Did I Say That Write?
Posted by Tess on 13 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: Craft
Does this happen to anyone but me? You’re reading along and find that you’ve misspelled a word. That instead of cheek you’ve wrote check. Not once but every single time you’ve used that word through out an entire 400 page manuscript. Or even still chef instead of chief and vice versa. This drives me crazy. Because no matter that I’ve read and reread the manuscript. I’m still finding these types of misspellings.
And I always have to look up how to spell refrigerator. Always. I can never spell that word. Thank God for spell checker! But spell checker can’t catch everything. How about this? I’m happily, merrily reading along and discover that I have this sentence.
She wouldn’t surround that again for anyone. Well, I hope not!! It should have read surrender that again.
Why doesn’t my brain catch these things while I’m editing, revising, proofing, submitting . . .
You thought you wanted to come here. But instead you had them hear it instead.
They red something without a paint brush, when all they really had to do was read it.
Relying on spell checker wouldn’t catch these spelling errors. Even reading a page doesn’t catch all of them. Because you’re mind is in the zone. You wrote it. You know what it should say, so your mind automatically fills in the blanks, and corrects the errors.
What are some ways to help with this problem? What do you do to try and catch these types of errors before the story goes out the door? If you’re critique partners are as good as mine they point them out for me, but sometimes if I’m editing or changing some things based on their critique they may not see that passage again if I made the same mistake twice.
Most of the time if I read it out LOUD I catch the mistakes. Maybe that takes a different part of the brain, I dunno.
December 13th, 2007 at 2:40 pmThat’s a good idea, Gina. I’ve heard of some people having the microsoft reader read the story back out to them also.
December 13th, 2007 at 4:13 pmUsually I hope my cp’s catch stuff, but reading out loud is good. I’ve hears some people swear by reading backwards but that gives me a headache
December 13th, 2007 at 10:25 pmsee? I did it myself- I added an extra ’s’ on hear!
December 13th, 2007 at 10:26 pmI don’t have any great ideas but did want to tell you, you’re definitely not alone! Thank goodness for my CP…:)
December 14th, 2007 at 5:19 amLOL Kate! And you know, I critique backwards because it allows me distance. Wonder why I never try that with my own edits?
December 14th, 2007 at 5:34 amI’m glad I’m not alone, Kim. I actually have a list of words I run spell checker on now just to make sure I’m not using them instead of the word I really want to use.
December 14th, 2007 at 5:35 amThe one that gets me every time is form. I type it instead of from, because I’m right handed and my right hand is a little quicker on the o button than my left hand is on the r button.
I also get in trouble when I think faster than my fingers are going, and they go pretty quick.
December 14th, 2007 at 10:52 amFrom and form get me all the time also. I do a lot mistakes with contractions. Sometimes spell check catches them. I can reread it time and time again and find something new each time. I’m glad I’m not the only one.
December 14th, 2007 at 9:51 pm