An author among us

[TlGER]

Re: An author among us

@TS

Agar aisi baat hai to phir aap English main kaisay likhtay hain ?

BTW, who wrote the book description ?
There is this line “They marooned him in a Godforsaken place – a place from where no one could ever escaped.”

‘Could’ and ‘escaped’ can’t be used together in a sentence (unless you have the word ‘have’ in between).
That is a basic grammar error.
Also I don’t know if I have seen the word godforsaken with a capital G before.

I haven’t read the book or a sample of your writing but did you have an editor for your book ?

Also, have you written before ? Like articles, short-stories etc ?

I don’t mean to give you a hard time, and I may be presuming too much from the book description, but if there are grammar errors or other language usage issues in the book, it will not do well.

@TS

I am not a writer so I am not going to try. Plus I am too lazy to do that.

But I found a spelling error. Please see the word in bold and underline.
The correct word is ‘dining’.

‘Godforsaken’, I understand is debatable on various grounds.
That was not the bigger issue.
But the grammar error was more egregious and unacceptable.

Besides, if you are more comfortable in Urdu, maybe you should write your books in Urdu and then have them translated in different languages like Sindhi and English by other people, like Muqawwee123.

@TS

It is a little difficult to explain. I am sure others can do a better job here. There are a LOT of good writers of English here, mostly the non-resident Pakistanis and Indians. I think that is because they read a LOT.

But what do you mean by “making small houses of clay” ?
Are you trying to be poetic here ?
This should just be a list of factual information.

In the last sentence, ‘also paintings’ is not an action word like ‘writes’.
It should say ‘paints’.
Even with that fix, the last bit ‘in addition to his stories’ sounds a little awkward.
You could say ‘… also paints and writes poetry and stories’.
Or ‘… also paints and writes poetry, in addition to writing his stories’.

Besides, if somebody cannot see these errors and has to ask, it raises the question whether they have the necessary command over the language that they are writing, and publishing a full-length novel, in.

Please see that all of this assumes that you have written the sentences we are discussing.

It is not about writing skills, as we are talking about grammar here. Accept the challenge.

It is the dinNing table for ‘Desi Khanas’. Dining table is for ‘Valaity Khanas’.

Spelling errors are not a big deal. Every bestseller has them. Ask any editor, and they will tell you about it. They will also tell you about their grammar mistakes. By the grace of God, I don’t have any grammatical and spelling errors in my novel.

As you can see, I wrote the scene in Urdu and did not care about the spelling error. Do you think it did not highlight it as an error? It pointed it out for me as a spelling mistake, but I let it go. You might only have one platform to show your abilities and skills, but I have others to deal with. I don’t care while posting in a forum.

I have only two mistakes in my description, and I always knew about it. There is a reason behind the mistakes. Here is the proof of my correction in the following links, where I changed paintings into paints. Don’t forget to check the dates of my press releases.

Pakistan’s First International Thriller Author Waheed Ibne Musa Debuts with a Stunning Thriller: “Johnny Fracture”

Waheed Ibne Musa Debuts With JOHNNY FRACTURE

Pakistan’s First International Thriller Author Waheed Ibne Musa Debuts with a Stunning Thriller: “Johnny Fracture” | Social Newsroom of Author

When the PR came to me, I approved it after making the corrections. I think I also corrected it on Goodreads. The problem is that the novel has been published, and I cannot re-publish it just because of these two minor errors. I will have to wait for my next edition. However, I have been changing it on many other forums, as there is not only one place showing my novel’s description. It will take some time. Thank you for pointing out that the issues appeared on Amazon, as I was unaware that they are still showing the old description. (My publishers forwarded them the material from my novel’s back cover)

Why did this happen in the first place?

These two mistakes were caused by copying and pasting the material from an old unedited file, as I had lost my edited file, which was without any error.

**1- **The sentence in the old file was something (no one has ever escaped), and I changed has into could but forgot to change ‘escaped’. Because of the Em-dash, Microsoft Word did not point out the error, and I did not realise it.

2- I have no part in the 'About the author’. It contained only the material provided by me. However, when it came back to me for proofreading, I removed does** from paintings but could not see the further issue.

I realised both mistakes after submitting the manuscript, but it was too late. The novel has been published.

I wonder if you really think that I was unaware of my two mistakes. I am very thankful to you and appreciate that you pointed it out for me. Amazon really matters to me, and I will do something about it.

I gave you 326 pages to judge me by, now give me a reason to judge your skills. Be a man and accept the challenge!

(Although my skills are creative writing, producing ideas, not editing)