Can you write when you can’t write? Tools of the trade.

In a long career as a salesman, I established that I needed the following things to succeed:

• Resilience, since the best salesperson in the world (and who better than me to tell you this?) hears “No” more often than “Yes”

• The ability to hear the things people don’t say

• Good product knowledge

• To listen more than I talked

• A cast iron stomach

• Excellent command of the language (English in my case)—written and spoken

I’m not suggesting that all salespeople have all of those things—I’ve met a great many who lack one or two of them and a few who called themselves salespeople who didn’t have any—but the good ones have most of them (the cast iron stomach is only necessary if, like me, your chosen field is international sales; I’ve lived and worked on every continent except Antarctica and some of the things I’ve been given to eat—especially in Asia—have been a challenge). That, resilience and the ability to hear the things people don’t say are gifts; you have them or you don’t. The others—product knowledge, listening more than you speak and written and spoken language skills are tools of the trade and no-one who wants to hit target should leave home without them.

Writing works the same way—or so it seems to me. You may or may not have the understanding of human motivation that allows you to create believable characters, or the ear that means you can write good dialogue, but there are things that you must have and I believe that a perfect grasp of grammar, punctuation and meanings of words are among them.

Patrick Hodgson was a salesman of the first rank as well as a good friend but, like most Lancastrians, he believed in blunt speaking. As in, “S/he’ll never be able to sell as long as s/he has a hole in her/his arse.” Not polite, but I always knew what he meant and I usually agreed with him; and, sometimes, I’m tempted to apply the same judgement to some of the writers I meet on line. I don’t, though, because I can never forget two writers who, when they began, were appalling and all their friends told them so. George Orwell was one and I’m the other. So, I would never say “never” when it comes to a person’s ability to write. S/he maybe can’t write now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen for them if they work at it hard enough.

Sometimes in the groups we belong to we read a post so full of errors that we’re tempted to pass the Patrick Hodgson judgement. Well—I am, and I suspect I’m far from alone. I notice that these posts are usually either ignored or met with courteous responses and that is as it should be; I’ve no time for people who write replies that insult or demean the recipient. “If you’ve nothing good to say, say nothing” is good advice.

A while ago, I looked at a piece of work by someone whose first language was not English and who wanted an editor who could help her rewrite her novel to look as though it had been written by an Anglophone. I gave her the best advice I could: You’re not ready to spend money on that kind of editing. Join a local writing group. Learn about Point of View, Structure, Characterisation, Show Don’t Tell. I didn’t hear from her again and I have no idea whether she took it, but it was the right advice for her at the time.

Yesterday, though, I read a blog post that I was convinced was a spoof. I wrote the author this message: Look, I have to ask a question and I mean it to be taken seriously. I’m not a troll and I’m not attacking you—I’m just so astonished by what I have read that I have to ask for clarification. You say “forum’s” when you mean “forums”. You say “I may even of mentioned” when you mean “I may even have mentioned”. You say “Amazons feet” when you mean “Amazon’s feet.” And so on. These are marks of the semi-literate—the person who’s submission would not hold an agent’s or publisher’s attention beyond the first para. But you present your blog as a writer’s blog and yourself as a writer so I need to know: You are having a laugh. Aren’t you?

I wrote that because I was convinced that he was an accomplished writer who was taking the mickey out of all the half-literate posts we all come across. I didn’t see how it could be possible to get every single thing so reliably wrong (every apostrophe that should be there omitted; every apostrophe that should not be there included) unless you were doing it deliberately.

I received this reply: Hi John. I openly admit that I have not attended writing skills courses, or that my schooling was of any great standard, but I follow this by mentioning the importance of a proof reader. I have no doubt that your corrections are valid, and I thank you for taking the time to point them out. I may not be as ‘literate’ as many when writing my thoughts, but by the time those thoughts become a book the professionals have done their job well. It’s a team effort.

So what I’m asking is: Is this possible? If you lack the basic building blocks—the tools of the trade as I have called them—can proof readers and editors turn it into something saleable? Can it be done?

Comments would be welcome. Indeed, comments are sought. And I had better add that I did not (and would not have) publish this post until I had shown it to the blogger I mentioned and received his approval.