Support for Indie Authors discussion

Long time reader, first time poster, so greetings! I thought that I just had to post this mistake after I got the feedback on it because of how offensively bad the mistake I made was. Hope this is still in the vein of light-hearted.

In my novel, I have a character named The Allaunum. This character is an AI that was created during the events of the technological singularity. At some point after, the one split into two halves, logic and emotion. I'm well over 110k into the draft and only now realize that the emotional half's name, Alla, is extremely similar to the Muslim name for God. Not only that, it is a god to its world. To make it worse, I also realized I made him the antagonist. The worst part of it all? A Muslim reader had to point this out to me.

You have to love when the name in your head sounds different enough to you that you don't notice. Thankfully, everyone understood and the name got changed, but I had to laugh at myself.

All that's left is to go back through and change those Alla's to Ella's and all those Allaunum's to Ellaunum's.

Yeah, well. Stuff happens....

And I must admit to a very un-PC giggle.

So long as you caught it no harm done.

Agreed!

V.M. wrote: "It's never too late to change it! This is why Beta Readers are important:)"

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Ha! Don't feel bad. It only recently dawned on me that I've got an "Alliance" "rebelling" against an "empire" in a distant galaxy in my current WIP. Time to play with a thesaurus. ;)

RJ wrote: "Long time reader, first time poster, so greetings! I thought that I just had to post this mistake after I got the feedback on it because of how offensively bad the mistake I made was. Hope this is ..."

Hi! That's a really awesome mistake to catch ahead of time, isn't it? I'm glad you did. And you've saved yourself many headaches. Yay beta readers!

Remember to keep things positive. It's cool to talk about the mistakes in our own books. Not so cool to talk about mistakes you find in others' books. Thanks.

Dwayne wrote: "Remember to keep things positive. It's cool to talk about the mistakes in our own books. Not so cool to talk about mistakes you find in others' books. Thanks."

This is a reminder in advance, right? I see everyone (including myself) only talking about their own books, or giving positive responses to the original author. Unless something was deleted that I didn't see?

There was one comment that was removed.

Yay, beta readers! I'm glad I have an excellent one. But yeah you have to find the humor in it to keep yourself sane. That's how I try to approach things.

Christina wrote: "Ha! Don't feel bad. It only recently dawned on me that I've got an "Alliance" "rebelling" against an "empire" in a distant galaxy in my current WIP. Time to play with a thesaurus. ;)"

How about a "Fellowship" "Rallied" against a "Dark Lord." ^_^

V.M. wrote: "This is a good reminder to all of us to remember that no one is perfect. We're all human and we make mistakes. So don't beat yourself up over mistakes you find. Do the best job you can and learn fr..."

Well said.

That is why keyboards have a Crtl + F Global replace feature!

V.M. wrote: "This is a good reminder to all of us to remember that no one is perfect. We're all human and we make mistakes. So don't beat yourself up over mistakes you find..."

I love my mistakes. My next book will have a "blooper reel".

Dwayne wrote: "There was one comment that was removed."

Ah, okay. I was totally scratching my head, there. To the original author: Find and replace is my friend! Just make sure you double check everything, in case it makes some even more hilarious substitutions.

Alex wrote: "That can cause more problems than it solves though. I had a character called Rose that I decided to change to Lucy, I did it with the Global Find & Replace and ended up with words like aLucy, so I still had to go through it manually."

Find and replace can be manipulated to match case and allows for spaces as well. Although I would personally do a find and then manually replace just to be on the safe side. ;)

V.M. wrote: "Writing is a journey. We're here to help you along the way..."

...from falling down and landing flat on our face. : )

Just poking in and injecting a little humor into the situation.
Hugs to All!

Glad you found out before hand. Sounds like a good book

Hi RJ! Is it bad that I laughed too? I've definitely used find and replace to change characters' names after finishing the draft, but it's hard to re-read when the names are still the original in my mind.

Allah is the Arabic word for God in all the Abrahamic faiths so your book might have been seen as a commentary on the major religions instead of sci fi. Your book sounds really interesting by the way.

Now maybe you have a funny story to tell for author interviews and stuff :).

Marie wrote: "Hi RJ! Is it bad that I laughed too? I've definitely used find and replace to change characters' names after finishing the draft, but it's hard to re-read when the names are still the original in m..."

It's not bad... just not as good ^_^
I'm not sure if the global command works in Scrivener, but I'll have to give it a shot when the draft is done.

I do have plenty of bad stories to tell. One of which involves having given me a concussion. A second involving how I almost gave up after a cryptovirus. A third involving tacos and a cat.

Thanks for the vote of confidence in the book sounding interesting, but the genre is usually considered to be a bastard child of Sci-fi/Fantasy. Honestly, I started it as a challenge because someone did the idea that I had wanted and just ran with it because i was having fun.

To everyone else, I'm glad everyone had pretty much the same reaction I did.

EXISting conversation, u may have alot of bad stories to tell when in actual sense they are good RJ.

Alex wrote: "Christina wrote: "Alex wrote: "That can cause more problems than it solves though. I had a character called Rose that I decided to change to Lucy, I did it with the Global Find & Replace and ended ..."

I have yet to learn my lesson! :D
However, with fantasy names there is less problems when it comes to changing them quickly.

For example, I don't know of any other words that have D'halaxak in them.

But yes, for a Rose, or a Will I would be much more careful. Spaces do make it a lot easier to carefully replace.

RJ wrote: "How about a "Fellowship" "Rallied" against a "Dark Lord." ^_^ "

Nah, I'll just change the setting to a school for young witches and wizards. What can possibly go wrong? ;P

Lol! Near miss, I doubt that a disclaimer would have convinced many that it was coincidence.

It is worrying that it took a Muslim to spot it! It probably leapt off the page at him while you just read over it, again and again.

Alex wrote: "...That can cause more problems than it solves though. I had a character called Rose that I decided to change to Lucy, I did it with the Global Find & Replace and ended up with words like aLucy, so I still had to go through it manually."

You can mitigate this a little bit when changing names. In MS Word, I make sure to select "Match Case", that way when I find "Rose" and replace with "Lucy", it will ONLY change a string if it begins with a capital 'R'. Still not bullet proof, but it can reduce much of the pain.

Anthony wrote: "Lol! Near miss, I doubt that a disclaimer would have convinced many that it was coincidence.

It is worrying that it took a Muslim to spot it! It probably leapt off the page at him while you just r..."

I know! I'm just glad that the near miss is now being taken care of.

I totally relate to this! My protagonist started out as Mattie, and later became Tillie, and I think there was one more name in there too. Scrivener's global replace is *wonderful* for things like this!

Going through my final edit and seeing "Mathilda" underlined in red by my editor over and over, after I'd already done a global replace with "Matilda," well, that was annoying. Come on, editor, you only need to tell me once! :)

P.L. wrote: "I totally relate to this! My protagonist started out as Mattie, and later became Tillie, and I think there was one more name in there too. Scrivener's global replace is *wonderful* for things like ..."

Name consistency is the thing I worry about the most. Sometimes, I'll get the characters backwards in the dialog, sometimes I'll typo exactly the way you described. With every draft I send to my editor, I color code each of the main character's names (both first AND last) with a different color. This is easy to do in MS Word as follows:

Find: Matilda (Match Case... just to make sure you only replace names, and not other words.)
Replace: Matilda (Font Color=Blue)

In this case, it would've been very easy to spot "Mathilda" because it would NOT have been colored blue.

You know, this bring up a thought. I read everyones comment, isn't your editor your beta reader? Now I'm confused what a beta reader does. I'd apprecite your thoughts.

When it comes to names, it's easy to make mistakes. I had to change the name of a general in my book after I found out there was a real general with the exact same name.

I know we put disclaimers but still. My own General James Daniel had to change his name to General Jonathan Daniels (with an S) to make sure it was different enough. Then I had to hunt all the friendly Jim and change them to Jon. Never again. Now, I check on the net BEFORE I start using a name. Less trouble.

I had a funny thing happen with the name of my MC the other day! Her name is Alexa and I was talking about her during a podcast and the host couldn't say her name because she had an Amazon echo in the room and was afraid she would set it off! It was totally funny and made me think twice about using that name for a character ever again! Lol

Janet wrote: "You know, this bring up a thought. I read everyones comment, isn't your editor your beta reader? Now I'm confused what a beta reader does. I'd apprecite your thoughts."

Usually the beta readers won't concentrate on typos or mistakes. He or she will tell the author about plot holes, things that are unclear or things they liked and disliked. If you have many, sometimes they will end up catching most typos, but that's not their job. They usually come in play before the editor because if they find plot holes, you may have to do a bit of rewriting.

Ember wrote: "I had a funny thing happen with the name of my MC the other day! Her name is Alexa and I was talking about her during a podcast and the host couldn't say her name because she had an Amazon echo in ..."

LOL yeah I know the feeling... we have one too... most stupid thing in the world. Won't hear her name when you talk to her but if you happen to say the name in a normal conversation, she is all there. Go figure

Oh, man...

So much laughing.

Thanks ^_~

Janet wrote: "You know, this bring up a thought. I read everyones comment, isn't your editor your beta reader? Now I'm confused what a beta reader does. I'd apprecite your thoughts."

For me, I had a beta reader that had a first pass, then my editor talked me into letting her do "developmental" editing, rather than the more simple editing I had contracted her to do. With that change, she ended up being a sort of second beta reader as well.

But I don't really know what I'm doing, so that's just how it worked for me. It might not be a good way to handle things. :-)

Janet wrote: "You know, this bring up a thought. I read everyones comment, isn't your editor your beta reader? Now I'm confused what a beta reader does. I'd apprecite your thoughts."

There are actually beta readers who edit also. Some have doubly that experience, training, degree and education. I have had experience with all kinds of beta readers.