Editing
If you write - fiction, poetry, anything - you've probably figured out that the hardest thing to do is not to put the story on paper (or screen). By far, the hardest part of the writing process is EDITING.
I was inspired to write this blog after reading reading a section of my self published book Hidden. Wait ... that should read: Reading a section of Hidden inspired me to write this blog, right? Anyway, so there I am, enjoying my Sunday and scrolling through the book I posted on Amazon a month ago, and I see a fatal error. IT'S instead of ITS. I died. Not really, but I gasped pretty loudly. Over the last month I've seen good sales, hundreds, mostly during my promo days ... but whatever, my goal is to get readers, not millions.
So these readers now think I don't know the difference between it's and its. Wonderful. But that's why I wanted to blog. I've read my manuscript so many times that I fill in words. I can quote it word for word without looking at it.
Prologe. I know why she wanted to kill me .... I could go on. But because of that, errors can hide from me. I suspect this to be the issue with a lot of self published authors. We're not stupid, we're just blind.
Before I published, like literally the day before, I had waaaaay more errors however. By some act of God or whoever you believe in, I thought to get an app to read my manuscript out loud. For under 3 dollars, I got Read 4 Me and Alex read all 106,000 words in two days ... none stop monotone. I almost deleted the book and started over from scratch ... AGAIN.
Don't let Alex fool you into thinking it's boring, or do ... I have zero reviews so my story could very well be a snooze fest, but the main thing to use him for are those little words that you can't see are missing, but you will definitely hear it. I kept track of the errors, and after months and months of editing, after one pass, Alex and Read 4 Me found 104 errors - missing words such as a, the, of (especially when it's after off), my, me, you. NONE over four letters. So watch those, or have someone read them to you. OR a machine like Alex.
Be careful of words that would sound correct even if they aren't, like the wrong their or here. Also words that should be one and mean something else as two, Alex reads those incorrectly ... like you wrote it, but it will sound just fine.
Happy Writing and even happier editing (if such a thing is possible).
M.
I was inspired to write this blog after reading reading a section of my self published book Hidden. Wait ... that should read: Reading a section of Hidden inspired me to write this blog, right? Anyway, so there I am, enjoying my Sunday and scrolling through the book I posted on Amazon a month ago, and I see a fatal error. IT'S instead of ITS. I died. Not really, but I gasped pretty loudly. Over the last month I've seen good sales, hundreds, mostly during my promo days ... but whatever, my goal is to get readers, not millions.
So these readers now think I don't know the difference between it's and its. Wonderful. But that's why I wanted to blog. I've read my manuscript so many times that I fill in words. I can quote it word for word without looking at it.
Prologe. I know why she wanted to kill me .... I could go on. But because of that, errors can hide from me. I suspect this to be the issue with a lot of self published authors. We're not stupid, we're just blind.
Before I published, like literally the day before, I had waaaaay more errors however. By some act of God or whoever you believe in, I thought to get an app to read my manuscript out loud. For under 3 dollars, I got Read 4 Me and Alex read all 106,000 words in two days ... none stop monotone. I almost deleted the book and started over from scratch ... AGAIN.
Don't let Alex fool you into thinking it's boring, or do ... I have zero reviews so my story could very well be a snooze fest, but the main thing to use him for are those little words that you can't see are missing, but you will definitely hear it. I kept track of the errors, and after months and months of editing, after one pass, Alex and Read 4 Me found 104 errors - missing words such as a, the, of (especially when it's after off), my, me, you. NONE over four letters. So watch those, or have someone read them to you. OR a machine like Alex.
Be careful of words that would sound correct even if they aren't, like the wrong their or here. Also words that should be one and mean something else as two, Alex reads those incorrectly ... like you wrote it, but it will sound just fine.
Happy Writing and even happier editing (if such a thing is possible).
M.
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