Proofreading, Editing and A Big Thank You
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May, 2012 |
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(Through the eyes of a stranger) I found myself checking, correcting, deleting and changing sentences many times before submitting to the arena. I even left the second chapter a whole two weeks before returning to my masterpiece to proofread and edit once more. I thought I had done a great job... on the whole.
So I posted my story and read it again online to see if it had submitted in a readable manor, as the site can sometimes have a few blips, and guess what I found... yep you've got it, more common errors. And of course my readers found them too, thankfully.
Why is it that even though you read through once, then read through again and even a third, four and possibly a fifth time you never quite spot ALL the mistakes no matter how BIG or SMALL until it’s ‘too late’ so to speak. I started to feel that maybe I was not cut out to be a writer, as English was certainly not my best subject at school. With grammar I was way off, and spelling not so bad, though not so good either. But what I recently learnt is that no matter how advanced you are, we ALL can make the same errors. I currently started reading a book and in chapter two of the novel I found two small slips and on the first page too, the first 'slip' was - NO capital letter was used after a fullstop, a beginning of a new sentence (tut tut). I was quite surprised I picked up on it, so I smirked to myself. The second a spelling mistake. I'm now on chapter five and ok I haven't actually found anymore as yet, but I will be adding them up as I go along. Just for my own gloat. As the young, sorry younger would say LOL.
These two little 'errors' put confidence back into me, along with the help of you guys. Which brings me to say: -
That I love this site, and it's members, my helpers, my friends. It has with out question improved my writing ability/grammar and spelling, I still know I have a long way to go before I see myself on a back page, yet I feel I have indeed advanced.
A big, big thank you to everyone who has read/commented and suggested on my posts they have really helped me on my way. Oh and a bigh thank you to those who will read and carry on reading my work in the near future.
Tesslin
- WL certainly is good for us. Although I no longer use the Arena, I did when I first came here and got immense help, which I tried to give back when I could. Its good to know there are still people doing that, and that it's still appreciated.
- I don't read and review on here a fraction as much as I used to do. Pressure of time and other commitments, mainly, but also because I specialise in book length fiction and I prefer to look at an extract to see where it might be taking us.
Years ago I read a quote from Jeffrey Archer who said his books undergo 18-20 revisions before they're published, and I wondered how he got away with it. The same can be said of Dan Brown. Their writing is worse than mine, and that's saying something.
In the past, I've dropped writer's sites becase you could never get past chapter 1 with them. Every time I reposted, someone came up with another set of hurdles and suggestions. In the end, I thought, "sod it. I'll do it my way."
I write, I revise, I revise again. When I've captured all the errors I can see, it goes to Mo, who sends it back witha load more. I re-revise and then it goes either to my self-pub list or a publisher. If you're aiming for perfection, Tess, you'll never get there.
If you use MS Word, set autocorrect to capitalise the first word of a sentence. It does them for you automatically. Next tip, try reading aloud to yourself. When you scan the screen you may inadvertently speed read. Reading it aloud forces you to concentrate on every word, so you automatcially spot errors, but it also helps you judge how smoothly (or not) your prose is flowing.
Final tip, and it's good for everyone. No matter how many naysayers you meet, no matter who tells you to stop daydreaming, DON'T GIVE IN - I was reading a novel last year and he changed the point of view midway through a page. I was god smacked, to say the least, that such a well published author would make such an obvious mistake lol (as the yonger generation say)
Sometimes we miss the obvious BECAUSE we have read it so many times. That's why sites like this are so good. As readers to other's work we are more aware of the blunders. At times they stand out like a beacon in the darkest of nights, while our own mistakes stay hidden in the shadows.
We just have to keep on trying and keep on writing. But it is tough and frustrating when we seem to make the same mistakes over and over again. We just gotta suck it up and try again.
I worte my last blog for this site last year saying goodbye and thank you to everyone who had taken the time to help me out. I didn't post it, obviously, but I'd had enough. And I had to give myself one hell of a pep talk not to give up.
I think that's the trick - even when you're low, you gotta believe that one day, maybe soon, maybe in years to come, you're gonna make it. Oh, and seeing the professionals make silly errors is always a good boost to your own ego lol (as the younger generation say)
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