Writing Wrongs

October 14, 2005

Marianne received some wacky contest feedback the other day, the sort you need to digest with a huge helping of salt. Frankly, I think she�s doing splendidly with a final the first time out of the gate (let�s count the adverbs in that sentence, shall we?). I know she�ll hit the right desk at the right time.

It reminded me of some of the stranger comments I�ve received on my writing. Here are three of my favorites:

(Summarized) Your hero is immoral, your story is immoral.

And by implication, so was I. If I recall, the judge actually wrote �How dare you� on some part of the judging sheet. Okay, so my hero was a thief. This was my first foray into contests and into RWA. I learned later the hero/thief is a HUGE hot button for some people. These days, I�m happy to be immoral.

You write like a foreigner.

Never mind the slightly offensive cast to this. (I hear Archie Bunker in the background muttering, Damn foreigners, they�re ruining everything.) I think this resulted from me not always phrasing things Subject + Verb + Object. How boring is that? Besides, Nabokov was a �foreigner�. Oh, if only I could write like a foreigner.

Since your character is in the Army, not the Navy, I wouldn�t expect him to use a word like �boatload�.

I brought this one on myself. It was in a workshop and I was trying to be a kinder, gentler Charity, and Mark (the character in question) was trying to be kinder and gentler as well. I think he actually wanted to say sh*tload, but refrained, not wanting to offend delicate sensibilities. From now on, I say screw it. We�re using the f-word.

Charity Tahmaseb wrote at 4:02 p.m.

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