Newcomers Forum Surprise

I've been looking at some of the fiction that's been posted here. I'm not interested in poetry. I'm surprised. I'm surprised at the grammar and the punctuation. If English isn't someone's native language it makes sense. But in most cases it clearly is their native language. I'm also surprised at some aspects of technique. I would have thought that if someone decides to write fiction they must have read at least one novel once. But they don't seem to have paid much attention.