Two weeks ago I updated my story, I am Not a Girl. It should read more smoothly. I just updated My Magic PDA posting a disclaimer. As follows,
Sept 20, 2011
Newly edited through the unforgiving seventh grade English teacher. There are a few minor changes but nothing to alter the story. You will notice a change from first person narrative to third person in some scenes. This is intentional. The primary focus is from Bob/Sarah's point of view. I shifted to third person when Bob/Sarah was not involved in the scene and for areas where scene setting is involved. With that in mind it should lessen any confusion. I trust this helps convince you there is a method for the writers madness and it is not a lack of skill. This decision may be a failure but I did it on purpose.
Rights reserved by the author with permission to host granted exclusively to Big Closet.
There are also no run on sentences, all comas in place etc. I might have botched the tense once in awhile such as (I was) instead of (I am) but hey if I were David Baldacci I would not be putting stories on this site.
Oh well your comments have been welcome and encouraging. Enjoy the stories that's why they are posted.
Comments
Add links
You should add direct links to your stories when you post info like this, it would help people find the stories you mention.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
I saw one of those, once
Back in 1986, I took my children to an arts weekend in one of Chicago's Northern lake shore communities. After exiting the Chicago Northwestern North Line Bi-levels, we crossed the street into the downtown area and the art festival. As I walked among the exhibits I noticed the unusual pattern to the sidewalk. At first I had thought that it had poetry engraved, but no poem went on and on and... so I asked one of the volunteer aids about the presentation.
Oh that, it's been there for years, this is the track for the 5K courses and those are run on sentences...
Update
Thanks for the Update
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
Your stories aren't bad.
You really are a seventh grader? Or did I miss something? Your stories seem pretty well put together, I think.
Gwendolyn
No Gwen
Sorry for the delayed response. It took three days to load an operating system and programs into a new pc.
I am not a seventh grader. The comment was based on a belief of a English college professor. According to him, the average citizen's reading comprehension is at the 6th to 7th grade level. Good general story telling should be done at a no higher than the seventh grade level.
Thank you for your comment on my stories. The Book of Fate scored at the 10 grade level. My PDA and I'm Not a Girl varied between 6th and 10th averaging at 7.
The strength index scored high on all three but dialog drags down the comprehension and strength.
It comes down to if it is a good story or not. I try to keep them reasonably grammatically correct but there are grammar nazis out there.
I am not working on anything else right now. An idea needs to surface before I can do anything.
what do you use?
To determine what reading comprehension grade a text is? Is there a simple tool to use, some MS Word feature I don't know about? What?
Abigail Drew.
It is a software program to
It is a software program to purchase. The name of it is Right Writer. I had its predecessor Right Grammar. I don't have a link but google Right Writer you should find it. Wait!
I will check for a link.
I found it. It cost $30.00
http://www.right-writer.com/
Ah... I'm a cheapskate... Found alternative.
http://www.online-utility.org/english/readability_test_and_i...
Chapter 1 of OYH scored a whopping 11 years of formal education to easily understand, and, depending on the comprehension test used, 9th to 11th grade reading level. Yikes. No, I'm not going to edit my stories to make sure they don't exceed 7th grade reading comprehension level. Just be warned, they are tough ones!
For chuckles, I also tested my blog entry on Herbal Hormone Manipulation, which I actually tried to write plainly: 13 years of formal education, 10th to 13th grade reading level... Man... I knew I was bad at speaking plainly, but that's just terrible.
My blog entry Who's the cute teenage girl in the mirror scored 11 for easy understanding, 7th-11th grade... jeesh. I'm awful at this.
I need a blinking neon sign over my name that says if you haven't at least graduated high school with honors, avoid reading anything I say.
Abigail Drew.
I'd Hate to Think It's True...
...that any sentence with an incidental phrase set off by dashes can't be comprehended by average readers, which seems to be what this program is saying when I feed it my story starts. (Sure, there's a reason those stories never got any further, but that's because they were dull, not difficult.)
Eric
Reading comprehension tests...
Really seem to hate any form of "complex" sentence structure that isn't a simple topic did action. And I'm (infamous?) for very complex sentence structures.
They also seem to think any word over 3 syllables long is impossible for the average reader to comprehend. If that's true, I'm doomed as well.
Abigail Drew.