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| Coming Summer 2018 |
Judith Ashley
is the author of The Sacred Women’s Circle series, romantic fiction that honors
spiritual practices that nourish the soul and celebrates the journey from
relationship to romance.
What bumps me out of a story?
Unsympathetic characters
Outrageous, unbelievable story line
ERRORS: Even in a well-edited book whether indie or traditionally
published a few errors happen and even Errors happen but ERRORS mean the author
didn’t care enough to use spell-check, to have someone who knows grammar and
punctuation read the story, etc. And if the author doesn’t care, why should I?
And there are those errors of punctuation and grammar but
the worst error is in the information in the story-line. That means the author
didn’t care enough about the story to be sure it was accurate. Something as
simple as the time of year flowers bloom will pull me out of a story.
I love to read historical romance and most recently I
picked up two books by authors I’ve read and enjoyed before. One book I managed
to finish – at least the characters and plot held my interest enough.
The other book? It’s in my “recycle at used book store”
pile.
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| The beauty of Scotland |
Both are by well-known and skilled story-tellers. I’m
sure the setting, etc. is accurate as both are familiar with Scotland, where
the stories take place.
However, both books have a plethora of Scottish dialect.
Not a few “donna” or “ken” or “aye” or “nay” but virtually every sentence
spoken by a Scottish character has at least one if not numerous words.
I’m not talking about the use of Gaelic. I think that
adds to the atmosphere of a story. I’m talking about idiomatic language as if I’m
going to forget between one sentence and the next that the character is
Scottish. I can only assume that, as both authors are traditionally published,
that someone in the publishing houses decided to batter the reader with
Scottish dialect as if that is a good thing.
Before I purchase another Scottish romance (one of my favorite
genres), I’ll read a few pages ahead of time.
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| Available Now! |
And, if you are interested in learning a simple process
to find solutions to issues that are interfering with the quality of your life,
check out my latest non-fiction book Staying
Sane in a Crazy World.
Do
you ever feel as if the world around you is tumbling out of control and there
is nothing you can do to make your world a better place?
Do
you ever wish there was?
Staying
Sane in a Crazy World may help guide you toward stopping the tumbling and
choosing how to take effective control of your life.
The
reality is there is no One answer that fits all but we each have Our answer.
In
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that allows you to find Your answers. Answers you’ll use to craft a Personal Staying Sane Plan that will
help you regain and keep your balance whenever the world around you is
out-of-whack.
Staying
Sane is now available at your favorite e-retailer.
© 2018 Judith Ashley
4 comments:
simple to research inaccuracies are definitely on my "annoying" list, Judith! As is being battered with dialect. Authors need to use a careful hand in adding language elements. Otherwise they do pull the reader out of the story.
Thanks for stopping by, Sarah. What's always of benefit when reading other authors is to see what works (keeps me totally engaged and immersed in the story) and what doesn't. How you managed language in "Blindsight" was awesome.
I really don't mind the heavy use of dialect. It puts me more into the story or time period.
What bumps me out of a story is when the author changes : eye color, hair color, half way through the book, or any other numerous things. One famous author I've read had it pouring rain when the hero looked out the window as the door bell rang, he opens the door to a sunny day! That was from one page to the next.
The other thing I don't like is when there are loose ends that have not been addressed and the story ends.
Great post!
My challenge with these books is the dialect was heavy enough I had to stop and make sure I was understanding what the characters were actually saying. If not for that, it wouldn't have bothered me so much I totally stopped reading the one. I also find the things you mentioned pop me out of the story because I sometimes get confused - did I imagine the hero had blue eyes earlier? and now they are green? However, if the story is good enough I read on because I'm not someone who actually pays attention to the hair and eye color of people. When I did Adoption Home Studies, I always stopped at some point and talked about how they wanted to be described as a way for me to check eye color and confirm hair color. I could describe so many other things about them after my first two hour visit but often couldn't have told anyone what they looked like.
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