Thread: [Collection] Kol's Snippets
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Old 05-21-2012, 10:49 AM
EzloSpirit EzloSpirit is a male United States EzloSpirit is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Tiaanamat, Akhaten's Orbit
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Re: Kol's Snippets

Wow. These are really depressing, but they are beautifully written and offer a new outlook on the world and people around us, a powerful examination of the human psyche and the effects that love and lust can have on it. I was hooked throughout, even despite the especially dark nature of these vignettes. My favorite is "Cynical Love;" the flow and style is fantastic!

However, I am a "bit" of a Grammar Nazi, so a few repeated grammatical errors took a bit away from the impact of the writings for me. I understand, however, that writers' styles differ from each other and may contradict technicalities regarding grammar---my own writing often includes stylistic sentence fragments---so if any of my following tips go against your general writing style, feel free to disregard them!

Quote:
Why does a person submit themselves voluntarily to such pain?
Only Grammar Nazis constantly use "himself or herself" when referring to singular, nonspecific nouns or pronouns, so I don't expect you to do that. However, there are other ways of correcting instances of third-person, plural pronouns referring to singular nouns. One way you could correct this sentence is:

Quote:
Why does one submit oneself voluntarily to such pain?
~~~


Quote:
A novel lay abandoned next to me, having grown bored of reading it.
Okay, I obviously know what you are saying. But if you read this sentence literally, it sounds like you are saying that the novel grew bored of reading...itself...? This is an error that we grammar freaks like to call a modifier. Basically, it doesn't seem that the action (modifier) in the second clause is referring to anything logical. Here is a possible correction:

Quote:
I have abandoned my novel and, having grown bored of it, placed it abandoned next to me.
~~~


Quote:
I wasn’t too worried about that, if she wanted to be independent I’d let her, simple as that.
You, good sir, have made a comma splice, which is quite possibly the most commonly made grammatical error in recent years. And I don't know why, but no matter what the context may be, comma splices annoy the crap out of me. (I should probably get that checked out.) It's a quick fix, though. If you want to fix it.

~~~


Quote:
Yeah, I’ll show up on her door and tell her...
Okay, now I am getting ridiculous; no need to point that out to me! XD Anyway, this is an error in word choice. This sentence, when taken literally, seems to imply that gravity has shifted in such a way that one could actually sit or stand on the surface of a door. You probably meant "doorstep." But this is really picky. Again, it's your writing!

~~~


Whether or not you put my nitpicking to use, I can honestly say that the pluses already far outweigh the minuses. Good work!
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Last Edited by EzloSpirit; 05-21-2012 at 09:56 PM. Reason: Reply With Quote