... on the subject of editors and proofreaders is simple. Those who feel they need them should have access to them. Those of us who choose to fly without a 'chute -- well, sometimes that's part of the fun tool. *smile*

As a professional writer (albeit in marketing and advertising), I've had my work reviewed and changed by others throughout my career. Changes are made, and clients go away happy -- primaarily because I have no deep emotional commitment to the work other than to ensure that the client is satisfied and the creative concept is sound and executed to the best of my ability (client comments notwithstanding). *smiles*

With fiction, it's difficult for me to turn my work over to someone else because it's my work. The characters are my people, and their story is my story.

But the bottom line is that when your work is out there being read by your audience, they will be judging it based on how well it does its job. If the essense of storytelling is to bring your readers into the world you create and let them live in it through your characters, that is the one true measure of your success. However, if typos, grammar, or continuity errors get in the way of that mission, your story won't be told properly. No writer wants that to happen.

For me, I do my best to edit my stories before I post, and take the extra effort as part of the process. And there ARE good editors out there -- folks who read and polish without leaving their own mark on the work. They suggest, but never impose.

They check their egos at the door -- which, I guess, is why a good editor is so hard to find.

*hugs*

Randalynn

LADY: Well, how did you become king, then?
ARTHUR (with great reverence): The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. That is why I am your king!
DENNIS: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!
-- Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Whilst I suspect I am one of the writers referred to in the last paragraph, Aardvark and I having had an enjoyable private joust on the subject before, I do support his concern over grammar. In the UK however this has not featured in the school curriculum for several decades, it being presumably regarded as too difficult and as an obstacle to the creative expression.

Few in the U.K. are therefore currently capable of recognising a grammatical structure and thus its practice has largely fallen into disrepute. Only the memory still happily lingers with those who were also taught a *foreign language, preferably a dead one. In the circumstances, unless one attaches some importance to clarity and precision, its importance is arguably marginal.

Nevertheless I would join with Aardvark in encouraging a revival in what seems to be a dying art. And would add to his recommendations Fowler's 'Modern English Usage, Eric Partridge's 'Usage and Abusage' and Sir Ernest Gowers' 'The Complete Plain Words', as being both instructive and amusing.

And I am aware that one shouldn't begin sentences, let alone paragraphs with 'and'. But I quite like doing it. And thus, as is the case generally with things I like, probably do it to excess.

Fleurie

*P.S. I exclude American English from this category, at least for the duration of this posting