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Is it just me, or are some of the most difficult stories to read the ones you wrote yourself? I'm going over a story I'm working on to make sure that I've got everything straight on paper, as it were, and I'm finding it slow going. This isn't because it's long or hard to read or anything like that, but because I know what I intended to write, or what I want to be there and completely miss where I left a word or line of text in from a previous version of a scene, or I don't see where I left a gaping hole in the plot after changing my mind about something.
Does this kind of thing happen to anyone else when they try to read their own work and if so, does anyone have any suggestions on how to prevent that from happening?
Comments
I find...
That if I leave a piece I've done alone for some time, go work on something else... I can come back and look more objectively at a story.
~And so it goes...
Yes, it happens to all of us.
Yes, it happens to all of us. That's why you should let someone else proofread your stories.
Just make a little test: retype a page from a book into the computer. Then do the same with a page from something you written yourself. While you prolly have not much trouble typing out the former, you'll be tempted to rephrase stuff you written yourself.
You probably can't edit your own work....
Even if today you produce something to the best of your abilities of which you are proud in 2 years time you will find simple mistakes you missed and in 20 years you wouldn't let it out again without a complete rewrite. As a reader I notice BigCloset does seem to do a good job helping writers get their work into shape
Rhona McCloud
The same way
I'm the same way, of course you've betad for me so you know how I'm prone to miss things. I'm getting better at catching errors in my own works, but I still could stand to improve. My improvement seems to be a result of me better learning the craft as I scribble out my demented ramblings. Of course, I typically read through what I've written dozens of times before it ever gets posted here or elsewhere. I agree with Peregrina the best way to prevent it is to have someone (or several someones) give your story a look (which I know you already do). Another suggestion, I've noticed that if I read someone out loud I'm more likely to find spelling errors, homophones and the like. Needless to say with longer works this can get to be quite a task, I've experimented with text to speech software, but the computerized monotone voices leave much to be desired.
Have delightfully devious day,
I don't think there is a "perfect."
In re-reading my (only) book, I am still finding spelling errors and other mistakes that I was CERTAIN weren't there the first 10 or 20 times I re-read what I had written. Even after having the story gone over by other editors, there are STILL things that were mistakes.
So, I have decided that, since there IS no "perfect," I can relax a little bit and not worry quite so much over minor spelling and usage errors and concentrate on what I write. Of course, when I edit for someone else, I still strive to be as "perfect" as I possibly can, knowing however, that I will probably never catch ALL the little goofs, since I am far from perfect myself.
The story is what's important after all. As long as small mistakes don't change or totally ruin a story, little errors can be overlooked or read past. There is one author on the site who's grasp of punctuation and sentence structure is poor at best and yet, she is VERY popular and very few object or even call attention to her errors and rightly so. If the readers "get" what the writer wants them to get, then the purpose of the story is justified and fulfilled.
One of the best suggestions I've ever heard, when one is contemplating their own work, is to read it back to yourself, ALOUD. Your ears can hear what your eye might have missed. Many punctuation errors can be eliminated this way. DO use your spell checkers, but don't grant them the privilege of perfection either. They aren't, nor can they ever be. If one is unsure of the spelling of a word, USE your paper and online dictionaries! Even if you might be certain a word is spelled the way YOU think it is, it might not be. My own dictionary is thumb marked, dog eared and falling apart at the seams.
It DOES upset me a bit when I miss something in my editing, feeling as though I've let down the writer by not making her or his story the most error free that I can, but remembering that there is no "perfect" allows me to feel satisfied that I've done my best for the writer and hoping that my best is good enough.
Then too, I edit slightly different from most editors in that I only look for spelling, usage and punctuation. I never attempt to tell a writer that something might be better if they phrased this or that differently or that their character/plot/ whatever might be flawed, except when expressly told by the writer that they want me to offer those kinds of suggestions. I feel that the writer has firmly in his or her mind what they want their story to say to their readers and after all, it is the WRITER'S story, not mine. Projecting my thoughts into what the author writes would make it partly my way of telling the tale, and that would be wrong.
Hugs 'n stuff,
Catherine Linda Michel
As a T-woman, I do have a Y chromosome... it's just in cursive, pink script.