Honest to god, this is the first time I've seen the m-dash referenced since I was in my high school journalism class.
I agree with you wholeheartedly (although, one might point out that in a post about getting things right, you might have gone to the trouble to spell Wikipedia correctly, but that's really neither here nor there).
I think one of the great things about writing is not just telling the story, but it's also telling the story *right*. And to me, that means making it presentable. If every third 'your' is the wrong one, and every other 'its' is the wrong one, and the character names are often spelled incorrectly? I just don't see the point.
One of the things I was always taught was "Even if your plot is hard to understand, make it easy to read." You shouldn't make your audience work to understand what you're saying. Sentences have structure for a reason. Words have distinct meanings. As a writer, you're supposed to do the work figuring all that crap out so the people reading your story don't have to.
I am an extremely, extremely lazy reader. I will read more of a story that has a crappy plot but is easy on the eyes than I will of a story with a wonderful plot, but you can't really figure that out because half the sentences are as long as a... really long thing that's witty.
Which is not to say I like crappy plots of course. I don't. But I can stomach that more than many stories that only vaguely resemble the English language.
And that's my two cents.
BTW, within arms reach of my seat here? Strunk & White, AP Stylebook, NYT Stylebook, Broadcast writing stylebook, Webster's Third College edition and Eats, Shoots and Leaves.
no subject
I agree with you wholeheartedly (although, one might point out that in a post about getting things right, you might have gone to the trouble to spell Wikipedia correctly, but that's really neither here nor there).
I think one of the great things about writing is not just telling the story, but it's also telling the story *right*. And to me, that means making it presentable. If every third 'your' is the wrong one, and every other 'its' is the wrong one, and the character names are often spelled incorrectly? I just don't see the point.
One of the things I was always taught was "Even if your plot is hard to understand, make it easy to read." You shouldn't make your audience work to understand what you're saying. Sentences have structure for a reason. Words have distinct meanings. As a writer, you're supposed to do the work figuring all that crap out so the people reading your story don't have to.
I am an extremely, extremely lazy reader. I will read more of a story that has a crappy plot but is easy on the eyes than I will of a story with a wonderful plot, but you can't really figure that out because half the sentences are as long as a... really long thing that's witty.
Which is not to say I like crappy plots of course. I don't. But I can stomach that more than many stories that only vaguely resemble the English language.
And that's my two cents.
BTW, within arms reach of my seat here? Strunk & White, AP Stylebook, NYT Stylebook, Broadcast writing stylebook, Webster's Third College edition and Eats, Shoots and Leaves.
And now to bed.