My Rant by Konnie Enos

As a writer, I hear a lot about self-publishing. Going this way used to mean you weren’t a good enough writer to make it in the big leagues. I’ve heard this isn’t the case anymore but I’m beginning to wonder if the vast availability of new books/authors is making our reading choices less.

It’s not that there aren’t more books out there; it’s that there are fewer and fewer well written and edited books offered. I’m also starting to discover how well written a book has little to do with the author's experience or whether or not it’s self-published.

Recently I read some books that weren’t self-published and weren’t the author's first books.

One of the stories I found compelling and it kept me reading but in the end, I felt cheated. She carefully crafted the story where one young woman was in a new relationship with ALL the red flags and her four friends were worried about her but would not listen to them when they tried to voice their concerns. She ended up running off and eloping with this man and then moving to another country in Europe. Through all of this, her friends are worried about her and trying to find ways to make sure she is okay or rescue her if needed.

My problem is, in the end, the author just drops it. Leaving this woman as happily married without ever giving the reader any reasons why the marriage isn’t abusive. If you’re going to put in all those red flags then you had better tell the reader why they were false indicators or they are going to assume the young woman is still in an abusive relationship and you didn’t finish the story.

Another story I read was about a young man who experienced both abuse and bullying growing up. The abuse was bad enough the local cops were quite familiar with his family. Eventually, during one of his father’s drunken rampages, the young man managed to hit his father just hard enough to unbalance him, causing him to crash down the stairs and through a banister to his death.

The problem is the whole premise of the story is the young man thought he’d gotten away with murder so know he’s going to kill his bullies too.

One, I can’t think of a soul who wouldn’t have seen his father’s death for what it was. Self-defense. Two, in fourteen years he killed only two of his bullies and in the same way. Then he killed one lady and attempted on another (again the same way) before making three very different attempts on one lady and another attempt on a different lady all in a matter of months. Yes, killers escalate, but drastically changing his timeline and M.O.?

I also had problems with the cops taking over a decade to figure out the first attempt was murder and another couple of years to decide who his targets were while they never realized the second and third murder had anything to do with the case and never, in fourteen years, figured out who was doing it. The clues were in the story. The entire world is not so dense they can’t figure it out.

I’m just tired of reading published stories with clear flaws in their storyline or huge plot holes, clear telling, redundancies, echo, and grammatical errors. However, what really irritates me is published books with extra or missing words. Well, that irritates me in drafts too but authors should edit well enough to eliminate this issue. They should also know their craft well enough to not have plot holes, telling, redundancies, echo, and grammatical errors in their finished product.

So I’m wondering how writers go about editing their books that they are missing these issues. Do they rely on the same handful of people who can’t get these problems fixed in their work? Do they not hire a professional editor?

I’m still unpublished, but I know I need to correct any and all of the errors mentioned above so I don’t know how or why published authors aren’t making the same effort. Yes, I’ve read books by well-known authors with an error or two, which I forgive. Somehow, they missed it in the editing. But those are small, a missed or extra word here or there. One story has a wrong name in one place (confusing but oh well, it’s just one error).

I find the ones with large, glaring errors annoying.

Since I’m still unpublished, what tips do you have, for other writers, to find and eliminate these issues in their works in progress?

Let’s work together to make our writing better.