One way of making sure that you target the right audience is to take time to read the Submission Guidelines of any market you intend to submit to…and I would also recommend reading a few stories (esp. online sites) to determine what their preferences might be.

You’re also trying to appeal to someone’s personal taste (who ever reads the material) and life factors often apply….for example- you may have written a fantastic story/book about some flying pig with telepathic ablities that saves the world, but if the editor has recently lost his pet pig to Swine Flu, then you might just get a negative reaction. In writing, as in life, sometimes you’re the windshield…sometimes your the bug.

Economics drive things in the long run along with convenience. Home computers were poor stepchildren to paper, pencil, and typewriters in the ’70s and no one thought they’d amount to anything. Today, the average laptop can run rings around any giant mainframe produced in the ’70s and the average household has more than one computer in it (and so does your car — under the hood).

eReaders can hold a library of over 1000 books. Classics are available free at Project Gutenberg. eBooks are generally less expensive than their paper counterparts and can be read within minutes of purchase, rather than paying freight and waiting days for your ordered book to arrive. And you don’t have to travel to the nearest bookstore to find them.

Still, some (especially older readers) will continue to prefer paper books, but the technical generation (the ones who can walk, text, and chew gum at the same time) will prefer eBooks. No more heavy backpack full of school books. You can make notes on your e-version without destroying the underlying book. And their college texts should cost less (some sell for around $100 these days).

Your own “violation” of the rule in the text is a good example of how it should be done.

All mechanics aside, the main lesson here, in my opinion, is that nothing should pull the reader out of the story. The problems Keith describe are very common among beginning writers (and a surprising number of not-so-beginning wrtiers).

One thing that might be useful is to include your word in your computer’s dictionary. Even words that you create for your story can be misspelled. I had someone submit to me and spelled one of their own words three different ways in the ms. they sent me. Of course I was brilliant enough to notice this (duh) and mentioned it to them in my reply. Although I personally don’t like stories that have too many made up words, since it just adds to the confusion of spelling and misspelling.

But like John said, just because it doesn’t show up as a mistake on your screen doesn’t mean you can claim the blue ribbon in the Spelling Bee. You may just have gotten the wrong word spelled correctly…their are two many weighs too knot get it write.