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There has been quite a bit of discussion lately on the benefits and detriments of editing and proof reading.
One problem that appears is the impression that one loses creativity and expression during editing and proofing. That should not be the case. The objective is not to force all writing into a Procrustian bed of rigid rules.
Of course, there is the other side that urges that well written sentences are clearer and more effective than those that are not.
Another problem, and one that particularly annoys me, is incorrect usage of homophones, words that sound alike, but have different meanings. They're err sum sings spell checkers wont fine.
It is good advice to let a story 'steep' for a while so that a re-read with fresher eyes will catch a lot of things that otherwise would go unnoticed.
I have a great deal of difficulty in proof reading my own work. For some reason I am somewhat blind to my own mistakes. So, I ask others to go over my work to find the things I can't.
Proof reading should be a collaborative effort, not an exercise in fault finding. I see writing as a craft, an endeavor with technical and artistic elements.
If you feel that proof reading will help you, by all means use proofer readers. Regardless, let your muse by your guide.
Comments
I must agree
I agree with Janet. It does help having someone help you find those pesky errors that creep up on you while busy being creative. There are two primary kinds of errors that entraps me. One of course is spelling and grammar. Letting the story steep works but when I have the "bug" and the ideas are flowing, well, you strike while the iron is hot. Having some help with the technical parts are wonderful for those of us whose last time in a classroom was a long time ago and/or never used those grammar skills in life.
The second kind error is in content. Lets face it, sometimes we all write stuff that in after thought just doesn't hold together. It could be something you meant to include but got sidetracked, or just plain faulty logic. It is HARD for me to see these things because I KNOW the story and my "cotton-picking" brains fills in the missing stuff for me, but IT ISN'T on the paper. Someone has to rub my nose in it! "Oh! I get it now!"
Hey sometimes a proofer even has a better handle on the story than you do and I'm not proud. A good idea is a good idea.
I was in a panic back in the fall. I had just finished my first story ever. Started hundreds it seems, but finished just one. Bob A. told me looks good but needs to be cleaned up. I knew, that this was just beyond me, but I was able to find two to help me proof, Angel O'Hara and Karen Page.
Thanks to those two proofing I gained the confidence to continue writing despite how self-conscious I was and still am of my technical skills. I have other proofers now but would feel lost without them. I don't have be anal about every sentence and can just write.
Didn't mean to ramble but the willing volunteers here at BC has helped me A LOT! Just my thoughts
grover
How did that acronym go? QFT - I think
Thank you. Any further comments by me would just repeat what has been said here or elsewhere.
So "quoted for truth" will suffice.
with love,
Hope
with love,
Hope
Once in a while I bare my soul, more often my soles bear me.
Average Mariner
Thank you for starting this thread; I felt rather mean hijacking Angela's valuable discussion that was intended to be about comments, not about editing or proofing.
I've been flamed for my views on this, so I'll start this time from the other end to provide context. I'm an early baby-boomer (war-born), UK state-educated with a (poor) degree in Chemistry. I'm a professional writer merely in the sense that I was once commissioned (that's a grand word for a request-in-desperation) for ~1000 words on a subject of which I had made a particular study, and for which I was paid at the going rate (spelt i-n-s-u-l-t). In addition to that, I have also written - uncredited - in various employments perhaps 200,000 words of technical stuff, one step up from boiler-plate. In all of that, accuracy has been crucial, readability (in the sense of comprehension) very important, the content externally dictated, and with style and readability (in the sense of pleasure) not valued at all.
Those are my influences, along with the highly structured and formal early-years education that was the style at my time, and the estimated six-to-ten billion printed words I have read (of which at least eight nines seem to have have been well-proofed). They have left me the way I am, and I have grave difficulty in reading material that contains homophone or spelling errors, inaccurate use of case/gender/voice/mood/inflection/conjugation/declension, or grammatical errors. The words 'anally retentive' usually come to mind at about this point in my story. What it imports, is that for fiction, the higher the incidence of these errors (I'll use "typos" generically from here on), the better the plot and characterisation have to be in order to hold me as a reader. In terms of my enjoyment of work posted here, my background and education are a drawback.
I am a proponent of proofing for all the personal reasons given. But whether it is self-proofing or using another's brain is not for me to say. As I understand it, Rachel Greenham is still writing 'Game Theory' without a safety-net, and I haven't seen a typo in there worth squat. The available evidence (very weak) suggests to me that Erin doesn't use an external proofer either, nor does she need to.
For me - and Hope and Janet (above) seem of the same view - self-proofing is difficult because of 'wishful reading'. Others are clearly better at it.
In the days of my youth (treeware, radio, treeware, five hours a day of a nascent TV service, and more treeware) a proofer only corrected typos and it was a one-way steet. Proofing was done on the galleys (a rough print from the type before the plates were made) after the editor and author had finished the collaborative effort - which I'm sure varied from author to author and from editor to editor - of bringing the work to the point of writing "PRESS" on the MS. The "comps" were supposed to set exactly what the PRESS copy of the MS contained; the proofer's task was to find out where they hadn't. I still define "proofing" much in those terms - though I would call it error-finding, not fault-finding - because it is as much as I can do.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess. John-in-W seems to depend very heavily on proofing support (as I have defined it). His comment postings implicitly and explicitly confirm that. Whether Janet and the GoEBP also provide editing (again as I have defined it) is not so clear. But the final product gives great pleasure, and that is what it's all about.
I said (in the other thread) "Proofing is actually a dismal job; it takes most of the joy out of reading. I usually read through once for pleasure first, because after that it is drudge work." Hope disagreed. Since one author actually wrote "you're mad" to me, Hope probably has the majority view. Whatever floats your boat. (That author is a long way from being alone in that PoV.)
Well, my money-work is dismal drudge-work too, and in both cases there is a pay-off. To help something good to shine a little brighter, even infinitessimally, carries its own benefit. The few times I have done proofing, the authors seemed grateful - and that is a gift-horse whose mouth is quite safe from my enquiring mind.
Knowing that I will be able to offer corrections of the typos I see goes a long way towards helping me ignore them on that first 'for-my-own-pleasure' read. So whoever it was who held back from asking for the sort of limited help I could offer because she felt that 'there were better/more important stories out there' (I paraphrase), there is at least one underemployed saddo who's not tied up that way. Just don't ask me for tips on improving the plot or characters. :)
Xi
The Pudding is in the Proof
What we call "proofing" here is actually rudimentary copy editing. For real proofreading, in the sense that printers and dead-tree publishers use it, you have to do comparison checking between a clean copy and a proposed production copy.
A copy editor (or proofreader in our net jargon) reads raw copy, corrects typos, simple punctuation and grammatical errors and enforces a house style in formatting and variable things like does Mrs. have a period/full stop after it. (Yes in the US, usually no in the UK). Copy editors don't correct for content or literary style.
An editor does make corrections or suggestions for rewrites in matters of content and literary style.
You're correct Xi, I seldom use a proofreader/copy editor but for longer works, I frequently do use "beta readers" which are sort of editors-without-portfolios. :)
I've worked all along the spectrum in newspapers and magazines, from publisher, to printer, to photographer, graphic designer, typesetter, reporter, columnist, proofreader, copy editor, editor, delivery person. I've even done most of them for pay. :)
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Proofreading
I imagine much of the work at those publishers was farmed out to typographers. Emm, copy editors usually worked outside type shops. (QTC: spell? ring a bell) If you know the term "horsing," you know what I did much of the time.
I've done galley first reads, revises, second reads and revises, page proofs, press lock-ups, foundry lock-up, AA's. I've read for hairlines, batters, WFs, wrong leading, and could distinguish Garamond from Times New Roman.
Proofreading in a type house does differ in many respects from ad house, from publishers, and can, on good days be a nice way to spend a night, or a circus, or a horror.
Now, I can't pick up a book without finding a few errors.
Annie in PA
Annie in PA
Are All Stories Created Equal?
This is a difficult post to write. It very well may come across as rambling, arrogant, defensive, inconsiderate, or a grotesque mass (which I am killing in a game at this moment).
As someone who has posted a massive 5 stories (and am finally getting some traction on a 6th) across the various sites I understand the benefits of proofing, although I have been poor at practicing my belief. Initially it was because it is a scary thing to search out a proofer, but after my first 3 stories Hope volunteered and my batting average has not improved too much. One story I inexcusably jumped the gun in posting and on a second I did not think it was worth proofing.
Why would I not think a story was worth proofing? Because I have found that for me not all stories are created equal. Upon their creation I judged the 2 Merchant Tales and The Shootist as worthy of proofing, while I have not felt the same about Making Friends or Heart of Darkness. It was not due to the quality of the writing that caused this judgement, instead it was based on the attachment I personally felt to the story.
Both of the latter two stories were conceived, hatched and delivered in one week. They did not linger in my thoughts for months and months like the other three, whose characters continue to walk in my mind. To me, those two were more exercises in writing, than they were in crafting a tale I had to tell. Basically I felt, I have spent enough time on these.
Can they be polished? Yes.
Did I feel like polishing them? At the time, no. Now, Making Friends has wormed its way into my heart and is being reviewed. Darkness, not so much.
This begs the question, am I cheating the readers by posting a story about which I am somewhat or wholly ambivalent? Partially yes, because the stories could be better. Partially no, because I still think they are not bad in their rough form (although I may be delusional).
The *in W* speaks, woof!
I suffer from precisely what Janet and Grover say vexes their own writngs.
Grover, are you a long lost identical twin of mine?
My proofers often function as beta readers, looking not so much for technical oops but for the great big whopping, "where the heck did this come from, something must be missing," foul-ups. The technical help is highly welcomed, though.
In college I switched from chemistry to economics and finally took some American literature and business writing courses after graduation, for enrichment. Between the varing styles and my own bad habits I'm confused. And then most of this stuf is a couple decades or more ago and the fog of time has helped scramble things.
Usually it's minor but still jarring for the reader and like Janet and Grover my brain fills in the missing bit so I don't see it's missing. On a few occasions it's almost been as bad as " Um, John, didn't you kill off *Debra* in the previous chapter so why is she in this scene?"
Yes, there is a risk a proofer/beta reader/editor will alter your work but my experience has been positive. And some of my best ideas/characters have been in reposnse to proofer and reader comments.
John in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
Stories and gem stones
Interesting points and well taken.
Yes, what GoEBP does is more as Erin says, elementary editing. There are many times that this helps a story. Sometimes it does not.
Perhaps a good analogy is gem stones. In the raw they have value and can be appreciated as is. Cleaned and polished, they can really shine.
There will be some, though, that no amount of additional polish will help. Some can actually be damaged with improper treatment. Consider what might have happened to James Joyce's 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' had a straight laced editor gotten hold of it.
Then, too, there is the amount of effort that the author wishes to put into the story. There may be no interest in putting any more effort into it. That's okay, too.
Or, the story may become an obsession. Again using Joyce as an example, 'Ulysses' took him thirteen years to write (and he expected a serious reader to take that long to read it!)
If an author is interested in improving their craft, proofers and editors can be a great help. And there are people available to provide that help when desired.
Janet
Mistress of the Guild of Evil Blonde Proofreaders
Janet
Mistress of the Guild of Evil [Strawberry] Blonde Proofreaders
To be or not to be... ask Schrodinger's cat.
Enjoyment
I am just a reader. I don't write. :( If the spelling and grammar are so bad that they detract from my enjoyment, I stop reading. If a given author continues to insult me by not taking pride in their work, I stop reading that author.
Recently I found a "could care less" in a hardback book by a professional writer. So, even the best writers/editors goof. However, 99.9% of the story is grammatically correct and I can concentrate on the story and not on trying to figure out what the author meant.
I don't care if Mrs has a period after it or not. I do care if there are many spelling and grammar mistakes. They distract from the story and destroy my enjoyment.
The bottom line: If you want me to read what you 'right' then take enough pride in your craft to do it 'write'.
Careless? I could care less
Here in the UK the expression of indifference is "I couldn't care less". AFAIK in much of the US the expression with the same meaning actually is "I could care less". It is certainly the more prevalant usage in the stories which I have read here, and I have checked the usage explicitly with US residents. I saw a new variant of it the other day, but recognising it as such, I rather glided over it and now I cannot bring it to mind. It may not make (much) direct sense to you or me, but it is "the language as she is spoke." Someone who very recently posted here on this topic inter alia advised a writer that her characters should make errors in speech. I'm not saying that all people do make errors, but relatively few do not.
I don't know about the version of "care less" that is prevalent in Canada, or even if that is relevant. I can only infer that you are in the Pacific time zone (timezone? TimeZone? GoEBP: heeeeelp pleeeease!) and probably on the Northern rather than the Southern part of the continent of America.
I could care less (a lot less in fact) about errors that detract from the enjoyment of reading. But if I want to read stories by writers who live more than a few miles from me (be that geographically or socially) then I have to accept their idiotisms. Those are a part of the syory, not errors.
Xi
I likely SHOULD care less about errata
Hey Xi,
As I said in an earlier post the language used in Canada is somewhere in between British (the Queen's) English and that used be the residents of the USA.
Personally I am all in favour of phoneticizing the English language. The only problem with that is, which version or dialect to use for the standardization. Scottish-highland, 'Stroin or Okie? Yet despite my advocacy for reform I prefer the British spelling, slowly becoming less common here in Canada, in most cases.
Though it is really a case of 'the pot calling the kettle black', I deplore sloppy writing. It actually brings my reading to a halt when I find errors in other people's writing, which is why I prefer doing corrections as I go. I realize, that with all the errors in my own writing, this makes me the ultimate hypocrite, but if I EVER said I was perfect, I lied.
So are you saying that 'strait-laced', in fact, refers to the narrow 'strait' created in the waist when a corsette is tightly drawn in?
Thank you for your enlightenments.
with love,
Hope
with love,
Hope
Once in a while I bare my soul, more often my soles bear me.
Setting it strai(gh)t
Strait means narrow and by implication tight. Strait-laced refers to the narrowness of the lacings as they are drawn tight, but may have been influenced by the narrow waists produced by tight-laced corsets. Strait (from Latin for strict) and straight (from old Germanic roots) have different derivations, so their different spellings make some kind of sense.
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
No stranger to strait....
...ened circumstances I.
So it is a word close to my heart!
Perhaps one of the best uses is in one of the best book titles ever - Andre Gide's 'Strait is the Gate.' It has a fantastic ring to it. Who would ever have remembered 'The Narrow Gate'? Far more English readers know it than have read it, purely because of this inspired translation.
I know etroite has the same root (La Porte Etroite) but it still was a stroke of genius to form the lovely balanced rhyming phrase in the English.
Hugs,
fleurie
Careless
I agree if the phrase was used for artistic reasons, but it wasn't. Even if 'could care less' is the current usage that ain't right. My English teachers don't like ain't and they don't like 'could care less'.
However, that wasn't the point of my comment. It was just an example that we all make what others perceive as mistakes.
Noisy
PS I live in Austin TX, but was born in the Bronx. And, as I am an Army brat raised all over the place.
Couldn't be sarcasm
I think 'could care less' is the more common expression, but both are used over here. This is not an expression that would ever be used in formal speech and the adolescent penchant for sarcasm has influenced it. ('couldn't' being used to add emphasis.). This is why a computer program can't proofread well.
IMHO, some errors should appear in dialogue, every age and education level has its own vernacular.
(If it weren't for spell-checkers I would have to live in a hole somewhere, but the one built into firefox is telling me 'dialogue' should be 'dialog'. arrg)
Jan
Liberty is more than the freedom to be just like you.
Could be
I remember that "couldn't care less" seemed more prevalent until I was in high school when "could care less" started appearing more often, originally as sarcasm, but then spread by the fact that it seemed to drive adults crazy trying to correct it. :) The ironic futility of such efforts never seemed to occur to them. :) Now, people use "could care less" apparently without realizing that it's sarcasric, which is also ironic. And yes, some people seem to use "couldn't care less" to be more emphatic.
The first time I heard "I could care less" and really noticed it, I think, it was in a more obvious ironic statement. "I could care less, but I don't." And another variation, "I could care less, but I can't be bothered." The last said in a fake, dry, British accent. LOL.
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Dialogue spell-check
Here is a free dictionary that knows how to spell dialogue.
www.dictionary.com
Wait...
Do you mean how to spell the word "dialogue"? Or how to spell words that only occur in dialog :P like "juwanna"?
Hugs and grins,
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
duh!
Regards
Noisy
Got that one
Got that one book marked and Websters embedded in the tool bar. But it would take me days to cut-and-paste every possible error into a search. (You have no idea how poorly I spell, and I don't always know when I guess right either.)
I don't mind it allowing 'dialog', but I am to young, and spell too badly, to be accused of archaic spelling the few times I get it right! Are the Brits going to have to line up in cues now? (They aren't all that thin.) Are we going to have segways soon? Is this a politically motivated anti-French conspiracy?
Thanks,
Jan
Mass Spell-check
When I need to do a mass spell-check I copy and paste into a program called Textpad. www.textpad.com around 32.00 USD. It is a very good text editor and a lot cheaper than MS Word. I think its spell-checker is better than MS Word's.
Enjoyable
Proofing and editing should be an enjoyable journey. If it's not it won't work and has the double pain of being annoying.
If you can't tell the person who you're editing for their story closely resembles the underside of a compost pile -- end the relationship.
Drudgery??? I'm an obsessive self-editor. After my stories have been posted for over a year, I'm still at them every once in a while reading them online and making edits. I started on King Neptune last week.
It's that good, better, best thing that Mom taught me. Or, maybe it's because I never learned to type; and the distance between my mind and yours is blocked by that handicap.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Secret Weapon
The best trick is to write a story in first person. That way, the author can always blame any mistakes on the character.
It's similar to the "Unreliable Narrator" technique; it's the "Ungrammatical Narrator."
Well, it worked for Huckleberry Finn.