Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Linda thought about writing a book. She did not.

I've just finished reading the worst-written book I've ever read. Granted, there have been other books I didn't like and didn't bother to finish, but this time the bad writing is what kept me reading. Each groan-provoking grammatical error, misused word, or ill-written phrase spurred me on to find another one that might be even worse, essentially turning a reading experience into a contest. Winning my vote as the funniest sentence in the whole book was this one: "K-----n stopped walking suddenly as did her breathing." Bwahahaha!

There were more misplaced commas and apostrophes in this book than I've ever seen in any other. The correct usage of there/their/they're was a crapshoot. The author's attempt at dialect missed the mark. "Don't chya"? No, I don't. He used gimmicks. Many different paragraphs in the book contained consecutive sentences in which the main character wanted to, thought about, considered, or expected to do something that she did not then go ahead and do. For example, a passage might read (paraphrasing here): "K------n wanted to ..." do whatever. "She did not. She wanted to ..." do something else. "She did not. She wanted to tell him ..." such and such. "She did not." Ho hum.

I suspect that the author had been advised at some point in his life to add more details to his writing in order to bring it to life and help the reader visualize the action. He did that mainly by telling us which hand K-----n used to touch her brow and which balled-up fist the angry man smacked into the palm of which other hand. The book contained so many right and left descriptors that I was not surprised (but was tickled) when I read this one: "S----n affectionately patted her on the rounded bottom of her right butt-cheek ..."

This was a cheap, self-published e-book and I got what I paid for. I can't complain about wasting my money. The fact is that I've bought a lot of inexpensive, self-published books in the last couple of years and have been pleasantly surprised by most of them. Self-publishing is a great way for new authors to get their work in front of readers who might enjoy it and be willing to pay more for future works by the same writers. I wholly support the self-publishing concept.

I also support the concept of kindness, so I'm not going to tell you the title of the book I've written about here or the name of its author. I will tell you that the book has four-and-a-half stars on Amazon.com and that I wish I'd bothered to balance out the five-star reviews I read before I ordered it with the one-star reviews I didn't read until today. I've tried not to put anything in this post that might lead the author here through a Google search. Who am I to disparage his work on my piddling little blog? I'd no more tell him his book stinks than I'd tell him his baby is ugly.

He tried, by golly. He has guts. He put his name on his work and he put it out there, which is way more than I can say for myself. I've certainly never written a book. I've never thought I could, never even tried. But now that I've read his book? Heh. Let's just say that the bar has been lowered. I'm thinking maybe I could do it after all.

Don't hold your breath, though.

14 comments:

  1. The question is where was someone - whether professional or not - to proofread the book? Edit it? Did anyone read it before printing? Maybe the writer felt he did not need any help…well, we all do, even the best writers.
    As for writing a book - go of it!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Meryl, welcome! Your question is a good one. Self-published books are the worst when it comes to sloppy or non-existent editing, but lately I've been finding more and more errors in books from major publishers, too. A lot of the errors seem to be homophones, which makes me wonder if people are relying too much on automated spell-checkers.

      Delete
  2. Could it possibly have been worse than "50 Shades of Grey?" or any of its subsequent attempts? Out of curiosity, I started reading "50 Shades" and simply had to put it down because of the poor writing. What is the matter with the reading public?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Betty, I was curious about Fifty Shades of Grey, too, but passed it up after reading so many reviews about the bad writing. That and the fact that the entire book seemed to be made up of the kind of romance-novel details I skim over now that I've gotten too old to enjoy getting all hot and bothered by them.

      Delete
    2. Another thought: you asked, "What is the matter with the reading public?" Judging from the atrocious grammar and spelling I see in online comments (not here!) and Facebook status posts, I think most people don't have enough knowledge to recognize poor writing when they see it. It kind of makes me feel like a stick-in-the-mud for caring about it as much as I do.

      I'm thinking of one particular author whose e-books are consistently riddled with errors, but I read everything she writes. Her stories, her characters and their dialogue are always spot on. The mistakes pull my head out of the story for a minute, but I can't wait to dive back in and read what happens next. So, if the point of writing is to communicate, and if the writer gets the idea across clearly, should we be satisfied with that?

      Delete
  3. Bwahahaha is right. I liked the butt-cheek one best.

    Glad to find today's post. Have missed your writings, Linda.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Nancy. It's harder to get in the writing mindset now that there's someone here to talk to most of the time.

      Delete
  4. Sounds pretty awful, but I, too, applaud the persistence of writing and publishing. I also agree with Betty about the writing in "50 Shades." I couldn't make it through either. I signed up for NaNiWriMo again this year (goal is to write 10,000 words this month) but I' not getting very far. Still, I want the satisfaction of finishing The Book. I'll get there someday.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Annette, I have faith in you, and I really, really, really want to read your novel. The premise of it is SO interesting. Glad to hear you're working on it again.

      Delete
    2. Well, when I DO get it it done, you will definitely be one of my pre-readers/editor. There are few who I would trust more than you.

      Delete
    3. Yay! I would be honored!

      Delete
  5. The problem with self publishing is the lack of editors. That being said, Linda, you most certainly could and should write a book!

    This post reminds me of the writer's group I used to belong to. We had a husband and wife show up one night and they both brought pages to read. The husband was eager; the wife was not. We insisted on ladies first. Her pages - a vampire tale as good as any I've ever read - left us salivating and begging for more!

    The husband couldn't wait to show her up and brush aside our compliments. He was the REAL reason they were there! We universally hated his work. An epic Civil War piece that jumped back and forth in time and tense and personality, it was riddled with bad grammar, punctuation and those misplaced thens and thans... It was torture to get through 10 pages. And he was shocked at our review, especially after we had raved over his wife's work.

    We told him to keep working...to come back. Some of our members had read draft after draft of their books for years before finding publishers. We never saw either of them again.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sounds like that husband got the comeuppance he deserved. My only experience with writing groups has been in the life writing classes I've attended recently. Those classes are about supporting, not critiquing, writing efforts, for which I am thankful. Also, we read our own work aloud, so if there are spelling and punctuation errors, no one knows about it. In general I've found the writing to be far better than I would have expected from a random group. Better yet, the support of my classmates makes me want to keep writing and do a better job of it. I wouldn't mind (too much) having my work edited one-on-one, but I think it would be intimidating and demotivating to have it edited and critiqued in front of a group. Thin-skinned much?

      Delete
    2. It's not quite that bad... we all brought pages and read our own work aloud. Discussion was limited to major plot issues or language choices that weren't true to the work. Things that would make a reader come out of the story. Minor grammar / punctuation was corrected on the handout and simply returned to the author.

      The one group I hated... The guys in my regular group were getting too argumentative... I one had to sit through once. The author would read... painless enough. People would comment. Then the moderator would go page by tortuous page: Page one??? Anyone??? Page One??? ...silence. Come on people...surely there are some notes on page one??? Finally someone would say... you need a comma on line three. People would start "critiquing" just to get the mod to move on.

      What I expected to be a three hour event lasted for six before I had the nerve to go potty and when I came back into the living room where the meeting was... I made a beeline for the door!

      I advise learning how things are structured before joining any writer's group and give yourself an "out" upon arriving... OY!

      Delete

Your comments might be the very best thing about blogging. I love it when you care enough to share your thoughts here, so go ahead and say what's on your mind.