If I knew that this was legal, I would have done it years ago.
One of my favorite blogs to follow is Dana's Reasoning With Vampires on Tumblr. She's reading the Twatlight series and scanning every passage she finds flawed. Before you ask, yes, she has loads of posts. I like her style; she pays neat attention to grammar, and when I wouldn't know where to begin, she pinpoints the error of Stephenie Meyers's ways. Needless to say, I check it daily. Sometimes hourly.
I have stumbled upon a few writers who possess a heaping helping of unwarranted self-importance. (Look it up on Encyclopedia Dramatica if you're not at work, 'cos the article is hilar.) When I find these grotesque beasts, my reaction is to trick them into their own traps. Think "I hate men." "Oh, so you're female?" "No. I hate other* men." "El oh el." It's a little more respectable than that, but there's an idea for you.
When this trickery is insufficient to shut them the eff up, I become annoyed, because that means defeating them will require effort. It is then that I inspect their writing, the meat of their boasts. It should be noted that supreme douchebaggery results in having far too much pride in your alleged "work." It is not work if it is the first draft...and it's published.
Note that "published" does not mean in the more respected traditional sense; didn't you know that the Internet can be used for evil? It has given these bitches with unwarranted self-importance (or, Elitists--remember that, it's important) a medium for falsely inflating their ego. It's called many names, the most vile of which are self-publishing, indie publishing, and e-publishing. Notice the word they share. These Indies are always using it, usually in descriptions of themselves. One notable exception is when they say things like "Traditional publishing just wasn't for me." Watch their tails tuck under their yellow bellies.
I can respect someone who has been published traditionally and decides to go indie. I cannot respect someone who didn't have the discipline to cut the shit out of their manuscripts and polish it for a real publishing house. That's why I'm here--to show you the error of their ways, just as Dana does for Meyers. She cites Folsom v. Marsh: "[A] reviewer may fairly cite largely from the original work, if his design be really and truly to use the passages for the purposes of fair and reasonable criticism."
First off, I'll be critiquing all the little things in "Purity Flame," by Harley V. Palmer*. Spoiler alert: I might as well post the whole novel and put an asterisk after "The End," 'cos the whole fucking book is a mistake.
* This is not the real title, and this is not her real name. SugarSpice Points to anyone not in the know who can figure it out.
