Forum: Author Hangout

A Word of Advice

red61544 🚫

After serving in the military for 23 years, I served the next 31 as an editor of two different magazines and a newspaper. I recommended that authors, before submitting a manuscript to an editor, start at the beginning of the story and read every word aloud and immediately correct anything that sounds wrong. When read aloud, errors seem to blatantly jump off the page and confront you, demanding to be corrected.

I bring this up because I just reread Clansman's "The Wimp and the Deb". It is a very good story but it is laced with misplaced words and sentence structures that confound the reader and make it difficult to continue reading what would otherwise be a compelling story. Every mistake I found in the story would have been obvious to the author if he had read it aloud before publishing.

It saddens me when a very good story loses its luster simply because an author publishes before the work is truly ready.

Replies: G Younger

karactr 🚫

I recently tried to read that as well. I couldn't finish it. Partially for the errors you mentioned, but more because I can't get past his dialogue. People just don't talk like that IMO.

G Younger 🚫

@red61544

That is good advice.

The other thing I would suggest is to have someone else read it. There are editors/proofreaders willing to do it for free. Laz has a page you can use to find them.

Another suggestion is to get software for grammar checking. There are free versions that do a good job of catching obvious mistakes better than Word does. This might be a solution if you don't want to wait on an editor to check your work. Just know that the software is not bulletproof.

Replies: Jason Samson

Jason Samson 🚫

@G Younger

Anyone had any luck with free grammar checkers?

(Am using OpenOffice on Linux)

Replies: Vincent Berg

Vincent Berg 🚫

@Jason Samson

Anyone had any luck with free grammar checkers?

I never liked any of the free one. Instead, I used the (free for 2,000 words at a time) Autocrit, purchased it, and ended up getting a lifetime subscription for a phenomenal price.

It's INCREDIBLY complex, but turns up details that are difficult to uncover otherwise.

I've also started using a Mac-based text-to-speech program, Speechify, which is helpful, though I don't catch many typos. Instead, I catch sentences that are awkwardly phrased, and end up chopping words which simply don't sound natural.

In doing so, I also learned that the single-quote/italics I use for telepathic dialogue is spoken in rushed speech, which makes parsing it difficult to follow. Does anyone know of any which actually speaks the punctuation out loud? I'd like to use one that does. The default Apple Books reads books aloud, but I usually do the conversion after the book is fully edited, rather than before.

Replies: limab Baltimore Rogers

limab 🚫

@Vincent Berg

I just did a really quick search, apparently there is no VictorBorge mode for text to speech. The back of my head is surprised by that, it would seem to be a perfect nerd project.

limab

Baltimore Rogers 🚫
Updated:

@Vincent Berg

Among free checkers, I like Grammarly. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. I will have to check out Autocrit now though.

Having someone else proofread it is important. When I first started and was shy about showing others my pr0n, I found that letting it sit for a month and then looking at it again with fresh eyes helped ... some.

There's really no substitute for outside input.

Replies: richardshagrin

richardshagrin 🚫

@Baltimore Rogers

There's really no substitute for outside input.

How about inside output? (Write it while it is inside, to put it outside, on paper.)

Replies: joyR Baltimore Rogers

joyR 🚫

@richardshagrin

How about inside output?

Turning things inside out usually gets very messy.

Much simpler and far less messy to accept that output is that created outside and input carried out indoors.

Unless of course you are an author suffering both agoraphobia and claustrophobia, in which case you a likely to remain trapped on the threshold of a novel solution.

Baltimore Rogers 🚫

@richardshagrin

How about inside output? (Write it while it is inside, to put it outside, on paper.)

As part of my daily routine, I both eat breakfast and have my, er, "morning constitutional". But I generally don't consider one to be a substitute for the other.

Replies: joyR Dominions Son

joyR 🚫

@Baltimore Rogers

As part of my daily routine, I both eat breakfast and have my, er, "morning constitutional". But I generally don't consider one to be a substitute for the other.

Healthy stools break fast

Dominions Son 🚫

@Baltimore Rogers

True, they aren't substitutes for each other, but the inputs are necessary to the production of the outputs.

Replies: Baltimore Rogers

Baltimore Rogers 🚫

@Dominions Son

inputs are necessary

Exactly as I said in my original post (toasties).

Banadin 🚫

I write it, correct word hihghlights, then reread for wording and continuity,correct, then wife reads outloud, the both listen to it in Natural reader. Seems to work well. When checked by Amazon they found one typo. It may have crept in during editing. Friend who bought and read found one instance of a vs an.

Replies: Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Banadin

When checked by Amazon they found one typo.

Amazon checks for typos?

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Forum: Author Hangout

A Word of Advice

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