I recently read a fantasy novel by a 30-something kid who writes like a literate (for a seventh-grader) junior high school student. Irritating. He’s apparently a self-inflicted victim of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, from the evidence of the kinds of glaring errors he makes that would have been easily avoided had he done his homework.
*sigh*
Example: horses and horseback riding are featured throughout the book (and from what I have seen in preview material, the next book in the series as well, where the snippet I saw mentioned horses braying *shudder*). One would think that if horses and riding horses were significant elements of a novel, then the writer would at least casually pick up a copy of Horse and Rider or maybe even stroll on down to a stable to get a wee tad of realism to use. Oh, wait! Talk to a real person with experience with horses! Nah. Too hard.
Nope. Instead, Every. Single. Thing. Wrong. Completely stupid. Way to massacre any chance of suspension of disbelief, doofus.
Note: I am not an expert equestrian. I have been blessed in the past with extended opportunities to deal with, ride, feed and do general care for horses. I have also, because of a lifetime interest in horses, done a lot of reading on horse care and training, etc. My knowledge is therefore both experiential knowledge and “book” knowledge. Based on that, I can say that everything in the book pertaining to horses is complete, utter, and absolute bullshit.
And the writer’s questionable grammar (often confuses objective and subjective cases, for but one example) and word misuse* do not help his case, either. And, BTW, I deplore all his comma splices. Such things are just another demonstration of disrespect for his readers.
Such lazy disrespect for the reader is not the way to build a readership of any but other similarly ignorant readers who are confident in their ignorance and whose literacy and knowledge base will not be improved by reading this writer’s books.
You may have noticed that I have not named the book and writer. I will not do so until I have both cooled off a bit and submitted a review (well, a pan) at Amazon.
*His misuse of “fallow” (one example of many) is so amazingly baffling as to be the most wildly weird word misuse I have seen in quite some time. Hint: there is no meaning, metaphor, or descriptive value in the phrase: “fallow [sic] rays of sun” used in reference to a sunrise. No, not even in the old, but now rare, usage of light BROWN, as the dirt of a fallow field (disregarding the variegation in colors of dirt. Rays of sun the color of dirt?!? Pull the other one. Oh, and find a color that relates to something that might be recognized as sunlight *grumble, grumble, gripe, complain* The writer should at least get up one morning in time to see a sunrise.) I must say, for misuse of words, this guy has real talent.