I used to be hesitant to turn my completed manuscripts over to an editor, proofreader or even a friend to review because I didn\u2019t really want their ideas mixed up with mine. I was afraid they would suggest changes to suit their own tastes\u2014try to get me to write their story, article or book.<\/p>\n
In fact, I\u2019ve known authors who have rewritten their books numerous times after listening to various critics, editors and casual readers.<\/p>\n
Now, however\u2014after years and years of time spent writing, revising, self-editing my own work and also editing for other authors, I realize how extremely valuable and critical those extra sets of eyes can be to our projects.<\/p>\n
Just this week, I did some editing for a client. She has been working on her book for years\u2014writing, rewriting and self-editing. She hired a professional team of editors recently and felt as if she was good to go. She came to me for help creating a marketing plan and suggested that I read her manuscript to give me a feel for her project. She said something to the effect of, \u201cPlease let me know if you see anything out of line.\u201d<\/p>\n
Welllll, in the course of reviewing her marvelous manuscript, which was basically well-written and carefully edited, I found a problem here and there\u2014too much space between sentences, a comma instead of a period, a missing quotation mark and a few places where I became confused about who was speaking. THEN, I started getting rather confused about dates. This is, after all, a true story with an important chronology. It must be important because every incident, every entry, every chapter is dated. But the dates started making no sense to me. So I went through the book a second time and wrote down each date and each incident. Everything seemed okay, until\u2026<\/p>\n
There it was\u2014the author had jumped a full decade off track\u2014hit the wrong number key, I guess. Doesn\u2019t matter, this was a critical mistake and it had to be corrected.<\/p>\n
These are the types of things a second, third and eighth new set of eyes can spot before a book goes to print. While your friend may not notice the extra a in Barbara or that Simon is sometimes spelled Simone or that you\u2019ve used the word \u201cangle\u201d instead of \u201cangel,\u201d if you have enough people taking a look, you\u2019re bound to find most, if not all, of the most glaring mistakes.<\/p>\n
Ask, beg and coerce friends and acquaintances to read through your manuscript. PAY editors (yes, sometimes it takes more than one) to edit it. I guarantee you, you will be surprised at some of the errors or oversights they\u2019ll discover and that you WILL want to fix.<\/p>\n
Not everyone will notice that you refer to Doreen as Mrs. Sharp sometimes and other times, Ms. Sharp. But someone in the group of proofers will. And what about when an author has a character greet a stranger with, \u201cHello Mrs. England,\u201d when it\u2019s obvious that character has no idea if the woman is married or not. In fact, in today\u2019s world, \u201cMs.\u201d is the common choice.<\/p>\n
Creating or recreating a scene is touchy business. It takes a whole lot of concentration and the keen ability to visualize every single detail\u2014to get inside the characters\u2019 heads and truly understand where they\u2019re coming from and how they would potentially act or react.<\/p>\n
Even with the holidays nipping at our heels, many of us are still writing stories, blog posts, articles, chapters. Heck, I wrote a poem this morning to present at our holiday gathering of 20 family members. It\u2019s 20 verses long. That\u2019s what they get when they invite a writer to share a story. And I expect plenty of critique. After all, the poem features each of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I used to be hesitant to turn my completed manuscripts over to an editor, proofreader or even a friend to review because I didn\u2019t really want their ideas mixed up with mine. I was afraid they would suggest changes to suit their own tastes\u2014try to get me to write their story, article or book. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t