Actually, it varies a lot as to how disturbing. Mostly, I am not that bothered either in books or here on Lush. To me, a good story is a good story and I can overlook most things.
I don't know that they bother me terribly, but I do notice them. I find them occasionally in various works, but they do seem to reside to an inordinately large degree in Stephen King's stories. I don't know that you can really blame King. Even experienced writers make mistakes. It's really the job of a publishing house's proofreaders and editors to catch and correct them. I just wonder if King's writing is so popular and profitable that his publisher doesn't really look at all, or with any great care, at his manuscripts in their haste to get them on the market.
There was one in The Dead Zone. In the second section of the book, the main character Johnny Smith goes to work as a tutor for this 17-year-old kid of a very wealthy guy. When Johnny interviews for the job with the kid's father the father starts off as Roger (on pg. 264). On pg. 267 he's still Roger, but by the end of the paragraph becomes Stuart. He remains Stuart for the next dialogue tag, and then reverts to Roger. He pretty much stays Roger after that. I sort of recall the switch happening another time or two before he leaves the story. While I found the instances cited here, the others I wasn't able to pick up with a few minutes of skimming.
I can generally read through most anything. I have a second job were we read high school kids essays for content and style. Not to say that I cannot spot the errors or that they do not bother me, but I do not let it drag me out of the story. Try reading chicken scratch handwriting with spelling errors, grammer issues, and comprehension problems.. everything else will look like a dream compared to it.
Errors used to really grate on me when reading something, but I have mostly gotten used to it, I guess. Many of the stories here on Lush have lots of little errors, but I just read right past them; they no longer interrupt my enjoyment of the story. I do find it a little more disturbing in a newspaper or published book.
If the story is otherwise engrossing and I'm enjoying it, they tend to slide by me. If it isn't working for me to start, they can make it worse.
well I don't know, it's dialogue...maybe it was deliberate....
It's been brought to my attention that I'm slandering or denigrating the Lush story verifying team with my post and initial comments above.
If anyone believes that is what my intent was, I apologize - and profusely so. That was not my main intent nor was it meant as a snide aside either.
I was simply reading a favorite story the other day and noticed something which I should have probably posted in the Rage Cage instead.
Ugh
The same GQP demanding we move on from January 6th, 2021 is still doing audits of the November 3rd, 2020 election.
I have to agree with those who say the incorrect use of a word, its tense and especially the misspelling of a word is distracting. On occasion, I have lost interest in a story due to the poor use of English and the inexcusable misspelling of simple words regardless of the quality of the story.
The problem with errors is that when you write you see it as it should be sometimes and not the way it is. I have since learned to edit as much as I can but still I may not see the mistake. I cut people here plenty of slack because we all come from different walks of life with different levels of education and experience. Some people are storytellers and others are wordsmiths. It is when I am actually reading a novel or story in a big name magazine or from a major publisher that I just get floored. Once I read a historical novel that was so ridiculous in errors and inaccuracy that I just couldn't even take it so I laughed and quit reading it.
Sometimes little errors throw me totally off, then I have to back track and find where I left off before I can begin again...lol (but then again, as a kid, I would run down the hall and trip over some dust and end up rolling into one of the walls covered in carpet burns.) At least, I'm not as bad as my friend, who upon receiving a letter from a Marine recruiter, circled all his spelling and grammatical errors in red and sent it back to him.
I agree. I recently read a book from an author when I was visiting my family in Australia; it was a military type mystery. The author referred to one of the characters as a US Marine, with the rank of Lt. Commander. Well, needless to say, that is not possible (those of you who are or were military know that). The Marine could not have held a US Navy or US Coast Guard rank, but he could have held the rank of Major, which is equivalent to Lt Commander.
So, I says to myself, while this is an Editor/Publisher issue, writing the Editor/Publisher would get me no where. So, I found the author's email in the back of the book. I wrote him a kind note explaining his mistake. Low and behold, I got a reply from the author. He was apologetic and promised to remind the Publisher to hire better proof readers. Since then, he has had his next two books sent to me gratis. Not a normal situation, but if we, as readers, do not let the writers and publishers know we demand that grammar, spelling, punctuation, and facts be checked, rechecked, and then rechecked again, who will?
BTW, his next two books were fine. Well, I didn't find any mistakes.
"I expect nothing. I fear no one. I am free." Nikos Kazantzakis
I'm less concerned about spelling/grammatical errors than I am about sloppy or nonexistent dialog and stories that don't invite me into them.
I that is one of the characters speaking. I take it as the way the character is speaking. Also don't read any of my stories. They'll only waste your time.
