Rule T: always make sure your story is dressed up in a Tuxedo

Linda’s Rules of Writing

We’re here!  Now the party can start! Photograph by: Glenn Grant, National Science Foundation

United States Antarctic Program

We’re onto the letter T in Linda’s Rules of Writing of the A to Z Challenge, and making sure your story is dressed up in a Tuxedo.

The single major complaint that a lot of readers have about indie publishing is simple: The writer didn’t do basic proofreading.  Sort of like showing up for a formal party and being in the wrong clothes.

I’ll admit it.  I hate proofreading.  It’s about the most dull thing in existence, and I cringe every time I find yet another typo that I missed.  Spell check is great for catching some types of errors, and poor for other types.  In another post, I used the word meerkats, and the blog spell checker wanted to convert it to beermats.   Seriously, that is not even close to being the same thing.

But it really looks bad when a manuscript is riddled with obvious mistakes.  Several years ago, this one writer posted a chapter and demanded a critique.  It was “Tell me how to fix this.”  Translation: He wanted to fix the major story problems.  But the story itself was riddled with typos, spelling errors, and grammatical errors.  Frankly, it was hard to read at all, and we told him to fix all the issues first.  No, no, he just wanted us to tell him how to fix the story.  Guess he thought the publisher would fix all that and he didn’t have to bother.

Simple proofreading is the first impression.  Come best dressed.

What are some of your m0st embarrassing typos?

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Caption: A to Z Challenge Logo

 

How to Proofread Without Going (Too) Crazy

Let’s get this straight:  I hate proofreading.  I’d rather do anything but proofread because it is so unbelievably boring and tedious — especially when it’s 400 pages that needs to be done.  But I also make a lot of typos, dropping letters, omitting words, spelling errors, wrong word errors (i.e., template for temple), so proofreading is pretty essential.   So this is my way to do it without going crazy:

1. Leave the proofreading until the last step.  It’s tempting to try quick scans to catch the typos, but in revision, more typos will likely be introduced, so it’s just extra work.  I’m all for not doing extra work.  Once the manuscript is done:
2. Run spell check on the entire manuscript.  This is a fast way to catch all kinds of typos.
3. Print the entire manuscript.  Reverse the pages so that the last page is on top.
4. Start reading the manuscript beginning with the last paragraph, and the moving up to the second to last paragraph.  This puts it in a different order so that mistakes such as personal pronoun issues will be more obvious.
5. Use a colored pen to make the typos.  The pen should be in a color easily visible.  For my own personal use, I prefer green because red is too much like what teachers gave us in school to tell us, “You did this wrong!”

According to a writing instructor I had a few years ago, this will catch about 95% of the typos.

 

Making Something Easy Harder

Several years ago, I saw a call for papers for an anthology (the Voice of a Soldier anthology).  I was right up against the deadline though.  Since it was about vets and donating proceeds to a veteran’s memorial, I emailed and asked if the editor was still taking submissions.  She had a few slots open and would add it to the submissions if I could get it to her in two days.  So I speed-wrote this article, revised it, proofread it, and sent it off to the editor.  It was eventually published (though that turned into a horror story).

The other day, I got a spam comment from an editing service to my Proofreading post.  I hate proofreading because it is so boring, so I try to do things to minimize how much I need to do.  To me, it’s part of the tools of being a writer.  Not everything is going to be fun and enjoyable.  Other people hate dealing with Microsoft Word and still do it anyway because it’s the only way to get from Point A to Point B.  I do the same thing with proofreading.

The editing service’s comment was something along the lines of “Why do something you hate?  Let us do it!”  Here’s why not:

• Because I usually find small revisions I need to make.  An editing service isn’t going to catch that because they’re not the writer.
• Money.  Writers generally don’t get paid much–why would I spend $$$ on an editing service that’s going to take away from my profits?

But the last one is even more important than the other two.  I need to learn the skills to do the proofreading and keep them from getting rusty.  What if I come up against a short deadline like the one above?  I’m not going to have time to submit it to an editing service, wait for them to give me feedback, and then make the changes.  Proofreading is one of those things I find hard, but doing it also sharpens other skills elsewhere, and I win in the long run.

 

Proofreading Tips

Proofreading is the one thing I hate about writing.  It’s terribly boring and tedious.  So these are some things I do to try to make it easier.

Get it reasonably right from the start.  When I type in the first draft, I make the effort to do it correctly.  One time, an army buddy gave me her father’s first few chapters and wanted comments on it.  He’d done stream of conscious writing; it was one long sentence.  All I could think was that this guy was going to spend a lot of time adding all the punctuation in, and then he would take forever proofreading it.  Worse, he would probably never find all the mistakes!

Use the grammar checker.  While the grammar checker shouldn’t replace good grammar skills, it can be used for a quick search for mistakes.  It’s sometimes helped me find sentences with omitted words. 

Autocorrect is my friend.  I have words I always spell wrong.  One of them is a character’s name; another is the word version (verison).  Word has a Autocorrect feature where I can add in a misspelled word like “verison” and the program will automatically correct it when I type it wrong.

Finally, I also know I make certain types of errors, particularly omitted words.  These are ones I specifically look for when I’m making a proofreading pass.