Yesterday we talked about some of the things we miss when self-editing and how crucial it is to have a fresh set of eyes for your manuscript. If you doubt this, just turn yours over to a trusted and astute reader or editor and ask for an honest evaluation. They are likely to point out places where you\u2019ve left off periods, had two periods at the end of a sentence, used a comma instead of a period, misspelled someone\u2019s name, called the car a Corvette in one chapter and a BMW in another, had a character eating lunch in one scene and suddenly she is stopping off for breakfast, said in one chapter that an item costs one price and change that price in another chapter\u2026<\/p>\n
The thing is, we spend a lot of time with our novels and nonfiction manuscripts. We go over and over and over our story and our chapters and we make changes along the way. We change our mind\u2014we change the minds of our characters. We add things, remove things and when we do, we sometimes forget to change everything related to the initial change.<\/p>\n
As a writer you can clearly see how easy it is to make a change on a whim and then never look back. You might decide that Auntie Jane is no longer driving her husband\u2019s old pickup; you\u2019ve now given her a sleek Buick to drive or she no longer has allergies, it\u2019s arthritis she\u2019s dealing with. But you neglect to stay true to those changes\u2014your decisions.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get caught in an authors\u2019 lie. Make sure that if Sam is six foot three in the beginning of the story, has green eyes and red hair down to his shirt collar, that when you describe him again in Chapter Seventeen, unless he has had a surgical and personal make-over that he is still six, three and still has red hair and green eyes. If his hair is in a butch style now\u2014at least tell readers that he got a haircut. \u201cSam, now sporting a butch haircut, sprawled his lanky frame across the Naugahyde sofa.\u201d<\/p>\n
Can you say for certain that your completed manuscript has no flaws\u2014that it is ready for publication? Maybe it is. But if you haven\u2019t invited at least a couple of sets of fresh eyes to look it over, you could be making a huge and potentially embarrassing mistake.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re unsure as to whether your manuscript is ready, contact me. I\u2019ll give you a free evaluation and sample edit. PLFry620@yahoo.com<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday we talked about some of the things we miss when self-editing and how crucial it is to have a fresh set of eyes for your manuscript. If you doubt this, just turn yours over to a trusted and astute reader or editor and ask for an honest evaluation. They are likely to point out […]<\/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