I get confused at times about what I am doing. I am currently doing a review and edit of a story before posting it. As a break, I switch and read a story on SOL.
My problem is that while reading the story, I keep trying to fix typos. Does anyone else have that problem?
I had that happen too many times long time ago, but I figured out that it was happening because I had customized my reading display style on SOL to match what I preferred and it was pretty close to what my editing/writing style font-face and font-size was.
I switched my writing and editing font to a monospaced sans-serif font and now my brain doesn't get confused. Monospaced sans-serif font for writing/editing and a normal serif font for reading.
Switching fonts is also a trick to use when doing a proofreading pass on your own work: use a different one from the one used to write with, so your eyes see it fresh.
Sounds interesting. I'm currently doing a re-edit (almost a rewrite) of Protective Coloration and it can get confusing. Monospaced sounds like a good thing to try.
Nothing to do with editing my stories, but I automatically correct things in my head while reading a story on SOL, like typos and tense. It's automatic.
While I am not a writer, one of the things that drives me nuts is mistakes in grammar that make you stop and reread it to find the mistake. Most of the time it seems like Yoda wrote it.
I tend to save entire stories to text rather than read by chapter and I very often find myself fixing typos. Sometimes even not so much pure error as simply poorly worded sentences.
I know that I've made an enormous number of edits to my copies of Vanessa Ravencroft's stories, a few even to Lazlo Zalezak's.
I download and convert complete stories to my custom library. That's all still html and I frequently have the source html open next to the browser for fixing typos. It differs hugely between stories. Some don't need any fixes, most just a few, but some stories need many. Sometimes I quit reading a story when it's too much but if I really like the story I read the text version and edit while reading. I know the next time I want to reread the story most typos will be fixed.
I keep trying to fix typos
Constantly! And mistakes of geographically challenged authors.
Example: In the story I just read, the MC traveled from Ramstein to Frankfurt airport by train in about an hour. It takes well over two hours in reality. He also went from downtown Amsterdam to the Canadian War Cemetery at Groesbeek by taxi in half-an-hour which would have gained the taxi driver some righteous speeding fines. The rest of us take around 90 minutes for that journey. Finally, he took another half-hour taxi ride from his hotel in Toronto to a restaurant, which was curious because they were both on the same cross junction. You would have walked it in 2 minutes.
A plea to authors to read your stories again before posting and to check your geography.
And mistakes of geographically challenged authors.
Example: In Missy's Operation Lily Pad describes the author how Missy can teleport from the USA (starting in her home town Boston) to Afghanistan with jumps within her maximal range of 500 miles and how they will transport her for familiarization with those places with an old de Havilland DHC-5 Buffalo. She can only teleport to places she knows.
This requires at least a small air field near her way-stations.
That's all logical and their intended route is Boston – Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island – Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Newfoundland – Kuujjuaq, Canada – Iqaluit, Canada – Nuuk, Greenland – Tasiilaq, Greenland – Reykjavik, Iceland – Torshavn, Faroe Islands.
The next stops are totally stupid: from Torshavn to Glasgow, then to Bergen, Norway – Kiel, Germany – Linz, Austria.
The distance from Torshavn to Glasgow is 699 km and from Glasgow to Bergen 754 km, while Torshavn to Bergen is only 672 km!
Therefore it should be directly from Torshavn to Bergen, then Kiel and Linz.
Or if they want to go via Glasgow, UK then to somewhere near Antwerp and from there to Linz.
Both alternatives have one less stop, crucial when time is an issue, because she needs regeneration time between the jumps.
BTW, this geographical error was so severe I stopped reading and checked first his geography – and mine.
HM.
But when they reached Glasgow, why would they desire to travel any further!.....
Applause! Applause! Applause! GLASGOWSMILESBETTER
But when they reached Glasgow, why would they desire to travel any further!.....
But how can Glasgow possibly compare with the utopian paradise of Afghanistan ....
AJ
But how can Glasgow possibly compare with the utopian paradise of Afghanistan ....
Well, for a start they don't have deep fat fried chocolate bars...
I did something similar to that in my Opening Earth series.
I defined my D-Hoppers as requiring a rest period after a hop through the Fourth Dimension due to the amount of energy required to push the hoppers senses along the force axis. I later introduced hops between two points on the same planet and continued the need for a rest. In a later Part of the series, I decided it didn't make sense for hops to another part of a planet to require a large expenditure of energy, so the D-hoppers didn't require a rest period.
I recently started refreshing my mind to write the next part of the series and realized I had to fix the discrepancy. I think I fixed it as no rest in all places. That isn't going to help with readers who don't reread the series and remember what I said previously. I'll have to mention it in the Introduction of Part 4.
I defined my D-Hoppers as requiring a rest period after a hop through the Fourth Dimension due to the amount of energy required to push the hoppers senses along the force axis.
I vaguely remember a story, or series of stories, about a woman who discovers she has the ability to teleport and is recruited to join a covert agency fighting bad guys. Her main role is to teleport troops and supplies for the good guys. The bad guys also have people with talents.
I've tried everything I could think of but couldn't find the stories again, so if anyone can remember them I'd be grateful for the name of the author.
The author chose to include energy constraints on those with power. I believe that included a refractory period and possibly lots of protein.
AJ
I vaguely remember a story, or series of stories, about a woman who discovers she has the ability to teleport and is recruited to join a covert agency fighting bad guys. Her main role is to teleport troops and supplies for the good guys. The bad guys also have people with talents.
The series "Missy the Werecat" is similar, but I've bolded the main difference.
Missy discovers she is a werecat and can change into her cougar form and back. She then finds out she's a witch too.
Then she realizes her shape shifting has an intermediate stage where she exists only as spirit and she learns to prolong this state from less than a second into hours. In the spirit form she can teleport to places the already was at least once. Distance limit is about 500 miles, bur she can't take anything material with her. When changing into the cougar or the spirit all her clothes, shoes, cell phone, weapons, ... stay behind and she returns into her human form naked. being a witch she has telekinetic abilities.
She fights the bad guys, criminals, terrorists at home and in Afghanistan and Iran. She is part of an A-team, but only the captain leading the A-team is partly informed about her abilities, the other team members got only told she is someway "special".
The troops she supports have to be transported the usual way, sorry. First as a cougar and in later books as a spirit she can go places, where no soldier or spy can go. To understand the enemies she learns Pashto and Farsi.
This all started when she was 13 and now she studies at West Point. When starting there she found her room mate was a fire witch and they became best friends.
BTW, the series is now at book 11 "Missy's Return to West Point" plus 3 books in the spinoff "Tracy the Fire Witch"; the author is P.G. Allison.
There is quite some sex with her 'soulmate' in the story and they don't use any contraception.
• First no one knows how her were-nature and the healing and poison fighting witch ability of her body would react to anything.
• Second, after any full change back from cat to human her cycle has started fresh, no matter how far she was in her cycle before (and no monthlies if she 'Change' before).
Have I to tell you I like the yarn the author spins?
HM.
Thank you, but that's not the story I'm looking for. I read it on SOL but I suspect the author has withdrawn it.
AJ
