I am SO glad you're back!

[Lorraine]

I have been accused of being a grammar, punctuation and spelling nazi...I think I just care. I tend not to correct others (except my kids, I'm their mother, it's my job, don't care if they are 38 and 34, still my job, also it's fun to annoy my daughter ) but it grinds my gears. And if someone (looking at you little sis) asks me to check their writing and then bitches cos I found all the mistakes...

 

[Miss B]

It's not a matter of the lawyer not knowing good punctuation, the legal system here is weird, especially in NY. It's the proofreaders, who thought they know it all, even though the were only at the firm a few years, while I was there for 40 years.

One thing I can be rightfully accused of is a run on sentence. Lawyers are famous for them, and I was just around them too long.

 

[Rokket]

Well word is good for spell check but I do have to overrule it sometimes. Its like using Google Docs, combined with Google Drive for the phone. It's free, and is a better word processor than Word for your Smartphone. I do a lot of writing on my Smartphone. It's only weak when using personal pronouns. For instance I have a heroine named AnnaBelle. It sometimes changes her name to Anabelle and Annabelle. I know the latter is correct but I want the first spelling. It's great with apostrophes, the usage of than versus then and leaves the use of quotations to me. If you need a quick refresher regarding when to use quotes, I have a link for ya if you want. Warning, it's made for Americans. The Yanks use certain words, grammar and spelling a bit differently than the queen. How to Use Quotation Marks

Thanks for that link. I'll give it a look when I have more than a few minutes on the computer.

What? Did you cut away just as they were about to kiss to a crackling fireplace? Was a saxophone suddenly playing in the background? I think cutting away to snow falling is another way...

Or did you mention it as an insult? Great! Now I have to know!

No, I simply stated that the characters made love, and didn't get into a play by play like they tend to do with romance novels. But there are some instances of strong language.

 

[Rokket]

Yeah, my main character is a billionaire. He gets lots of attention because of his bank account....

 

[quietrob]

Billionaires do tend to get some attention from the opposite sex...

I do remember when as a child, I heard something about our poor family unit consisting of my mom and older brother and older sister.
My big brother then told me a saying he heard. "Money, don't buy happiness."

My mother overheard this, sighed and looked wistful. "Yes,"she said, "but it makes poverty easier to take."

 

[Lorraine]

My grandmother told me "it's just as easy to marry a rich man as a poor man". Dunno how many she'd met but the ones I have met have not been nice people at all. Money has never been an aphrodisiac for me.

 

[Rokket]

My grandmother told me "it's just as easy to marry a rich man as a poor man". Dunno how many she'd met but the ones I have met have not been nice people at all. Money has never been an aphrodisiac for me.

I know a lot women who say that same thing.

But I also know my fair share of gold diggers. Where I live, the city has a very large population of expats who are older gentlemen (I used the term gentleman very liberally) who can be seen walking down the street with a very young, very pretty girl on their arm. She isn't with this wrinkled old man because she loves him. He has money and she wants it. It's the same with my character. It has nothing to do with his personality. Guys with a ton of money attract gold diggers.

 

[Rokket]

Well, crap! I tried. Apparently they have a block installed that not only keeps viruses off the computer, but it keeps me from being able to upload. So I feel like crap now because I jumped the gun about uploading my story before I made sure I could. Now I have to wait a week to get WIFI.

I get to visit home again for a few days.

 

[Lorraine]

No worries, Rokket, we can wait

 

[Satira Capriccio]

The AP Style book and the Chicago Manual of Style (as well as many other grammar sources) state periods and commas always go inside the quote, whether the quote is a complete sentence, a partial quote, or the quote is split. Semicolons, colons, and dashes always go outside the quote, while question marks and exclamation marks may be inside or outside the quote.

Of course, that's American English rules. British English is more lenient with commas and periods, and they may go inside or outside the quote.

When a company style manual exists, that should be followed ... even when it goes against all other grammar sources.

As an editor, it was far more important to me that whatever source was followed, it was always followed consistently.

 

[Satira Capriccio]

I never bother with spell checkers. The English language has far too many exceptions to depend on them. Needless to say, before I grab free Kindle books, I read the reviews. If the reviews consistently mention poor editing and misspellings, I skip the book.

It's just too annoying when a writer consistently spells rein when they mean reign. Spellchecker doesn't understand when a writer means the reign of a king rather than the reins used to control a horse. Maybe one day

 

[Rokket]

The AP Style book and the Chicago Manual of Style (as well as many other grammar sources) state periods and commas always go inside the quote, whether the quote is a complete sentence, a partial quote, or the quote is split. Semicolons, colons, and dashes always go outside the quote, while question marks and exclamation marks may be inside or outside the quote.

Of course, that's American English rules. British English is more lenient with commas and periods, and they may go inside or outside the quote.

When a company style manual exists, that should be followed ... even when it goes against all other grammar sources.

As an editor, it was far more important to me that whatever source was followed, it was always followed consistently.

Oh man... I have a lot of quotations to correct.... oh well, that will be second draft stuff...

 

[Rokket]

No worries, Rokket, we can wait

I don't want this to turn into another empty promise. I still have a bunch of stuff to put on ShareCG. Life just seems to keep me from finishing anything...

 

[Satira Capriccio]

You can pick up The Elements of Style formatted for the Kindle from Amazon for free. I definitely recommend that anyone planning to self publish at the very least get a grammar guide. People are extremely brutal when a self published book has a lot of errors (readers aren't actually a very tolerant bunch). Though, they are a wee bit more lenient on a self published author than they are on books that come out of a publishing house.

 

[Rokket]

You can pick up The Elements of Style formatted for the Kindle from Amazon for free. I definitely recommend that anyone planning to self publish at the very least get a grammar guide. People are extremely brutal when a self published book has a lot of errors (readers aren't actually a very tolerant bunch). Though, they are a wee bit more lenient on a self published author than they are on books that come out of a publishing house.

I'll keep that in mind. I don't have a kindle, but I'll see if there is another version of it available. I will have to wait until I get home to check it out.

 

[Rokket]

There isn't another free version of it, which is too bad.

But I saw a couple of books that were fairly affordable that I could get. Now I can't wait to get home. I will do some more research and get this thing completely correct before I go look for a publisher.

 

[Terre]

There is a version of the Kindle for the PC. I have it on this computer. Whether it was by itself or was part of the deal when m husband got a physical Kindle.

 

[Rokket]

I'll look into that. Someone else just told me that I can get Kindle for my laptop too. And it's free. I want it!

 

[Miss B]

You can pick up The Elements of Style formatted for the Kindle from Amazon for free. I definitely recommend that anyone planning to self publish at the very least get a grammar guide. People are extremely brutal when a self published book has a lot of errors (readers aren't actually a very tolerant bunch). Though, they are a wee bit more lenient on a self published author than they are on books that come out of a publishing house.

I was just going to post about this book. I have a very old version, probably Second Edition, somewhere in this house, which I got while taking some writing classes years ago, and I always referred to it. It's currently out in the Fourth Edition, and as Satira mentioned, getting it for the Kindle app would be great. It's a great reference to have, but as I mentioned earlier in this thread, the attorneys at my old law firm wanted it done their way, so you didn't argue with them. It was just the proofreaders who wanted to go "by the book", though which book they were referring to I have no idea. I hated arguing with them, but the attorneys always got the final word.

 

[quietrob]

The attorny's may have gotten the final word but they needed proof readers. It sounds like the proof readers really got the final word!