Various Writer Archetypes Part three - THE GRAMMAR AND SPELLING NAZI - THE "EVERYONE'S A GOAT" ONE

 

THE GRAMMAR AND SPELLING NAZI

They care nothing about story coherence, plot development, or character success. They believe that a novel's originality and richness of content have no importance, nor do dialogues and intriguing plot articulation. The Grammar and Spelling Nazi typically wrote just one book, many years ago, and hates every writer in the world based on that single misused article on page 172, an inconsistent verb tense that slipped through in chapter 11, and that damned subjunctive that escaped three different proofreaders and their high school teacher, who read the entire text without noticing the anomaly. They review every single book on the market and systematically trash it, finding that error they knew they would find. Their book, naturally, will be the ultimate text on good writing, the universal reference for orthographic rules, the writers' bible, the incarnation of Chekhov in paper and pixels.

THE "EVERYONE'S A GOAT" ONE

Also rare, but makes themselves heard. They set up a home altar with photos of Sgarbi and Umberto Eco and hate with all their might anyone who writes fiction. Well, not really - they occasionally admit fiction, but only if it's backed by lengthy research in dusty libraries, trips to forgotten countries, speleological missions in mysterious caves, and first drafts born after years and years of painful labor and a couple of stress-related hospitalizations. They're disgusted by genre literature, which they abhor, consider worthy of the name "book" only texts that have well exceeded one hundred thousand words, and usually don't maintain relationships with colleagues. They share with the Book Launch Enthusiast the desire to do thousands of presentations, but only in prestigious, history-steeped venues. They don't disdain deconsecrated churches, ancient manors, and cultural circles, but only of a certain level. For them, everyone else, including most of their readers (whom they already know won't understand the depth of their lucubrations), are simply goats.