I must walk my pet peeve!

Nothing turns me off a story faster than misspelled words.

Please run your stories through a spell checker or proofread them for mistakes. I, for one, will be very appreciative for it.

Thanks

Dan

Walking your pet peeve is fine, Dave, just remember to bring your pooper-scooper.

Of course, you have to be careful on posting to the board. We all fall victim to typos now and then.

Just a reminder to all prospective Authors ... even if all you have is Windoze Notepad which does NOT offer spellchecker, then contact one of us, who will be more than happy to run it through for you.

I think that a balance has to be achieved.

I don't believe that my stories have many spelling mistakes but I do on occasion accidently leave the odd word out. For example, in the last few paragraphs of 'Tamerlane's Boys 1', the odd 'a', etc, were excluded despite proof-reading, which for some reason I find difficult to perform properly, as if I'm impervious to the occasional little omission. I believe that's because I know what I meant to say & actually think that I've said it, resulting in being blind to the errors.

It could be argued that I should proof-read over and over to correct such faults but I find that boring & I'm keen to move on.

However, does that then mean quantity over quality?

That's for others to judge but, as I said at the start, a balance has to be achieved!

PUEROS

Paolo wrote: Sat Feb 23, 2002 8:47 pm Of course, you have to be careful on posting to the board. We all fall victim to typos now and then..

You guys are right and I agree.

I'm not referring to typos, or dropping an "a", or other smal mistakes. I'm not perfect and my writing has mistakes in it. No one is perfect. And if it were just what Pueros describes, I would never post anything. After all, this ain't Shakespeare and we don't want it to be Shakespeare. I'm not an English scholar (far from it) and I don't expect that from anyone.

But there have been stories (here and elsewhere) that lack sentence structure, have consistently misspelled words, use the lower case for "I" and never use punctutation. That only makes a story hard to read. It doesn't diminish the idea of the story, it just makes it harder to enjoy.

I didn't intend to single out any writer. Sorry if you think I did.

I didn't mean to suggest, to Dave's original post, that I thought that he was referring to me & I'm sorry if I gave him that impression. I was just attempting to provide a response on behalf of all amateur writers who do not have the benefit of professional proof-readers to help them.

I understand that many so-called professional authors' work has been virtually rewritten by proof-readers because of the writers' ineptitude in language. However, as the ideas were so great, the effort was considered worthwhile.

This site does not have the benefit of such staff but is trying to provide a system whereby 'rough' stories can be polished linguistically for the readership. I hope that some writers, whose wonderful imaginations are better than their basic English, would consider that process to be a help to the ultimate display of their potentially great works & not an insult.

Keep the ideas coming, & contact Paolo if assistance is needed!

PUEROS

Provided that the rest of the story is reasonably cogent, I must confess to enjoying the odd slip. Sometimes it can give a whole new twist, especially if you have a mind as warped as mine.

I hope that Xan doesn't think that I am criticizing him, but in Childrens Crusade I was most amused that the girls became 'columbines' - I had great fun speculating about who Harlequin or even Pantaloon might be.

LOL

Colin