Finding typos and misspellings in my work mortifies me. I clicked on the preview of one of my books and immediately found a word that was spelled correctly, except it wasn't the word I'd meant to use (Yes, Microsoft Word doesn't catch things like that). Worse, I'd already sold three copies. I couldn't unpublish that book fast enough. When I'm writing a manuscript I don't worry so much about misspellings because Word will point those out, and even if I'm unsure how a particular word is spelled, I'll guess, rather than look it up. Again, Word is a stern taskmaster in that regard, so I'll know immediately if I'm wrong. My problem is randomly skipping words. I'll mean to type "would not", but it shows up on the page as "would". Kinda changes the meaning.
I'm adept at catching other people's errors; not so great at recognizing my own. Even in editing mode, I know the narrative so well that I see what my mind expects me to see. I'm not reading it as "I. walked. down. the. road.", examining every word with a magnifying glass. I'm choosing to call that "author blindness".
I wonder how many indie books are published with errors like that. I can attest that I've read trade published books that have mistakes, and publishing houses have editors on staff. How much can one trust an editor, supposing an author has the means to hire one? I don't know that I would feel confident. Maybe we just have to accept that there will inevitably be mistakes.
Some writers advise printing out the manuscript and reviewing it with a highlighter. I agree that this editing method is theoretically better, but it's simply not feasible for most of us. Sorry, but ink is expensive. I don't even have a working printer right now, and many people don't have a printer at all.
All we can do is the best we can do unless we're flush with cash to hire someone, or if we have really benevolent friends who'll do it for free.
My bigger issue is getting the story right.
No comments:
Post a Comment