Has quality writing become outdated?
Recently I’ve read posts about the subject of quality writing in today’s publishing environment.
Another point mentioned is the greed of publishers for the lower quality writing published today.
Is self-publishing, vanity publishing, or POD (Print on Demand) the problem?
The ones I blame are writers and readers. I will tell you why.
I’ve reviewed over 100 books from various publishers, mostly Outskirts, Lulu, Xlibris, and personal publishing by authors. This is because publishing houses can’t handle the amount of books submitted, including manuscripts that are not what publishing house print.
No on to the books I’ve read, many of them break some fundamental rules of grammar, punctuation, spelling, and word choice. There are two quotes by Mark Twain that bring this home to e for everything I write, they are, “The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is that you really want to say.” and “The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter–it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” These two quotes speak volumes to me as a writer, as they should every writer.
It’s my position, no matter what, writers should always write their best to get the words down, then edit the work or have someone they trust edit it for them, be they professional or not. Only with honest feedback can writers improve. Writes need to write to improve their art as Mary Heaton Vorse said, “The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.”
Readers should never accept less than excellent writing from authors. There might be a problem created in the printing or formatting of the book or eBook.
It is up to the author to look at a finished copy of their book and ask for any errors corrected before it is ready for public consumption.
Who am I to say this?
Robert Medak
Freelance Writer/Editor/Reviewer learning marketing, and working on my first book.
The opinions expressed are my own and you are free to disagree.
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March 21, 2012 at 5:11 pm
yiddengoy
Don’t get me started on grammar!
I attended school in the early 1950s till the mid sixties. In those days we were taught grammar in our primary schools. By the time my generation went to secondary school the rules had been laid.
Though you may have forgotten by then what a preposition was, you instinctively knew not to end a sentence on one. You could still pick up when an infinitive was being split without knowing the terminology.
The done-for-did and seen-for-saw brigade were considered ignorant. To think that of anyone these days it would be you who’d be considered ignorant; or snobbish and probably both.
Nowadays, I often hear university-”educated” people use bad grammar. I see it also in their writing. I still find it appalling.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind people using bad grammar if they’ve never been taught the subject. It isn’t their fault.
But we are in a bad way when we constantly hear professional and academic people advertise their utter ignorance of their own language. It’s like they don’t have the sense to realize that foreigners (which I believe these days is a politically incorrect word) speak better English than our own natives.
About five years ago, when in a well-know Scottish university, I looked into the office of a doctor of a certain department. I asked the PhD where I could find Dr M——-.
He replied, “I seen him earlier in the economics department.”
Shocked, I said, “I beg your pardon.”
The gentleman obviously thought I hadn’t heard him properly and repeated himself more loudly.
It saddens me that academics these days can’t speak as grammatically as an office girl would have in the sixties. In fact, any such girl would have been ashamed to have been ignorant of grammar.
It’s a sad indictment on our nation’s education system that others can speak and write our language better then we–or should that now be better than us?