User blog comment:Sykokillah/Use the Mother effing Workshop/@comment-4849011-20150102004817

Here's something else that's annoying. Someone writes a story that has typos or such, and then when they're called on it, they get angry and say that they did it on purpose to convey the mood of the character/atmosphere of the story/insert other lame excuse for an excuse here, and how dare we question their brilliance. Are you kidding me?! First off, that notion is hard to swallow, and even if they did do it intentionally, it's still bosh. Edgar Allan Poe, one of the greatest horror writers of all time, had very disturbed characters and didn't feel the need to use poor grammar and such. His style was writing horror stories, mysteries, poems, etc. that were actually good and effective. Unless you're e.e. cummings (you know, that poet famous for using lowercase letters and odd sentence structures), you're not going to be hailed as innovative for using bad grammar. Plus, if it's something that's been done to death, like USING ALL-FREAKIN'-CAPS, you're definitely not innovative or brilliant. By the way, was anyone frightened when I used the all-caps? Did it convey a mood of dread or panic? No? Didn't think so! There was one case in which a friend of mine had a few minor typos in a story, and one of them was in a suicide note a character had written. I corrected the other typos, but I left the one in the suicide note because I thought, "It's the suicide note of a deranged woman about to pluck out her eyes and kill herself; it's not going to be perfectly written." The writer has thanked me and others for correcting mistakes found in his work. He has never claimed that people correcting any typos they find are ruining his work, and he never even defended the typo in the suicide note. He's a good guy and I wish everyone showed appreciation like he does. That's the only time I've thought a typo was okay in the course of a pasta, and the thing is the author never defended it.

If people would make use of the WW, then this could be worked out. Unfortunately, people who defend their mistakes as "brilliance" aren't likely to use it. Some content mistakes could be worked out on the WW too. Here's some advice - if you're claiming that the story is a true event that happened to you, don't end with loose ends or by saying something like, "And now the demon is flying out and possessing me!"