Straight from the Mouth of Historical Novelist Joan Schweighardt

Open Letter to a Grammar Blunder Hunter (or, Speak for Yourself)

Dear “Book Blogger” Who Once Said Poor Grammar Hurt My Writing:

Most of the novels reviewers and bloggers are likely to be asked to critique will be written in third person. This means that someone outside the parameters of the story—presumably the author—is telling the story. A third-person narration in a novel might go something like this:

Frank came out of the hardware store and realized his car was gone. He’d seen some boys on his way in, but his only thought at the time was that it was Monday morning and those kids should have been in school. Now he wondered if they were the ones who stole his car. “Crap!” he cried. “Them kids musta done it! They musta!”

The reader knows two things right off the bat. One, Frank believes his car was stolen by some boys. And two, Frank’s grammar leaves something to be desired. Very few book reviewers or bloggers would make the mistake of attributing Frank’s bad grammar to the author because that grammar is in quotations. It is dialogue. The author is building character by showing us how Frank talks. 

The confusion for some book reviewers and bloggers begins when the novel is narrated not by the author but by someone who is actually in the story, which is to say, one of the characters. This is called first-person narration. What if Frank was telling his own story? Frank’s first-person narration might go something like this:

I went into the hardware store that morning to buy a new showerhead, because the wife was bellyaching the old one didn’t put out enough water. And I come out and find my car’s gone! I seen those darn kids off to the right just before I went into the store. Had to be them. Had to be.

You can see the attraction for the author to have Frank tell the story in his own words. The fact that he refers to his spouse as “the wife” speaks volumes in itself. And if we need further proof that Frank is imperfect, we have his “I seen them.” And there is a switch from past tense (I went) to present (I come) right in the middle of the paragraph too. This writing reeks of bad grammar, right?

Actually, no; Frank has poor grammar, true, and on top of that, he is flippant in the way he talks about his wife. But it would be a mistake for someone reviewing the book in which this paragraph appears to attribute the sin of bad grammar to the author as well. The author has simply given Frank permission to speak for himself. 

Here’s one more example of first-person narration to consider:

Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hilltop we looked away down into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling, where there was sick folks, maybe; and the stars over us was sparkling ever so fine.

Yes, there are grammatical errors here too, but that is only because Mark Twain is allowing his character Huck Finn to tell his own story. Huck lacks an education. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is necessarily full of grammatical blunders. The tradeoff is that by having Huck speak for himself, the author gets to “show” us exactly who Huck is, rather than describing Huck’s quirks for us. We’re right there with Huck, as close as a reader can get. 

Overzealous blunder hunters need only ask themselves who is narrating the book they plan to review or comment on. If it’s one of the characters, they can put down their red pens and relax and go with the flow—or read something else.  

Sincerely,

An author who frequently lets her characters speak for themselves

Joan Schweighardt is the author of River Aria (which is both a standalone novel and the third book in a trilogy), as well as other novels, nonfiction titles, and children’s books. She is also a freelance writer and ghostwriter. Visit her at her website, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Guest post by mystery author Verlin Darrow: "Do we all pester agents and publishers because we’ve got problems, or is it just me?"

Name: Verlin Darrow

Book Title: Blood and Wisdom

Website/Blog: www.verlindarrow.com 

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/verlindarrow

Do we all pester agents and publishers because we’ve got problems, or is it just me?

At first, I was desperate for meaning. That’s what got me started. I began writing books in a campground outside Naples, Italy when I was nineteen. My waiting-for-my-potential-to-manifest girlfriend and I were trapped by a solid week of rain in an awful campground just outside the city limits. Whores burned tires on the contiguous sidewalk to attract customers. I was cranky, bored out of my mind and broke.

As a depressed young adult, fraught with existential angst and across the board over-thinking, I was never satisfied by life. I wasn’t in direct contact with the world, so I couldn’t be fed by it. When I created a manuscript, I introduced something into my experience that mattered to me—a new element that penetrated the layers of insulation I’d gathered around myself to stay safe.

However therapeutic, this era of writing was marked by a distinct lack of expertise. When I eventually began to build a skill set, I added in another motive—making money without having to work a regular job—you know, getting all sweaty, being bossed around, and having to keep regular hours. Not surprisingly, I failed to manage anything close to making a living writing.

Maybe, I thought, I could at least get validation that all my time and effort had produced something of value to someone else.  I worked hard at ignoring all expert advice, classes, etc and simply churned out manuscripts, eventually learning a bit of craft. Well, my mom liked the result. Somehow, that didn’t do the trick. A life of enticing agents and publishers was born.

It’s like a weird, unpleasant hobby, really. I queried over five hundred agents for one novel. Talk about a stubbornly held (grandiose) notion. Even that didn’t convince me I should move on. Why would it? My quest for recognition by a professional overrode all common sense. Really, the most challenging writing task in that era was keeping the neediness out of my submissions.

I let go of writing while I focused on avoiding work and trying to convince the world that it was fine if my unrealized potential remained unrealized. Then I became a psychotherapist so I could sit in a chair and talk/listen for a living. It turned out there was a bit more to it, but at least I didn’t have to deal with yet another rejection from someone one-up in publishing.

I came back to writing. I guess I needed someone to lash me to a mast (and shipmates were scarce.) But now I was older, more emotionally mature, and more willing to pay a few dues to gather skills.

Nonetheless, like a lot of writers, I still fought reality and reality won (sung to the tune of I Fought the Law and the Law Won.) I remained opinionated about my books in a manner that wasn’t always supported by hard evidence. Or soft evidence, for that matter.

Eventually, I had something to say, and the tools to say it. Then the early motives dropped away and Blood and Wisdom fell out of me. Where did all this attrition leave me? Back to square one. “Please represent me,” “please publish my book.”

Is the process less tortuous now? Absolutely. Getting published is a wonderful thing.

However lowly, crazy, or exemplary our motives might be, here’s my advice. Stick to it, regardless. Why not? Have you got something more meaningful to do? I don’t.

Guest post: "The anchor of self-publishing in a writer’s world," by Frankie Hogan

Name: Frankie Hogan

Book Title: Livin’: From the Amsterdam Red Light to the African Bush

Website/Blog Link: www.livintravelbook.com

Find out more on Amazon 

You have your shit together. Writing is something you’ve always adored, and you get to realize that intensity. You sit at your desk during your daily writing time with a coffee or a whiskey, and you develop worlds. You give nuance and reality to characters. You build tension in your plot like a wailing drum crescendo. The magic you create on the page is what you live for. Once you have a finished product, you can’t wait to get it out into the wilds. The months and sometimes years it took to craft is well justified. This is your element. On to the next project. Except you can’t move on, because you chose to self-publish. Whoever the wise sage was who convinced you that writers need to self-publish today must have had a malt liquor habit. Especially if your passion is writing.

What that drunken monk forgot to tell you is that if you decide to venture into independent publishing, you are no longer a writer. You are a businessperson. Depending on your level of involvement, you are now a manager, agent, financier, scheduler, accountant, lawyer, designer, publicist, social media expert, blogger, shipper, interviewee, and public-appearance-maker. You think you have time to develop worlds in the next half year? If your answer is yes, you are shitting yourself. In self-publishing, money comes first. A project cost budget must be created to match your goals and show potential investors. Nothing hits enhancement-pill heights for investors as much as a well-thought-out business plan with backing financials. If you’re not a numbers guy or gal, you are already pulling hair off the top of your dome. You have to develop a pitch, practice it like a commercial actor, and line up meetings with likely targets. And this is just the beginning. Throw on your designer hat to design your book cover, interior format, any symbol or logo, website, social media pages, and blog. Are you counting the bullets in that gun yet? The time it takes to price your printing, production, and shipping costs can make 6 a.m. turn into happy hour. We haven’t even gotten into marketing and advertising. Fuck it. You know where this is going.

The truth is that going the other route of agent-hiring bridging to Manhattan publishing houses still takes considerable time. I chose indie publishing because I have a business background. I also want to keep a certain level of control over the project, and I don’t mind the time off from writing. I like to rekindle the blaze for the next writing project over time. It’s like dinner and dancing before sex. A steady buildup enhances the fulfillment. But if your reaction to that statement is “That’s bullshit,” consider yourself forewarned about self-publishing.

Frankie Hogan is an American writer, director, and filmmaker. He is a founder and principal partner of Corner Prophets Production Company, a film production company started in 2012, and the company controller for a Los Angeles-based international interior design firm.

Website: www.livintravelbook.com

Find out more on Amazon