Questions...?

[calie]

I just finished 'Ariel' and 'Elegy Beach'. I can't explain the impact they made on me very accurately. They made me laugh, think 'What if?' and 'Why not?' questions, cry (just teary-eyed, not bawling) and dread the next page because you just KNOW it's going to be bittersweet. (I hate bittersweet, it's such an oxymoron.) I don't usually read that type of book; I'm more the 'Happily Ever After' type. I really loved reading the difference in artistic style between the first and second book. It made it really interesting, almost as if a totally different person was writing it. (Of course different people wrote it! Pete wrote book one and Fred wrote book two, didn't you know that?) But there is one tiny, little thing I must ask. I'll understand if it was all done under the heading 'Artistic License', but I really must ask. Where on EARTH was your proofreader? Sorry, I couldn't help asking. 'Ariel' was wonderful, but 'Elegy Beach' drove me up a wall. Where are all the question marks? You used them in some places but not others. Which really drove me nuts/bananas/bonkers, 'cause you sometimes had a whole page full of characters asking questions and only one of them had a question mark attached. I read 'Elegy Beach' three times the first time because I had to reread every sentence that was a question just to figure out if it was a question. Gah! (Just letting you know, I now have a love/hate relationship with the book.) Thank you!
Calie

[steveboyett]

Please see here.

[pnasci]

Sorry if I'm being dim, but was the original question ever answered. I'm enjoying your book, but the inconsistency in question mark usage is really ruining my immersion.

I followed the link, and carefully (I haven't finished the book yet) searched through the 4 pages of posts contained within, but other than someone else asking the same thing, didn't really find an answer. Was this style intentional. Did it somehow slip by editing. If intentional, what is the philosophy behind such prose.

Thanks!

[steveboyett]

every word in ELEGY BEACH is the result of a lot of layers of revision and close collaboration with my wonderful editor and a damn-near miraculous copy editor and proofreader. In other words, it's all there on purpose.

[steveboyett]

I note, by the way, that your final three interrogatives lacked a question mark, yet I had no trouble understanding that it was a question.

Perhaps you were being ironic. The effect is still the same.

[pnasci]

; )

[steveboyett]

This topic has been moved to the Q & A section of the forum.