Storytellersunplugged

There are certain things that will drive you out of a story as a reader. It might be an interjection by the author that breaks the from the tone of the book or a really bad run of punctuation errors or even something as offbeat as a character using dialogue that seems completely false to you. It happens. As a reader you either get on with it or you set the book aside. Me? I’ve never once in my life started a book and failed to finish it. I’ve been sorely tempted a few times, but I feel obligated once I’ve started. And yes, I am likely the exception and not the rule. But I can tell you this without any guilt; when the writing is bad enough, I give up the writer.

The thing is, as a writer, you have to understand that not everything you do is going to work for every reader. It’s inevitable. Stephen King sells millions of copies of his novels, most of them have been made into movies and so have a damn substantial number of his short stories and yet there are people who still swear they’ve never read anything by him that they liked and some of those making the claim work in the genre (I’m thinking there’s a bit of sour grapes in a lot of those claims). Me? I love his stuff, but that’s not what this article is about. It’s about pet peeves and stranger things and how they relate to you the writer not you the reader.

I recently saw a series of discussions on a board about what amounts to cardinal sins in the eyes of a handful of writers. One person couldn’t stand the idea of an exclamation point and a question mark being used together. Another felt that there was never a reason for an exclamation point in a novel. Still another felt that short sentences were annoying, in direct contrast to another who felt that long sentences should be made shorter. According to another writer, the word “was” should be stricken from the English language, thus assuring that no sentence ever be passive again.

Um. Yeah, about that…. You’re wrong. Sorry, but there it is. Sometimes “was” is needed to explain past tense.

Now, where was I? (Sorry, couldn’t resist)

Ah yes, pet peeves. Grammatically speaking, fiction breaks most of the rules of the English language. Even if the descriptions, etc, are spot on with proper English, the dialogue is likely to either destroy all rules or sound completely false. People very seldom speak proper English in conversation. It happens, don’t misunderstand me, but not nearly all the time. As an observation I’ll point out that a lot more people who speak English as a second language speak it properly than those who speak it as their native tongue. Why? Because the people who learned English as a second language often have to translate from their native tongue, which means actually THINKING before you speak, and because they were more formally trained in the use of the English language. I suspect the same is often true in the reverse as well, but speaking only one language myself, I couldn’t hope to back up that argument. And of course, the preceding is strictly observational and the accuracy is questionable at best.

There I go wandering off again. The rules of the English language are there for a reason. The rules of Grammar are there for a reason. If you want to be a writer, you should understand both. You should use them, too. When it serves your purpose. Ah, here I go stepping into the lion’s den. Ready? It’s okay to break the rules occasionally. It’s called dramatic license. Well, that’s what I call it at any rate. I’ve been known to use one word sentences. I’ve been known to use several of them in a row to make my point. Punctuation serves a purpose when you’re reading. Part of the purpose is to help you set the pace. Commas and periods both cause a reader to pause for entirely different reasons, but they both cause a pause. Ellipses do the same thing. Exclamation points are there to let us know that someone is screaming, or speaking very loudly without adding “he shouted” at the end of a sentence. What an amazing concept(He exclaimed dramatically)! They all serve their purposes and they have all been beaten into new shapes and forms by writers who are better than I will ever be. Why? Because for writers of fiction (and nonfiction, I suppose) words are not merely tools but also a form of expression. Just as an artist who works in water colors might decide to throw in a little India ink or even go crazy and use oils now and then, writers sometimes like to experiment. It’s what makes writers unique and how they discover their voices. Oh, sure, we’re all telling stories, but I’m willing to bet if you read fifteen different authors you would find that few of them sounded exactly like the others, at least if they’re successful authors. It’s part of the job description, folks. We’re supposed to entertain our readers and in order to do that we have to experiment. Strunk and White might disagree with me, but there it is.

Now let me make something clear here. You need to actually comprehend the rules of the English language and the rules of Grammar if you want to be successful. The world is overloaded with people who fail to understand the rules well enough to sell a novel or a short story. There are some people out there who are simply so bad that not even the most patient editors on the planet are willing to put up with them. Some writers will see changes made by an editor and simply make every change suggested. Others will be a wee bit more contentious about the situation and will point out to editors that in this one case, this single situation on page 103 of the manuscript, the comma splice was deliberate. They will fight tooth and nail to keep that damned splice, too, because it’s there for a reason. Believe me, I’ve had a few polite but firm discussions in my time. I’m the first to concede when I make a mistake, but now and then I like to experiment. Not too often, because it gets annoying as all hell to the editors. I know, because I also happen to work as an editor. You can normally differentiate the mistakes from the deliberate screw ups.

I’ve long contended it’s okay to break the rules as long as you actually know them first and do it deliberately. And within reason should be added as a proviso to that statement.

If you like exclamation points, by all means. They have a long history and have been used for many years to make their point known. If you like ellipses…help yourself. If you want your characters to speak in broken English or you feel some insane desire to spell out their phonetic pronunciations, who am I to stop you? It’s your story; write it the way you want to.

Just remember, the editors who look it over might have pet peeves of their own, and while they are going to work with you, they are also going to consider their likes and dislikes when it comes to whether or not they feel like publishing you. Unless you happen to be an international best selling author, in which case they’ll probably give you a little more leeway. Not always, but most of the time.

If you’re thinking of diagramming every sentence in here to prove that I don’t understand grammar, you’ll be wasting your time. I’m sticking to my guns on this one and I do understand grammar, I just sometimes choose to ignore it.

And now for my moment on the soapbox: People, I understand the desire to get published, I do. I also understand that some people, often those whose unique take on grammar’s rules and whether or not they should ever be followed, will inevitably decide it’s best to go ahead and self-publish. Fair enough, but remember you’ve been warned and not just by me, but by a lot of other authors and professionals as well.

Fine. I tried, but you didn’t want to listen.

That doesn’t mean you should set up an anthology. Even if you do, that doesn’t mean that once you’ve decided to edit and self-publish an anthology that you should then include your own stories in said anthology. There are a few occasions where an editor is in an anthology and no one looks askance at that editor afterwards. Gary Braunbeck and Hank Schwaeble recently edited an anthology called Five Strokes to Midnight. It did well enough to get amazing reviews and several nominations for awards. It also won two Bram Stoker Awards from the Horror Writers Association. Both editors also have stories in the anthology. It came out from a brand new small press. It also included an introduction by multiple award-winning author Tim Lebbon and additional stories by multiple-award winning authors Christopher Golden, Deborah LeBlanc and Tom Piccirilli. Believe me, very few people looked at any of the performers askance and if they did, it was only for a moment or two. This is the exception, not the rule. Most of the time the writers I’ve spoken to look down on an editor adding his or her own story to an anthology unless that editor is already a well-recognized and established author or maybe the collection is non-fiction.

Come out with your own small press, come out with an anthology of stories, add yourself to the table of contents and put that puppy out for sale and the odds are remarkably good that you’ll end up looking like you edited a charity anthology and took every damned story people tossed in your direction and forgot to even consider a decent layout for the interiors. Yeah, I went there. Deal with it.

Professionalism is still going to require a few standards and failing to meet them just makes you look, well, painfully unprofessional.

Okay, that’s all. I’m off my soapbox and out of your hair for another month. Try to remember to write. It’s what we’re all here to do. Get at least a little “me” time to do your work and the rest should be easy as long as you stay off the Internet and cell phone and actually write.