Maybe it’s because it’s Walmart, but I get annoyed every time I’m at the checkout because the sign says 12 items or less. It should be 12 items or fewer.
This, of course, makes no difference at all. The point is the same—if you have 13 or more items, don’t stand in that line. (Although people do. That annoys me too, but that’s a whole other issue.)
And when I took my dog to the vet the other day, I drove on a road that claimed it was a boulevard. A boulevard, by definition, is a wide street or thoroughfare. But it wasn’t wide at all—it was a winding two lane country road that was acting pretentious.
I’m the first to admit that this blog is rife with errors and typos because I’m bolting through my posts. But I take a lot more care with my manuscripts—they’ll be as error-free as I can make them before I submit them to my agent or editor. Although I know they’ll still have errors (with any luck, just minor ones)— the errors will bug me to death, even if no one else notices they’re there.
But Jane Friedman, editor of Writer’s Digest, wrote a post recently that surprised me. She states:
But if I have a pet peeve with writers (both beginning and published), it’s their unrelenting obsession & unforgiving attitude toward errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Ouch.
She goes on to say that “perfect grammar has nothing to do with great writing.” Ms. Friedman calls it a “surface level” problem that sucks up energy better spent toward content and craft.
This post makes me wonder if I’m just off-base with my nit-pickiness. It’s probably just English majoritis on my part.
How thorough are you with your editing? Do grammatical errors and typos trip you up as a reader, or are you able to overlook them?
Elizabeth – Oh, you’ve hit on one of my pet obsessions! Maybe it’s because I’m a linguist, but I, too, try to be very picky when I write. OK, so I do make typos on my blog comments, etc., but not on manuscripts. My beta-readers do the same things. You are not alone : ). As a reader, though, I can easily forgive a typo if I can still understand what the author means. I’m intent on the story. For my own writing, though? I blush when I think of the mistakes that got through…
We might have a problem here, considering that a great deal of your blog readers probably suffer from English majoritis themselves (love the term!)…
Errors in grammar, punctuation and spelling only become an issue when they are there. If you don’t have any – there is no problem! (Can you tell I am having a hard time understanding what this editor is all about?) Granted, error-free manuscripts don’t have to be well-written, but I do think that manuscripts that have a ton of spelling mistakes generally are poorly written. Just this morning I read a perfectly nice article by a perfectly nice writer, but then right at the end the whole piece was spoiled by a rather prominent error: they’re/their. I know I shouldn’t get too hung up on mistakes like this since I am bound to make them myself (not being a native speaker and all), but it really made me wonder if the writer was just being lazy and not bothering to re-read her own text.
So I’m with you – I can’t stand errors as a reader, and thus I try to avoid them as a writer. Most of the time these errors are caught when reading through your manuscript a couple of times. People who cannot bother to do that probably aren’t too concerned with reading through to check the content either.
(I am now going to read through this longish rant to try to eliminate some of the errors I most definitely will have made, and then hopefully remove them.)
As a reader, the errors don’t bother me unless it’s a major error. I guess it’s because I read for content. I’ve read paragraphs that flowed fine for me only it re-read it and see there was an error in it. But on first reading I was getting the story, not the writer’s spelling or punctuation. Enjoyed the post.
BTW, the 13 items in a 12-item line does bother me. :)
Mason
Thoughts in Progress
Ah, the less vs. fewer fiasco!
My favorite was a Windows 7 ad that read “I asked for less clicks. Now it takes less clicks.”
When I read that, all I could think is: “I’m a PC, and I can’t speak my own language.”
I strive for perfection. There’s a difference between the occasional typo or error (and since I’ve become a writer, I know these are NOT always the author’s fault) and a lack of mastery of the craft.
A book I read recently had the character taking a “peak”. However, the rest of the book used “peek” correctly, so I smiled and let it slide. I’m more apt to frown on research errors.
But if you want to make a good impression, you should put on your “Sunday best”.
Grammar and punctuation errors don’t bother me too much, though I notice them for sure in published work. Far too often in new work, the grammar/punctuation is so poor it captivates the attention, and noticing content is lost to line editing.
I think the Writer’s Digest quote you cited refers to writers who are so fixated upon grammar and punctuation as the standard for ‘good writing’ that they overlook what’s more important: the content.
I don’t believe any editor would suggest grammar/punctuation is unimportant; rather they might say that it shouldn’t be so significant it overshadows the other many important elements in a manuscript.
Great post.
– Corra
The Victorian Heroine
Grammar is not my thing. I know I could study it and make myself much better, but I don’t have the time or inclination (or should it be nor?)LOL. Anyway, there is one blogger friend I’ve connected with who is the most exquisite writer I’ve read in a long time. She makes lots of punctuation and grammar errors, but I care not. When she’s published, those errors will be fixed. But till then, I’m glad she doesn’t focus on that, but instead allows her writing to flow out. Guess I agree with Jane Friedman then. I’m in good company.
Karen
How very interesting! Why, just this morning I was lying in bed reading Ursula K. Le Guin’s book of essays ‘the Wave in the Mind’. Now, I could quote her all day long, this is such an amazing book, but I won’t. I’ll get to my point. In her essay, A Matter of Trust, in the section ‘On Writing’ she discusses the craft and the art of writing. “All highly skilled work, all true craft and art, is done in a state where most aspects of it have become automatic through experience, through total familiarity with the medium, whether the medium is the sculptor’s stone, or the drummer’s drum, or the body of the dancer, or, for the writer, word sounds, word meanings, sentence rhythm, syntax, and so on. the dancer knows where her left foot goes, and the writer knows where the comma’s needed….People who say that commas don’t matter may be talking about therapy or self-expression or other good things, but they’re not talking about writing.”
I’d like to think she meant that perfect grammar can’t hide a poor manuscript. But it’s still important and really annoys me, especially when it’s my own.
It’s true – no matter how good you are at “big picture” editing, plot and timeline consistency, sentence and paragraph structure, plot flow, etc., if you miss the little things it messes the whole thing up – especially for picky readers like us author/editors.
Elizabeth,
I could edit my manuscripts to death for these small details. To do otherwise feels less than professional.
But I can see her point. If a manuscript has serious plot holes or flat, undeveloped characters, the last thing we should worry about is dangling our participles.
~cat
Well, as a fellow English major, minor errors haunt me. I try to find them all, even though I know some will slip through.
If I’m reading a published book and find errors, I see them like a speed bump, but I keep on going. Hard to do that with my own work, though.
I try my best to avoid any errors in my own manuscripts though I know some still slip through. Knowing how hard it is to produce a perfect manuscript, I’m usually able to overlook a typo or grammatical error or two. However, if the book is full of them, they do become a distraction.
I admit typos drive me nuts. Massive grammar faux-pas also make me cross my eyes, but I’ve noticed I can become rather obsessive about them and that obsession can make my stories sound more like an essay and less like my characters’ voices.
I try to catch those little mistakes, but I always miss something!
We have to be nit-picky with ourselves, and maybe with each other when we critique, but outside of the realm of editing, we should be more forgiving – or at least philosophical about it.
However, I think we should not stop observing such flaws. For instance, your description of that tiny boulevard brought a vivid moment to mind. That’s a wonderful detail. It’s the sort of detail the really great noir writers use to give character to a neighborhood. (Usually written in a non-judgmental way, but with an eye toward the nature of pride or delusion.)
Margot–It’s easy to be picky, isn’t it? I see problems all the time…in the newspaper, books, on signs. And in my blog posts. :) Not to mention my own comments! I’m not very forgiving. I’m going to try to get over it. :)
Cruella–I think their/they’re/there errors really pull readers out of an article or story. And its/it’s. Ack.
Reading out loud helps a lot, too. And you’re right–if someone doesn’t care about their typos, they probably don’t care about their content, either.
Corra–I’m sure you’re right. Her article surprised me, though. My impression is that publishers don’t want to waste their copy editor’s time on a manuscript that’s full of errors.
Jan–I love that! I’ll have to read her book. I think the mechanics are an important part of the story.
Alex–She said that she’s posted on the topic before and it’s always a controversial one. I bet it is!
Marvin–I guess we’re just pickier than most readers, aren’t we? It just bothers us more.
Mason–That’s what I want to do–read for content. I really hate it when I can’t let myself get caught up in a book without being critical!
I actually will count the items in the person’s buggy. :) I need a life…
Helen–I usually stick with it, too..but it distracts me for a while. And then I start looking critically at the book instead of looking at it as entertainment–which is not what the author would have wanted.
Jane–I think it pulls readers out of the book and makes them think about mechanics–not a good thing.
Diane–And I wonder if maybe I should spend my revision time sprucing up my content more.
nelsonleith–Oh, that HURTS me to read!
Terry–Sunday best. :) You’re so right. Peak and peek…ugh.
When the evaluation of writing is so subjective, it’s easy to latch onto grammar as an element of a story/novel that works or not. Grammar is clearly correctly employed or not, where as other elements of writing are harder to determine.
I agree that you can be overly concerned with grammar to the detriment of other aspects of craft, but that doesn’t give people a free pass to avoid learning the tools of the trade.
I loved the part: “perfect grammar has nothing to do with great writing.” That’s good to know because my grammar sucks. But, honestly, I don’t feel satisfied if my work has mistakes in it. It doesn’t feel right.
I try to turn in as clean a manuscript as possible–but I also make sure that someone else looks at it first. I always miss something when it’s my own work… Thank goodness for copy editors!
I won´t claim I never make mistakes, but like you I put much more work into my stories and novels than into my blog posts. I am not obsessed with details and can forgive a few errors, but if the novel seems slovenly written, I may put it down – unless I am so absorbed by the plot that I can ignore it.
Bluestocking–I think you were an English major, too! :)
Clarissa–It’s true–a book can be perfectly correct, but boring or poorly told. But mistakes worry me because I always think it looks like I don’t care about the manuscript. I just don’t want to look lazy.
Meredith–Maybe we’re so close to the story that it’s hard for us to see the mistakes? I think that’s my problem. I’ll read it out loud and that helps–but I *really* appreciate the copy editors!
Karen–I think her point is sound–you can be a good writer and not necessarily a good editor.
catwoods–I guess there’s definitely a triage when you have a manuscript emergency–and story comes before typos.
Elspeth–I do the same thing. :)
Daring Novelist: Good point–we could use it to make a derisive point. Actually, I can go farther with it–it was called Corporate Boulevard. Can you imagine? I guess they’re hoping some corporations want to move to the country. :)
I’m on YOUR side, Elizabeth–bugs the heck out of me. I think there are great books that MAKE USE of strange grammar–I just read the Book thief and I LOVE his incongruent use of adjectives because they become so much more descriptive when applied to the wrong thing.
I think there is room for strangeness among first person-told tales because that can be attributed to narrator voice, but MOSTLY, it just needs to be corrected wherever possible.
“country road … acting pretentious.” Ha! HAhaaA! *snarf*
Um. I ALWAYS notice typos and grammatical errors. And misuses of words. And I wasn’t even an English major.
BUT I agree that little problems like that aren’t story-killers. A fellow in my writing class last year didn’t know the first thing about grammar, and couldn’t write an elegant sentence to save his life, but his eye for story and moment were exquisite. I kid you not, like punch-in-the-gut good. So… if he learned the bidness of punctuation and made a go of the writing thing, he could go far.
You can teach punctuation. A writer’s eye? That’s tougher.
Ok–they bother me even though I know I don’t always get them right. But if I try really hard to get my work the best before I send it out:)
Hart–“Book Thief” was really clever, wasn’t it? I have to admit that at first, Death’s use of colors threw me…
Good point about stories told in first person! You’re right–especially if it’s grammar, not typos.
Simon–We always *hear* that editors expect our submissions to be perfect, not sloppy. But then when the *bones* of the story are really good, and the *story* is really good…maybe editors don’t pay as much attention to the mechanics? If so, it sounds like your friend might have a crack at it.
It’s true–some things can be learned…I’m not *sure* that other parts of the writing craft can be.
Terri–Me too. :)
Timely topic for me, since I’m working my way through my ms for the final time before it goes back to Midnight Ink and the printer. I don’t go nuts about others’ minor errors, usually, but my own drive me batty!
Dorte–I think you’ve pegged it–if it seems lazy, then I don’t have any respect for it. But if the STORY is good, I might forgive anything. I’ll still be distracted, but more willing to forget the problems.
Kathleen–But maybe not the MI editors! :) Sounds like the story might be the most important thing to them. I’m looking forward to your next book!
YES, I know what you mean! Grammar errors bug me! But it doesn’t seem to bother anyone else I know. I’m not the only writer in my family, but I’m the only English major. I’m the only one who loved loved History and Structure of the English Language in college. Perhaps that’s why grammar errors are my pet peeve, LOL!
I am not sure I agree with her. Perfect grammar cannot make a bad book good, but too many grammatical mistakes can take away from what has the potential to be a good book.
That’s my story.
Little mistakes CAN ruin an otherwise fantastic story, well written and edited except for … “Oh my gosh – how could they have missed THAT?” happening to often, hmm?