Oh, HUZZAH!
Friday, March 11th, 2005 04:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seraiI haven't gone off on anything in quite a while, so I believe I'm due. This post is left open because although it's not a fic, it is about writing.
Poking around on Fandom Wank, I just found this comment from an anonymous poster who signed "Tina":
One of the things that English majors learn, and that this person doesn't seem to get, is that with patience and practice, care for grammar and usage eventually stops being a stumbling block for a writer, because it becomes habit. Eventually you learn to catch typos almost automatically before you finish the sentence: if you don't, they show up like splatters of mud on a white linen skirt, and they offend your eye in the same way. The same goes for a misused modifier or a clunky sentence. You learn to question yourself: "Do I really know what I'm trying to say? Have I picked the best possible words to express it, and have I arranged them into the shapeliest sentences I can?" And after a while it stops being a drag, because it's a challenge that you get to love.
But that can't happen if you believe that the mechanics of writing are petty, and that it's beneath your creative genius to work that hard on them...or, God forbid, that it stifles feeling and creativity to care about them. One thing English majors also learn is that the language itself deserves to be loved and respected--which means that nothing about it is petty, that everything about it is worthy of attention, patience, time and effort.
Or anyway, they should learn it--the English majors I know seem to have managed to learn it. Otherwise what's the point?
Now (to borrow a phrase) I don't want to get off on a rant here, but I cannot tell you how utterly I applaud the above. Anybody who comes off with "Don't stifle my creativity!" or "Only give nice reviews!" or any other feel-good self-esteem happy-crap BULLSHIT is talking straight out their ass. You want to write? Then take the time to learn how. You can start the way all good writers start - by picking up a book. Then while you're reading, pay attention. Apply what you observe to your own stuff. Use a dictionary. Pick up a copy of Elements of Style - it's short, so it won't tax your brain, and it contains pretty much everything required to get your prose in shape. I'm not talking about ideas or plots or concepts, which occupy a completely different area, one which I personally prefer not to tangle with as far as criticism goes. Nobody's asking you to become Shakespeare (who plagiarized a lot of his stuff anyway). We're just asking you to make some effort to produce work that's presentable and looks like someone older than eleven wrote it. (And NO, for the last time, I will not make excuses for teenagers. They've got brains they can use same as anyone else, and a proper sentence is not particle physics.)
And for gods' sakes, don't whine. If your story has typos or grammatical mistakes, don't piss and moan when people point them out. Don't raise your hackles and start shouting about the Big Bad Grammar Nazis (Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!), who are actually just people who'd prefer to read stories that aren't riddled with fourth-grade errors. We're sorry your schoolteachers were too overworked trying to play Freud to your class, but the fact that they weren't allowed to knuckle down to the business at hand doesn't excuse your refusal to apply yourself.
And please don't come at me with this whole "angel of mercy" act, defending those poor little "writers" who just want to express their inner soul without being held down by The Man. Crap. The urge and desire to express one's ideas is not a license to butcher the language, or to torture other people's brains with undecipherable sentences, kitschy lower-case affectations, or the refusal to learn the difference between pronouns and possessives. Would they expect sweet kisses and gold stars from a writing teacher for such stuff? Hell, no. If you turn in work that sucks, you get a failing grade, and that's as it should be. Same in the rest of the world. Good work is applauded, crap is booed off the stage. Sad and hurty? Tough. That's the way life is. Anybody who doesn't get that is going to have a hell of a hard time in the real world.
And picking up those kinds of mistakes and mannerisms because they look "cool" is probably the worst thing a competent writer can do. (You folks know who you are. Yes, I'm glaring at you.) It doesn't make you look all modern and with it, it doesn't make you sound more in the know. It just makes you look lazy and inattentive. So cut it out. If you know how to write properly, then do it. The web is full enough of crap like this. We don't need more of it coming from people who know better.
Bottom line: If you want me to read your work, you'll have to put some effort into convincing me that it means something to you. And by "something" I mean some effort. Not just the time it takes to tickle the keyboard spewing whatever onto the screen, but the brainpower it takes to show some care in what you're doing. (See that "care"? Notice how it has two meanings. I chose it very precisely for that exact effect.) If you can't be bothered to improve your writing (and thus yourself) to the point where I (and others, believe me) will believe you have something worthwhile to say, then you may get lots of sugary strokes from people who love to coo, but you won't be getting serious appreciation from people who know a good piece of writing from a moose-turd pie. (Five points if you can make that connection.)
ETA: This goes double for betas. If it's expected for writers to work just as hard on their form as on their content, then it's far more expected that the people doing the advising and the cleaning know what they're doing as well. I've read fics that made my eyes burn that had squeeful author notes thanking "my great beta who did soooo much work on this!" Talk about deskhead; my skull aches when I come across those. If you're going to put yourself forward as a beta, please do us all the favor of learning the basics. Because oddly enough, I expect an editor to know how to edit. This includes things like spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. You're a checkpoint, the drawbridge, not a fangirl. It's your job to make sure the fic is ready, remember.
And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.
Poking around on Fandom Wank, I just found this comment from an anonymous poster who signed "Tina":
One of the things that English majors learn, and that this person doesn't seem to get, is that with patience and practice, care for grammar and usage eventually stops being a stumbling block for a writer, because it becomes habit. Eventually you learn to catch typos almost automatically before you finish the sentence: if you don't, they show up like splatters of mud on a white linen skirt, and they offend your eye in the same way. The same goes for a misused modifier or a clunky sentence. You learn to question yourself: "Do I really know what I'm trying to say? Have I picked the best possible words to express it, and have I arranged them into the shapeliest sentences I can?" And after a while it stops being a drag, because it's a challenge that you get to love.
But that can't happen if you believe that the mechanics of writing are petty, and that it's beneath your creative genius to work that hard on them...or, God forbid, that it stifles feeling and creativity to care about them. One thing English majors also learn is that the language itself deserves to be loved and respected--which means that nothing about it is petty, that everything about it is worthy of attention, patience, time and effort.
Or anyway, they should learn it--the English majors I know seem to have managed to learn it. Otherwise what's the point?
Now (to borrow a phrase) I don't want to get off on a rant here, but I cannot tell you how utterly I applaud the above. Anybody who comes off with "Don't stifle my creativity!" or "Only give nice reviews!" or any other feel-good self-esteem happy-crap BULLSHIT is talking straight out their ass. You want to write? Then take the time to learn how. You can start the way all good writers start - by picking up a book. Then while you're reading, pay attention. Apply what you observe to your own stuff. Use a dictionary. Pick up a copy of Elements of Style - it's short, so it won't tax your brain, and it contains pretty much everything required to get your prose in shape. I'm not talking about ideas or plots or concepts, which occupy a completely different area, one which I personally prefer not to tangle with as far as criticism goes. Nobody's asking you to become Shakespeare (who plagiarized a lot of his stuff anyway). We're just asking you to make some effort to produce work that's presentable and looks like someone older than eleven wrote it. (And NO, for the last time, I will not make excuses for teenagers. They've got brains they can use same as anyone else, and a proper sentence is not particle physics.)
And for gods' sakes, don't whine. If your story has typos or grammatical mistakes, don't piss and moan when people point them out. Don't raise your hackles and start shouting about the Big Bad Grammar Nazis (Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!), who are actually just people who'd prefer to read stories that aren't riddled with fourth-grade errors. We're sorry your schoolteachers were too overworked trying to play Freud to your class, but the fact that they weren't allowed to knuckle down to the business at hand doesn't excuse your refusal to apply yourself.
And please don't come at me with this whole "angel of mercy" act, defending those poor little "writers" who just want to express their inner soul without being held down by The Man. Crap. The urge and desire to express one's ideas is not a license to butcher the language, or to torture other people's brains with undecipherable sentences, kitschy lower-case affectations, or the refusal to learn the difference between pronouns and possessives. Would they expect sweet kisses and gold stars from a writing teacher for such stuff? Hell, no. If you turn in work that sucks, you get a failing grade, and that's as it should be. Same in the rest of the world. Good work is applauded, crap is booed off the stage. Sad and hurty? Tough. That's the way life is. Anybody who doesn't get that is going to have a hell of a hard time in the real world.
And picking up those kinds of mistakes and mannerisms because they look "cool" is probably the worst thing a competent writer can do. (You folks know who you are. Yes, I'm glaring at you.) It doesn't make you look all modern and with it, it doesn't make you sound more in the know. It just makes you look lazy and inattentive. So cut it out. If you know how to write properly, then do it. The web is full enough of crap like this. We don't need more of it coming from people who know better.
Bottom line: If you want me to read your work, you'll have to put some effort into convincing me that it means something to you. And by "something" I mean some effort. Not just the time it takes to tickle the keyboard spewing whatever onto the screen, but the brainpower it takes to show some care in what you're doing. (See that "care"? Notice how it has two meanings. I chose it very precisely for that exact effect.) If you can't be bothered to improve your writing (and thus yourself) to the point where I (and others, believe me) will believe you have something worthwhile to say, then you may get lots of sugary strokes from people who love to coo, but you won't be getting serious appreciation from people who know a good piece of writing from a moose-turd pie. (Five points if you can make that connection.)
ETA: This goes double for betas. If it's expected for writers to work just as hard on their form as on their content, then it's far more expected that the people doing the advising and the cleaning know what they're doing as well. I've read fics that made my eyes burn that had squeeful author notes thanking "my great beta who did soooo much work on this!" Talk about deskhead; my skull aches when I come across those. If you're going to put yourself forward as a beta, please do us all the favor of learning the basics. Because oddly enough, I expect an editor to know how to edit. This includes things like spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. You're a checkpoint, the drawbridge, not a fangirl. It's your job to make sure the fic is ready, remember.
And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.
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Date: Saturday, March 12th, 2005 01:42 am (UTC)You are quite right to point out that teenagers have brains and the ability to use language correctly. I was able to write coherent and graceful sentences when I was six, and my parents would have had me killed quite politely if I didn't measure up to their high standards. I work with many teens who speak very well, although I have not had occasion to see writing samples from most of them.
Thank you so much for standing up so eloquently to those who think it wrong to push for better writing. My gratitude is boundless!
Catherine