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Reading History

NC-Retired 🚫

I have no clue whether the feature is for all registered or just for those that support SOL through subscriptions. Shrug. Does not matter.

In the last several days I have been scanning my reading history and looking at, and sometimes re-reading, stories that are 6 to 10 years old the last time I opened them.

Some I recognized and remembered quickly. Most were discarded into the I remember and not worth a re-read.

Some I did not recognize and delved further into the story, 2-3-4 chapters perhaps. Then I abandoned further reading.

There are many reasons for abandonment, but in the past couple days the reasons were for poor character development, atrocious dialog between the various characters and time jumping. That is poor dialog and then fast forward hours or days into the stories future without adequate explanation of the intervening hours.

What things do you find objectionable and are cause for you to abandon the tale?

Curious minds and all that.

Replies: Switch Blayde Switch Blayde tendertouch NC-Retired REP NC-Retired

Switch Blayde 🚫

@NC-Retired

What things do you find objectionable and are cause for you to abandon the tale?

1. Mostly boredom.
2. Then poor writing. I guess in my case, I don't want the poor writing to interfere with the reading of the story.

Switch Blayde 🚫

@NC-Retired

Some I did not recognize and delved further into the story, 2-3-4 chapters perhaps. Then I abandoned further reading.

Wouldn't the score you gave the story be a good indicator for deciding whether or not to re-read a story in your history you didn't recognize?

BTW, is there a way to delete a story from one's history? I sometimes find a story with a search to help someone find it. Because I opened it to provide him the link, it shows up in my history even though I hadn't read it and never will.

Replies: moondog_199 NC-Retired jimq2

moondog_199 🚫

@Switch Blayde

To delete fron the list, check the box on the left and there is a Remove from List button right at the bottom of the list.

Replies: Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@moondog_199

check the box on the left and there is a Remove from List button right at the bottom

Thanks, worked like a champ. :-)

NC-Retired 🚫

@Switch Blayde

A corrupt data base that does not record my scores... or... I just did not score a particular story.

I've been a subscriber for 20+ years, but my history goes from 2004 to 1969 one entry to the next.

So... don't know fer sure.

jimq2 🚫

@Switch Blayde

Wouldn't the score you gave the story be a good indicator for deciding whether or not to re-read a story

The lack of a score may mean that I didn't get very far into the story before I abandoned it due to lack of interest in the subject matter. I generally do not low ball a story unless it is really, really bad. I don't usually feel that it is fair to score a story that I haven't read in its entirety.

tendertouch 🚫

@NC-Retired

What things do you find objectionable and are cause for you to abandon the tale?

In no particular order: uncoded squicks, technical errors that take me out of the story too much/often and a bad/boring story.

NC-Retired 🚫

@NC-Retired

Oh... forgot to add variance from physical reality 'norms'.

No, not fantasy of elves and orcs, magic and mysticism.

But if you're in a space ship and ignore orbital mechanics.

If the plot of the tale advances technology too quickly to support the underlying knowledge and development of best practices.

Yes, I'll suspend my disbelief in many cases, but veer too far from plausible and you've lost me.

REP 🚫
Updated:

@NC-Retired

Poor Grammar:
words missing in sentence, words not deleted when deleting part of a sentence, wrong subject-verb agreement, poor punctuation, etc.

Unassigned Dialogue:
1. Two characters in ping-pong dialogue is okay as long as the speaker is periodically identified in some fashion.

2. When there are more than two characters present at the time of the conversation, the speaker should be identified by name or by context of the text at the start of the speaker's dialogue and when a change of speaker occurs. When there are multiple sequential paragraphs spoken by the same character, a closing double-quote should be used to signify the end of that speaker's statement(s) and a new paragraph started if the dialogue is to continue between the characters.

The most common errors leading to reader confusion are: combining two character's dialog in the same paragraph and the use of ping-pong dialogue when there are 3, or more, characters speaking during the conversation.

Poor Proofreading Techniques and/or Failure to Proofread Edited Passages
I can see no viable excuse for leaving a stray unrelated word in an edited sentence. The author should read the edited sentence to ensure that it is saying what they intended it to say.

All too often when editing/proofreading, the author knows what the sentence should say, so they read the passage quickly and fail to see a missing word in the sentence or a word they failed to delete.

Replies: redthumb rustyken Paladin_HGWT

redthumb 🚫

@REP

Years ago I worked as a pressman in a hot lead printing place. We had a special on business cards. A friend came in, who was the manager of the local 4 word college bookstore, and ordered 3 boxes of business cards. The type setter set the type, the owner set the type and proofed it, I proofed it and printed a few cards. The owner and I checked it and I printed the order. I delivered the cards and the friend approved them. Over the years the handed them out. When he was half way through the THIRD box when he handed the card out, the person receiving it asked when they renamve the college. We had left off 2 of the names of the college off. I can see it happening,

Replies: REP

REP 🚫

@redthumb

I think it was back in the 1980s when National Semiconductor decided to handout ashtrays advertising their company. They decided to print their logo, name, and the motto "We fight dirt!" on the ashtrays.

The manufacturer notified National Semiconductor when they were ready to make the production run. National Semiconductor's Board of Directors flew one of their people to the manufacturer's location to proof and approve the silk screening. Approval was given. The ashtrays were made and distributed to National Semiconductor's advertising departments. The ashtrays were distributed for several weeks.

Then, someone happened to notice the motto said, "We fight dirty!"

I know this is a true story for I happened to obtain and still have a couple of those ashtrays from an employee of National Semiconductor along with the background on how the mistake was made.

rustyken 🚫
Updated:

@REP

I published a story that was written using Libre Office which was extensively reviewed for errors. So when it was ready to publish, an eBook was created. The eBook was checked for errors, but in hindsight not close enough. Due to a rather negative comment, I went back and closely reviewed the story. I was extremely embarrassed by what I found, so an extensive review of the story was under taken. In preparing it for publication again a different path was taken to create an eBook. This was because some of the sentences appeared to contain both deleted text and its replacement. So what I now do is copy a chapter to a text application, then to a LO new document. This new document will contain all of the chapters. Once it is converted to a ePub, a careful review is done to remove all unnecessary styles. The last step is to go through the ePub and compare it to the original LO document. While a bit of a pain, the process seems to have caught nearly all of the errors, as there will be errors just like there are in every eBook I've read. These are typically errors that are easy to read through the first time it is read, but become apparent when read again.

So bottom line, is I try to be tolerant when I come across errors especially if they don't detract from adventure.

Just my thoughts.

Cheers

Replies: Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@rustyken

some of the sentences appeared to contain both deleted text and its replacement

How did that happen?

Replies: The Outsider

The Outsider 🚫

@Switch Blayde

I use LO to pass my stories on to my editor, and my only thought (which could be wrong) is an editor or the author changed the sentences and forgot to approve the changes while the "Track Changes" was selected.

I've been wrong plenty of times, though...

Paladin_HGWT 🚫

@REP

Unassigned Dialogue:
1. Two characters in ping-pong dialogue is okay as long as the speaker is periodically identified in some fashion.

2. When there are more than two characters present at the time of the conversation, the speaker should be identified by name or by context of the text at the start of the speaker's dialogue and when a change of speaker occurs. When there are multiple sequential paragraphs spoken by the same character, a closing double-quote should be used to signify the end of that speaker's statement(s) and a new paragraph started if the dialogue is to continue between the characters.

The most common errors leading to reader confusion are: combining two character's dialog in the same paragraph and the use of ping-pong dialogue when there are 3, or more, characters speaking during the conversation.

I understand that complaint, in a casual situation; such as a conversation in a coffee shop.

There are occasional times, most often in a combat scene, or a chaotic situation, such as an aircraft "hard landing" (crash) or imminent disaster, where I deliberately do not attribute the speaker. Or I only attribute the voice(s) that the PoV (Point of View) character recognizes.

I don't use this technique very often. I do think it can be better than merely writing: it was chaotic.

NC-Retired 🚫

@NC-Retired

The last 15 years of my office working life was as a technical writer. 10 of those years was without an editor to check my prose.

I found that if I read aloud the written text that I could catch 80-90% of the errors in spelling or punctuation.

Some still got through, but hey, nobody is perfect.

Replies: Michael Loucks

Michael Loucks 🚫

@NC-Retired

Some still got through, but hey, nobody is perfect.

My stories have been:

Written + revised
Run through a grammar/spelling checker
Edited
Proofread
Posted on SOL
Revised and corrected
Run through a grammar/spelling checker
Proofread again
Posted on SOL

Guess what? There are STILL errors found! 🤦🏻‍♂️

Replies: REP NC-Retired

REP 🚫

@Michael Loucks

Yep! That is my problem also.

NC-Retired 🚫

@Michael Loucks

Proofread
Posted on SOL
Revised and corrected
Run through a grammar/spelling checker
Proofread again

Did you proofread out loud?

If not, try it. Yes, it takes time to do it right, but doing so saved my "professional' cred with the marketing team too many times to remember, but lots!

Replies: Michael Loucks rustyken

Michael Loucks 🚫

@NC-Retired

Did you proofread out loud?

I have done that for some of my work, but not all. Given everything else I use, that didn't make enough of a difference to make it worth trying to find private time to read 14,000,000 words aloud over the past 10 years.

Replies: NC-Retired

NC-Retired 🚫

@Michael Loucks

Shrug. I did not suggest you had to do all 14m in one sitting. Ya could take a few days if real life gets in the way.

But it could work for those that write 1 or 2k words at each writing session.

rustyken 🚫

@NC-Retired

I've used a text to speech program which worked pretty well.

Replies: tendertouch

tendertouch 🚫

@rustyken

I've used a text to speech program

That sounds like an excellent idea. It would speak what was actually there, rather than what I'd read.

Replies: LonelyDad

LonelyDad 🚫

@tendertouch

Yes. I have found that my brain sometimes 'pre-reads' what it expects to see.

Replies: NC-Retired

NC-Retired 🚫

@LonelyDad

Yes. I have found that my brain sometimes 'pre-reads' what it expects to see.

And that was exactly why I read my tech writing out loud.

I have no evidence, but I suspect that reading out loud somehow bypasses the 'expected' words.

Replies: LonelyDad

LonelyDad 🚫
Updated:

@NC-Retired

When you read to edit I believe your mind 'remembers' what you were attempting to write and accepts that instead of what was actually read.

One's mind can indeed be a scary place sometimes.

Replies: AmigaClone

AmigaClone 🚫

@LonelyDad

One's mind can indeed be a scary place sometimes.

Just sometimes?

Replies: LonelyDad

LonelyDad 🚫

@AmigaClone

I sleep once in a while. :-)

Replies: NC-Retired

NC-Retired 🚫
Updated:

@LonelyDad

I sleep once in a while. :-)

YMMV, but for me, that's often when it's most scary!

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Reading History

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