I will freely admit that I am one of those people for whom misspelled words can take me out of a story.
Having said that, I KNOW that no one is perfect, myself included. LOL.
So... I AM willing to help authors by proofreading their work, with the understanding that I do NOT edit. I only proofread for spelling and usage errors. I can and will even proof stories that have already been posted here at Top Shelf.
I cannot and will not offer perfection. What I WILL do is try my very best to catch any and all misspellings and correct them. I do request that, if you use slang or colloquel spellings, you include a notification in your request for assistance. Likewise for contractions. People use them in everyday conversation and to sound less pedantic or formal. If you use them and want them left in, or if you didn't use them and want me to substitute them in your story let me know.
One more thing. I do not work on stories that involve underage children, stories that are only excuses for thirteen paragraphs of sex acts, BDSM in any form or political/religion rants or femdom.
If you want my help, PM me here at Top Shelf. I do not charge for my services.
Catherine Linda Michel
Comments
Just for clarification
You wrote: "I do not work on stories that involve underage children, stories that are only excuses for thirteen paragraphs of sex acts, BDSM in any form or political/religion rants or femdom."
Does that mean you wouldn't edit a story about a 12 or 14 year old discovering his feminine nature in which the story was strictly PG... That is: aside from the TG aspect the story would be appropriate for a children's book? Such as my story "Dumb Bet"? It has 263 kudus, by far my most popular story. It has zero sex, no violence and the only femdom is in that the protagonist made and lost a dumb bet, the terms of the bet were that he had to wear what ever his sister and the neighbor girl said for a week.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
I will proofread
However I cannot do so for free. I hate to ask, yet as with Joyce and company I need to keep a roof over my head.
proofreading
I have offered to proofread in the past. Rather than get caught up in semantics as to what is meant by an exclusion such as the one questioned in another comment regarding "pre-teen" children. I simply reserve the right to not participate with a story that I would not read because of the inclusion of certain items. If you can't live with that, don't ask me to proof for you.
Proofreading
For what it is worth, I have enjoyed the many stories on this site for years, & hope to enjoy for many more. I am available to do proofreading for any author. I have not tried editing but am willing to try.
If any author is interested then get in touch with me.
Jess
Crowdsource it
It would be cool if readers could help out authors by suggesting improvements right here on the site. With a css tag or two and some javascript, it should be possible to show a button titled "Suggest an improvement" when a user highlights a piece of text in a story, pop up a dialog to get their suggestion, and AJAX post that to the backend. Then, show authors a list of suggested improvements with apply and reject buttons next to each improvement. It can be limited to registered users if needed, length limits can be placed on the selection and suggestion (perhaps allow longer suggestions to users who have submitted a number of accepted improvements), it can be made opt-in for authors if they prefer, and allow them to report users who abuse the function. Just an idea...
For the month of May
I'm freeing up time to proofread 50,000 words. Requirement, the story must be slated to go into the Hatbox or to Dopler press. This is given gratis as my contribution for the month to the Hatbox. Anyone with a story meeting those criteria may contact me through the site.