When was the last grammar class that you took? How is your spelling? I ask this because there are many of you out there that have no clue about what you are doing when it comes to the basic conventions of the English language. What makes it worse, is that for many, you are out there advising others on these rules.
Please, STOP!!!!
Essentially, what you are doing would be the same as me trying to tell someone how to fix a car. I have no idea what I am doing, and I certainly am not an expert.
I want to take this one step further. Many of you are using grammar checkers and spell checkers to fix your errors. Again, this is a big mistake, especially in the case of grammar checkers.
Grammar checkers are only looking for things that might potentially be a problem. This does not mean that it is in your case. Along the same lines, they only suggest possible solutions and you have to know the grammar to understand how to fix the issue. Again, you need to know what you are doing.
I bring all of this up because of late, I have had a ton of manuscripts submitted to me that were full of HUGE grammar issues. Now, although I am looking at the story and I understand there are some things that we can fix once I sign a writer, these errors simply tell me the person is far from ready!
Remember also, you only get ONE shot. If you screw it up, unless an editor or agent tells you that you can re-submit, you just lost that one chance.
Please, make it count!
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