I disagree. If something works, and a publisher can see with his/her own eyes that it works - and the book is of a superb quality - then it'll get published. It's as simple as that. Stephen King proves the point. And I think it's unfair to accuse his publishers of 'seeing him only as a cashcow'; and it's unfair on Stephen King, a great author.
I disagree. King still has editors looking over his work, and I don't think that just because he's famous--the man is still a great writer--that publishers would be any less likely to suggest he cross his t's and dot his i's. Much, much less likely to turn him away for some trivial or blatant mistake maybe, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't suggest he correct a mistake if they saw one.
Well...no. Not from everything that I've read. It's not as if the publishers or agents are sitting in empty offices, hoping against hope that someone will send them a publishable manuscript. They're sitting in offices trying to choose among the many, many publishable and impeccably and professionally formatted manuscripts filling their offices. If they have a dozen superb manuscripts that follow the current professional standards, and a hundred superb manuscripts that don't, odds are that they're going to choose from the dozen. They may feel some regret that those hundred other authors are so very close, but it's not their job to teach authors their job. Sure, if your manuscript is infinitely better than anything else they've seen this year, they may tolerate some nonstandard formatting or some other flaw. Do you really want to put that burden on yourself? If you're merely good enough to get published, rather than so special that you can get published "in spite of" annoying the publisher, do you really _not_ want to get published? ChickenFreak
You miss the point all together. I'm only talking about one tiny aspect of grammar and I argue that it's not a smudge: it's an improvement. I don't mean that all cases of 'elision' should omit the apostrophe - that would be ridiculous. I was merely referring to the 'ing' words in: dialogues aiming for a certain speech pattern. You have a little bit more artistic license when it comes to dialogue. So i dismiss your claims that a publisher would reject something on that basis, when he clearly sees that it works and isn't a smudge, and that it's merely the author exercising a little bit of license.
You can dismiss it all you want. If the publisher dismisses the manuscript because of the many "liberties: you take with language, you may never even know the reasons. It's smarter to play safe instead of being perceived as incompetent, lazy, or rebellious.
Ok, can you prove that your speculation over Stephen King's publishers is fact? Have you done the research? I hope you have, I wouldn't want people to think you're lazy or incompetent. The fact is, Stephen King has set a precedent, and shown that it can work. Also, I would hardly describe it as 'many liberties' - as long as you've kept it consistent throughout i.e. haven't drifted in and out. And you assume that one has 'taken many liberties', but that doesn't chime with the scenario i gave. If the book is written superbly and it is plainly obvious that it works, then there is no problem.
The only thing I have to add is: Liberties shouldn't be taken because you can get away with it or because it's easier or any other reason that is inconsequential. Liberties taken should be deliberate and should have a creative-force that drives them because it an important aspect of your story and your story would fail without it. If you're taking them because you can just merely get away with it or don't care to work to properly present something, then you're just abusing a system for reasons that are surely not important.
Heh. No problem. It becomes clear the more you work with constructions like this. As for reputation points, I'm not too sure--I'm still new at them myself--but I think there's a button on the left-hand column. In case you ever need to give anyone reputation points, if you put your mouse pointer over each icon, the tool tips will let you know what they're for.
Just checking: Do you realize that the average manuscript screener may not go past your first page, and conceivably may not go past your first paragraph, before rejecting your manuscript? They don't spend a lot of time analyzing your book and deciding whether what looks like a mistake is or is not a mistake, and whether it fits with your style, and whether you're consistent throughout the manuscript, and so on. They see huge numbers of manuscripts that have plain old mistakes, so if you have something that looks like one on the first page, odds are they will never get to the second page. Yes, that's unfortunate. Yes, that may mean that they may miss some really good books. But as long as they have to pay their screeners a salary, it's also pretty much inevitable. Again: If you wouldn't tell a publisher, "Oh, no, if I can't keep that stylistic choice, I don't want to be published at all. Take back your contract; I reject your offer," then you shouldn't make that choice when submitting your manuscript.
Please, spare me the strawmen lol I'm aware of things: regarding the screeners etc. But still, I'm prepared to credit screeners with some common sense. Anyway, there's not much point debating this any further. It's hardly a massive deal. I could defend my position, but what's the point? You'll stick to your guns, and I'll stick to mine. Anyway, I don't plan on writing any stories with characters uttering elised 'ings' lol All the best
F. Paul Wilson uses a lot of dropped G's without the apostrophe: talkin, walkin, etc. I wouldn't suggest it. The reasons why not, from it being seen as a mistake to some mispronunciations, have been stated. I don't know how Wilson gets away with it, though. Maybe his editors and publishers don't really notice because he's established himself. Anyway, the lack of apostrophes has been done. Having said that, I think it looks weird... maybe even wrong when I read his stuff. Then again, I still read Repairman Jack novels, so it's not a deal breaker for me.
I know your post wasn't directed at me, but I feel that my mentioning Stephen King has derailed this discussion a bit. I only used Stephen King as an example because I recently read the book I mentioned and remembered the character from the language he used. Fact is, Stephen King is not the only one with a book published with apostrophes missing from such words (as others have mentioned). There are many out there, just as there are many writers out there who have included the apostrophes. In my personal opinion, one should strive much more for clarity and consistency than adhering to the specifics of grammar/style guides. These two things usually fall hand in hand but not always. Now this is not to say to try to find ways around all of the specifics, but there are exceptions to every rule (and these grammar/style guides are just that: guides). That's why there are a lot of professionally published works out there with run-on and incomplete sentences, missing apostrophes, incorrect punctuation, dangling modifiers, etc. Think of writers like Cormac McCarthy and Junot Diaz who use very little punctuation in a great many of their books. One should strive to follow these guidelines as much as possible unless they clash with what they're trying to produce. It's been proven to work both ways. It's been published many times both ways. The difference only lies in opinion, and really any statements about what the majority of agents' and publishers' opinions are about the topic are just speculation unless you happen to be the agent and/or publisher you're referring to or they've announced such.
Be careful --- I'm strongly against using heavy regional diction in writing or having dialogue that's written phonetically. Use language and setting to get the character a voice in the reader's head. You don't have to say 'aboot' to make them know they are Canadian. That all said --- Goin' for sure.
