Writing a grammatically incorrect teaser could hurt your book.
“Dr. Paschal Keebler a surgeon on a humanitarian mission accidently swallows a minute nuclear bomb and if he doesn’t perform surgery on himself he may destroy the whole village. Will his arthritis allow him to succeed or is this the end of an endangered tribe.” Yuck! It’s a delusion that people only want to read from writers who are smarter than they are. I’m somewhat sure that most readers are satisfied with reading from someone who is equal in intelligence, and maybe more creative in different areas. Seldom will you find the reader who wants to dumb down to enjoy a novel. This occurred to me as I was shopping for another hidden great read. It is disturbing that many of the blurbs, teases, and ads are poorly written with glaring grammatical errors. Readers reject books quickly if reading is irritating because of a lack of understanding of the language. I’m not speaking about the pesky typos and spelling errors than sneak by editors and get published. However, if your blurb is a violation that would make the substitute English teacher gasp, fix it. Writing should be a growing art for the writer. It’s very easy in our world to polish a manuscript without hiring the literature department from Harvard Universities. Here are a few tips that could help you cross the bridge to another level of literary recognition in an ever-growing competitive market:
Most of you will use Microsoft Word to write your next masterpiece. Or if you are as cheap as I am, you will opt to some OpenOffice application. Those squiggly colored lines under those words are not Christmas decorations. There are times when a software grammar and spelling feature will disagree with the writer. I had a character who answered to “Sobaka”, and my software tried to correct it to something every time. However, most of the time, you need to investigate why the software doesn’t like it. You may learn something or be reminded of a grammar rule you had forgotten. 2. Look at the grammar and writing programs. After looking through many, like Autocrit, After-the-Deadline, and PaperRater, I settled on Grammarly for my go-to virtual editor. There are many from which to choose, and many of them have a “free”, but limited version. This allows you to try several different ones and determine which one you are going to “buy.” They are a lot cheaper than hiring Dr. Fuddyduddy.
These are the territory of “pet peeves.” “They’re” is different from “their,” which is different from “there.” I know this, but when I am under the spell of inspiration, it doesn’t always translate into my fingers. You will hear many writers complain about this. Spend due attention to your blurb, or many will not care about how well written your book is.
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AuthorTim White splashes wit with wisdom gained from too many mistakes. You are welcomed to enjoy his current blog or view blogs from earlier. Archives
February 2019
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