I like to think I have a decent
grasp of spelling, punctuation and grammar. I graduated high school. Got an
accounting degree and my MBA. So I had to write a lot of papers. Granted, the
subject of these papers was usually something like “The Relevancy of Statements
of Auditing Standards 99,” or “The Evolution of the Movie Theater Industry.”
Not exactly thrilling reads. But still. Papers. With words and everything. I
considered myself a decent writer. And I thought my experience would help me
when I started writing novels.
But sometimes,
I’m not very smart. And by ‘sometimes,’ I mean, ‘a lot of times.’
I
mispronounced “hors d’oeuvres” and “epitome” for WAY longer than I should have.
Like well into my 20’s. And the ridiculous part about that is I could use those
words properly in conversation, and I totally knew what I was saying. But the
pronunciations didn’t register with me when I read them. Those are just a
couple of examples.
My terrible
memory compounds my problem. Even if I find a pronunciation guide, if I’m not
using a word regularly it slips away from me.
Between
these two issues, some ridiculous things have slipped into my writing.
Are you
willing to forgive a few grammatical or spelling errors if the story is good? If
the author says, “My interest was peaked” instead of “My interest was piqued?”
If so, is there a magic threshold an author crosses before the errors go from
mild annoyance to I’m done?
I hate to lose the reader’s trust
in my abilities. So I try to read as much as I can. Do crossword puzzles. Write
(obviously). But I’m always going to make silly mistakes. My hope is that I'll be able to laugh at them along with whoever so graciously pointed them out to me (hopefully a trusted critique pal!)
Then I'd like to learn from them.
