07 January 2009
How Grammatical Should Characters' Conversations Be?
A friend has just had a book published with a small publishing house. His editor irritated him by laboriously changing every line of conversation to make it strictly grammatical.
When he realised his child characters were suddenly sounding like Little Lord Fauntleroy and saying the likes of "Mummy, to whom may I give this?" or "Whence have you come?" my friend invoked the line he'd prudently inserted into his contract before signing, which said that no text changes could be made without his permission.
Do You Have This Line In Your Contract?
So he changed them all back again. And the moral of that is, be sure you've got that particular line in your contract.
Er...have I?
When he realised his child characters were suddenly sounding like Little Lord Fauntleroy and saying the likes of "Mummy, to whom may I give this?" or "Whence have you come?" my friend invoked the line he'd prudently inserted into his contract before signing, which said that no text changes could be made without his permission.
Do You Have This Line In Your Contract?
So he changed them all back again. And the moral of that is, be sure you've got that particular line in your contract.
Er...have I?
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