Spelling and grammar rules still count in media business. A book poorly written will not gain popularity. Meaning, in so many words, it will not sell. Pushing a poorly constructed piece of literature in the market place will gain the author humiliation, not sales.
     I think society has given to tolerate a certain amount of grammar and spelling errors in newspapers, magazines and thus in novels and non-fiction books. Still, a book riddled in errors will fail to win a prime spot in a bookstore, that is, if it ever makes it to a bookstore. The education system permits students to graduate with poor grammatical skills, not just from high schools, but from many college programs.
     So what does a fledging author do if he or she realizes they are lacking a bit in these language skills, or it has been some years, since they gave the rules of sentence structure serious thought?

Beyond the F7 Command

     Buy computer software that will assist. I call it the new electronic age proofreader systems. The basics come in your Microsoft Word document (or equivalent) package. You access it via the F7 key, or you can mouse over and click the ABC-check mark symbol at the top of your screen.
     Yea, you already knew that.
     Spell and grammar check does not catch everything. The title of a magazine article was supposed to be, "Ask the Father." Spell check accepted “Ass the Father.” Each word was spelled correctly, and it is grammatically correct. One of the words happened to be wrong. Ass the Father was printed in bold forty-eight point type on the cover of that issue of a religious magazine.

Next column . . .

     A text to voice computerized reader is very useful. I downloaded the free Natural Voice reader to see if I liked the technology. I found it satisfactory, and so I purchased the next level software that included a choice of two voices and other controls. I use a head set, and then I click my mouse at the beginning of a paragraph. A pleasant human sounding voice reads my story back to me. When I hear “form” instead of my intended word “from”, I pause and make the correction.
     You can tell, from looking over other pages of my web site that I failed to use this program all the time.
     I used to take tape recorder and manuscript into the forest. There, I read my stories, and then play them back. I am too shy or sensitive to have done that in a building where others could hear me. Natural Reader and earphones solved this problem for me when I moved to the Big Apple, and I no longer had three hundred acres of forested land to hide in with the old technology. The added advantage is that I have immediate access to my computer as I listen to my story read back to me.
     I recently purchased a grammar, spelling and style checker from White Smoke.com. There are bigger programs for writers, but I found this to be effective and affordable. I run White Smoke after I ran F7 and the Natural Reader. My stories are perfect or near perfectly written at this point. I am now ready to have a well-qualified human go over my work. The live proofreader will still find errors. Or if not, he will be able to make suggestions to strengthen a section or make other improvements.
     A proofreader makes any author look good. (Note: “or if not …” at the beginning of the last sentence of the previous paragraph is not a grammatically correct beginning. It is permissible in that it gives colloquial expression).

Before/After the use of electronic proof reading helps:

Is he form Iceland? (He is from Iceland.)
Did you ax the pastor? (No. I asked the pastor.)
Fresh faces holding their mother's hands, had no idea what awaited them.
Problem? Faces do not hold hands. Children hold their mother's hands. Work "fresh faces" into another sentence or paragraph if you wish.

Charity or Clarity?      ↑

     Did the guy in the third column ask for charity or does he need clarity?
     An author burned out from looking his work over and again might not see the unintended or misused word. Looking at the picture, I’d say either interpretation is correct. We can see how the difference of a single letter in a similar looking and sounding word changes the story.
     He sought [clarity/charity] for his dilemma. Does he need more details to solve a business problem, or does he need charity to get out of an economic situation?