NaNoWriMo!
rohina:
Quote from: dizzy-two on 2005 October 02, 18:22:07
On the bright side, that's only about 1667 words a day. A good writer can do that while standing on their head.
So that wouldn't be you, then, with the subject/verb agreement problems.
dizzy:
Who ever said you need good skill to be a good writer? ::) Any great writer will tell you that good grammar only stands in the way of good writing.
Hook:
Creative writing (writing for money) is different from writing for a grade in a class. The object is to communicate, and certain grammatical ... um, differences ... add to the feel and flavor of the words. Some rules are inviolate. Others less so.
It's a real hoot to date an English teacher and get your love letters back with spelling and grammar errors marked. :D
Hook
rohina:
Quote from: dizzy-two on 2005 October 03, 10:08:30
Who ever said you need good skill to be a good writer? ::) Any great writer will tell you that good grammar only stands in the way of good writing.
No, I don't think any great writer would. Great writers are great at the sentence level as well as in terms of things like plot and characterisation. When writers who are good break rules, it usually is, as Hook said, that they are playing around with style, and not that they don't understand grammar.
Renatus:
Quote from: dizzy-two on 2005 October 03, 10:08:30
Who ever said you need good skill to be a good writer? ::) Any great writer will tell you that good grammar only stands in the way of good writing.
I know of an editor who, if they didn't compeltely disagree with that statement, would have a few cavets. (It's a long post with a lot of comments, but it's all worth reading for anyone at all interested in having work published or simply how the process works).
As far as that creative writing link goes, I laugh in its general direction. That may be a lovely process for a kid in school who generally bothers to string words together when s/he writes thank you notes to relatives (I say as a former example!), but is not necessarily very good for people trying to write stories for other reasons, or who have been out of HS for a decade or more. ;) Some people do find that some amount of planning before writing is necessary; others, like myself, find that we're better off jumping in and writing without copious notetaking beforehand. After I have a draft, I let it sit for a while, then read through and mark all of the places that need changes, fleshing out, or cutting down, and then I rewrite. And rewrite.
Sure, I'm still a wannabe, but that process isn't without precedent. I know it works for Neil Gaiman, for instance. I don't think Stephen King makes tons of notes, himself, but it's been about a year since I read On Writing. At any rate, the best writing advice is to sit down and DO it, never mind all of the rules of how you should plan. Definitely keep in mind grammar rules - until one knows them inside out to change them, they're more helpful than hampering - but don't hem yourself in with musts about making an outline or worldbuilding notes or character profiles or whatever. If it helps you, wonderful, but if it makes you choke up, forget about it and just write. BIC, or "butt in chair", is about the best advice I've ever had.
Also, listen to people like the folks on here, as there are some actual professionals there with credentials you can research for yourself.
Oh yeah, this just occured to me - using 'their' to mean one person, while not traditionally correct, is becoming more common and less seen as an error. Since English lacks a decent non-gendered pronoun that still means a person, and the use of 'one' can end up sounding convoluted and pretentious, people have shifted to using 'their' instead. Some editors and whatnot will get tetchy over it, but it's becoming more and more acceptable. So dizzy-two was not completely out of the grammar ballpark. :P
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