The Oxford Comma Is Dead. Long Live The Oxford Comma

[namasteyoga]

OK, so Twitter rumors of the Oxford comma's death may be premature but I thought I use it as an excuse to open a discussion on grammar, punctuation and other pedantic issues

Comments

[knitty_woman]

I do have a strict inner censor, but I'm willing to overlook some grammatical errors if it's a good story (a common one is "it's/its", which even some of my favorite authors confuse from time to time, as well as incorrect punctuation of dialogue). I have a much harder time with run-on sentences and misplaced punctuation. If I start reading a story and find more than a few misspellings and poorly punctuated sentences within the first two paragraphs, I'm done. It's just too distracting.

[topaz_eyes]

If the fic is overall well-written, I can overlook the occasional SPaG mistake or typo. That said, the fic's on notice from the first mistake on; if I see too many mistakes I'll back-click. For me, SPaG is part of the flow.

And yes, writers have to know the rules first before they break them. Usually I can tell when that's the case.

[namasteyoga]

I'm thinking of putting together a "breaking the rules" fic challenge, partially based on this powerpoint presentation in "A Visit From The Goon Squad" that makes up an entire chapter of the book, but also completely works.

Not that people would have to do powerpoint, but something non-traditional. Still in the thinking phase about that just now.

[topaz_eyes]

Including song-fic? *ducks and hides*

[flywoman]

Typos and grammatical errors jump out at me, and if there are many, I'll abandon the effort pretty quickly. That suggests to me a lack of care and attention to detail that are likely to become obvious in the content as well as the style, and I also feel like it implies impulsivity and/or failure to enlist a beta for one of any number of reasons, none of which are good.

In the past, when I've found an author whose perspective I really enjoyed but whose work tended to have multiple minor errors, I've volunteered my services as an editor, hoping that it would make their stories more accessible and attractive to other readers as nitpicky as myself.

[namasteyoga]

Do you find that writers are open to editing when you offer? I've had mixed responses -- some people are anxious to improve and respond well to tips and concrit, and others seem to see it as some kind of an insult because you're/I'm saying their writing isn't perfect.

What kind of approach do you take when opening that offer?

[flywoman]

I've had good luck with the "I love your work/you have such great ideas but the typos can be distracting at times, so if you would be interested in having me beta read your fic in future, just let me know!" approach.

The people I approach already know that their writing isn't technically perfect. Offering to clean up their spelling and punctuation is usually appreciated, whereas suggesting that they should be telling their story differently would probably not be ;).

Of course you're right that some people genuinely want to improve their writing in response to concrit, whereas others are insulted by feedback that isn't 100% positive. And then there's the most frustrating group (imo): those who request concrit but then are too stubborn to change anything in response to one's well-meant suggestions ;).

[pwcorgigirl]

The occasional small error doesn't bother me if the story is very well written, particularly if the error appears to be a typo, as is often the case with it's/its since spellcheck won't flag that one.

A large error will send me reaching for the back button because it's too jarring and knocks me out of the flow of the story. It's even worse if the error is at the beginning of a fic. The other night I was reading a fic (not in the House fandom) that had been beta'd three times, yet the first sentence had a very noticeable comma splice. I could not stop thinking about that damned error and finally bailed out of the story about a quarter of the way through.

While we're on the topic of grammar, Grammar Girl's Tip of the Day is a lot of fun. :)

[srsly_yes]

Since my own fingers seem to have a mind of their own (I'm thinking "your" but I type, "you're"), I don't get distracted very much by those issues. Two or three misspellings are okay, but it depends how compelling the plot is. What pulls me out of a story the most are logic errors.