Dear Authors,
Hi to all you hard working authors. I realize you are hard at work plotting your books and writing those sexy scenes. You are also worried about your characters’ relationships, and let’s not forget about those pesky commas that need to be used to stop those run-on sentences. I, personally, am a run-on sentence because my brain picks up on every nuance as I read. My brain, as it swirls around the universe in my trusty blue box, is all about continuity. Yes, I can pick up details that other readers might pass over. I blame this on my dyslexia. Since phonics do not live in my noggin, every word I read is memorized by my brain instead of being learned like most people. When I read an error, it stands out like a sore thumb. In fact, errors, for me, are like skipping phonograph needles on a record . . . annoying as hell. Authors actually use me as the last reader before publication, even after editors and proofer readers have had their last look. The number of errors I discover that those professionals have missed boggles my mind.
I believe it takes a village to bring Indie books to the reading public. I actually give more leeway to Indie authors because you don’t have huge publishing houses behind you. I understand dramatic license with historical facts; you aren’t writing historical research papers, and most of you aren’t Deborah Harkness taking her characters through a walk in history. Some authors will state they are taking dramatic license with history and this is fine with me, even with my degrees in history. I am reading your books for romance, mystery, thrills and chills, plus a good story, but with this caveat: please Google the world in which your story is set. Know the world your characters live in and the time period. Please don’t mention a country that did not exist in that time period. Please have a basic grasp of world history. I am not calling you out on using dramatic license with minor events, but adding twentieth or twenty-first century colloquial idioms into a text taking place in the nineteenth century is a no-no. I am not asking you to be perfect, but nothing kills a book quicker for me than your inserting a word or country or event that did not exist in that time period. If you have a huge publishing house behind you and your book has errors, then your publisher failed you and your readers. If you are an Indie Author and you paid good money to editors and proofers who didn’t catch what I do, they, too, failed you. I understand the book writing processes; some write linearly and some write in chapters that are then interconnected. Please be open to the world your characters live in and write the best books you can. Make sure you aren’t failing your readers.
Best and Thank You for your stories,
Karen Everett
Leave a Reply