drives writers nutso, at least it does this writer. Oh, I'm not talking the grammatical comma or the serial comma or any one of the thousand of comma uses available.
I'm talking about the 'troll' comma. The one that appears from nowhere and lands somewhere in your sentence. Troll commas make no sense. They are just THERE.
As I mentioned, I made it through to the second round of Lori Brighton's first paragraph contest being judged by her Kensington editor, Megan Records. YAY!!
Anyhoo, those of us who made the next round were to send the first page, including the submitted paragraph, to Lori. Once I finally FOUND the stupid manuscript, I read/tweaked/edited my first page and copied it to Lori. A couple of days later, I thought, 'Well, if by some freakin' miracle I make the next round then I'd better clean up the rest of chapter one."
And guess what?
Yep, I found a troll comma. In the very last sentence of my submission. Place right after 'would' and before 'poof'. Aaaarrrggghhh! I HATE troll commas. They make absolutely zero sense, but they happen.
Now, do I get totally freaked about this?
No. . . well, maybe . . . naw, not really.
Because what can I do about it? NOTHING. It is out of my hands and in the hands of the editor judge. But I like to think that the troll comma won't make or break my submission. I hope it's my words and how they are used that would be the selling point of my page.
Who knows? I don't. But when I come across a troll comma in contest entries or in CP's work, I highlight them and go about my biz. I'm not going to count it against the writer--unless the submission is riddled with erroneous commas, then there's a problem to deal with--I like to read, envisioning the big picture and how the author tells the story.
How do you deal with 'troll' commas? Do you go ballistic? Roll your eyes? Heave a sigh and think, "Crap, I just sent that to twenty agents."?
Well, I fixed the comma and moved on.
Now, it's time to . . . Write On!
Don't worry about it. Agents/editors say they don't worry about it. I suppose if the entire sub was filled with bad grammar and punctuation, that might be different. But not one troll comma.
ReplyDeleteI had one in the blog I wrote for Magical Musings this Tuesday. I thought, Where'd that come from? LOL
Yeah, Edie, all you can do is shrug and get on with life. :-)
ReplyDeleteTrolls, in many forms, happen
I hate the misuse of commas! I mean I never...oh, who am I kidding? I am the queen of comma-trolling. I try. I really do. But it's just beyond my ability. Although I have gotten better, I still suck at it. :P
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't worry about it, M. If they are that picky over one little comma--then PFFT on them. hehe
*snork* Kira, Kira, Kira! TRUST ME--your writing has improved a bunch. I'm so glad you got over ending your dialogue with a period instead of a comma when using dialogue tags!
ReplyDeleteYanno, I've gotten to the point of shrugging and moving on. Stuff happens, and when you've already sent out the product there is nothing you can do about it, so why worry?
Um...er....Margie, you've got waaaaaaay too much time on your hands if you've got time to think about this stuff. :)
ReplyDeleteMy big pet peeve! People! Who feel they must end every sentence! With an exclamation point!
Really!
Enough!
Yep, Jody, I totally have too much time on my hands. I can't get settled in my manuscripts. I can't get settled in a book (trust me, I'm writing a blog about this particular book). I can't get settled in an exercise program. I don't have a clue as to what is going on. It's almost like I'm waiting for something to happen to send me scrambling in the right direction.
ReplyDelete--must be the weird weather.
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ReplyDelete