unabated.

Along with the required careful search through possessions, there is real satisfaction in the process of cleaning. When I was a young girl, one of the weekend chores was cleaning my room and helping my mother with the basic household duties of sweeping, scrubbing and dusting from the living room to the attic.

As a child, I did these chores with reluctance but, since my weekly allowance was partially based on completion of my household duties, I accomplished the tasks and postponed my weekend activities until Saturday afternoon. As a mother and homemaker, my job was care and feeding, tidying and cleaning, washing and ironing—I soon taught my children (and husband) the joy of ironing their own clothes.

Despite the aura of being dutifully house-proud, I have always found the effort of deep cleaning—as in “cotton-bud spotless”—nearly as rewarding as writing a well-crafted sentence or completing a novel. That feeling of a job well-done, good enough to pass the toughest inspection, accomplishment on the most fundamental level—whether the job was a sparkling porcelain sink or refreshed and repotted plants on a thoroughly scrubbed balcony.

Spring cleaning is also a satisfying displacement activity when the perfect sentence that will bring a story to its natural and hard-to-forget ending eludes every effort made. At least, the dust kittens are banished to the dust bin and the silver tea service gleams like new.

The similarities between deep cleaning and final editing are evident. If only we could approach our own writing with the same diligence and vigor that engages our enthusiasm for sparkling countertops! The difference, of course, is our personal investment in the object of our attention.

One of my writing mentors, Daniel J. Langton, an American poet of Irish descent, extolled the virtue of “killing your darlings.” We all write descriptions, sentences, whole chapters and books we believe to be stunning, perceptive, cunning. In the process of creation, we lose sight of our principle objective: to communicate a story we want others to hear. Dan Langton encouraged his students to write simply, with authenticity.

Another of my mentors, George Price, asked this of his students: “Why use a fancy multi-syllabic word, when an Anglo-Saxon word will do?”

I keep both of these suggestions in mind when I am making those troublesome final changes and cuts, as well as my own: “If this doesn’t advance the story, cut it out.” There is a fine line between clean prose and bare, just as there is a line between sparkling and rubbed raw.