Young Writers Society

Whoever tries to analyse a story through spelling, grammar, genre or style makes a fool of himself. It is like describing a painting by mentioning the colour and location of each dot in a matrix. Can one capture the writer’s souls hidden deep within the story through such a scientific analysis? Impossible! At best stories can be described through the inner voice of the wondrous world around us, through an imaginary language immeasurable by science.

Letters, words and grammar belong to the physical world. They are subdued to the universal laws of nature and belong to the world of the mathematicians, capturing everything in formulas, making them emotionless and static. But even though stories are made up of the physical parts of this world, the stories themselves emerge from the immaterial world, the imagination of the writer; an infinite source that fills the dark void with the light of stories. The physical world surprises through the laws of nature, but the imaginary world of stories overpowers through the freedom of fantasy.

Letters can be mathematically described in shape, height and colour, a rather dull description of their existence. But letters are so much more than physical bodies used to build up words and sentences. They are like a body carrying the soul of the story inside. Letters are like celestial carriage pulled by the horse of the writer’s pen, allowing them to imagine new worlds, create new stories that can be followed and appreciated through the reader’s eyes and imagination.

Words can be seen and heard by the eyes and ears and the brain turns them into functional bits of information. Sentences can be read emotionless through grammar like a computer reads a text through binary code. People can scientifically look at the clouds or the ripples on the ocean to interpret the weather, but only through imagination can they hear the inner voice of restless sea, can they read the ripples on the ocean and grasp a minor glimpse of its intense hunger and desires of the sea.

Stories can be reviewed on plot, characters and setting fitting on one A4. But stories are more than a report, they are like fine art. Like a painter uses his brush and different dyes, a writer uses his pen, nouns and verbs to paint a setting, to guide the reader into his world. One simple stroke of the pen changes an entire character, plot or setting, leading to new undiscovered possibilities.

Therefore stories carried inside celestial carriages, want to be heard like the roaring sea, want to be appraised as a piece of art and want to be read as a radiance of the writer’s soul. Stories speak of hunger and desires like the ripples on the ocean, restless and never ending.

Hmm. No, I disagree.

- Spelling and grammar make the vessel of the story. If the vessel is malfunctioning, whatever is inside it will not make it to its destination.

- Spelling and grammar do not matter if the author has something to say. If, however, the author has no important message to deliver, the author's mastery over language will prove just as effective at captivating the reader as a strong message. H. P. Lovecraft is a great example of a writer who didn't need messages to write amazing works.

- A story that has neither grammar / spelling nor a message is unreadable by others.

There is no wrong way to write a story. However, there is a wrong way to write a story if it is intended to be read by other people. Whatever incredible worlds, indescribable conflicts, or happy endings that the author thought up of will ever truly be experienced by only the author themselves if the author has no talent for getting their story across to other people.

The only way in which I can agree with you is that it is wrong to judge a story solely by its technical merits. However, it is equally wrong, if not moreso (after all, poor spelling is a pretty good indication of the rest of the story's quality) to ignore or forgive the details.

Your servant,
cC