What would YOU do?

Chill, Horace. They're all small potatoes.

It's a tough one. I have no idea if a market will overlook obvious mistakes (so long as there are very few of them and the story is good), or if they will just bin the ms.
I noticed a couple of minor typos in a short, after it had been subbed. As they were very minor, I didn't get back in touch with them about it. I will be interested to see what others say on the matter.

(Isn't it annoying that no matter how many times you proofread mistakes can sometimes still survive?)

This kind of a weird thing because I've seen some published novels lately that have many more mistakes than that.

I'd just leave it alone and cross your fingers. If it's rejected, make sure to go through it again before your next round.

To be realistic, there is no way you can make the MS perfect by yourself, so the main thing is, the agent has to love the story. It can be perfectly written but if no agents like it, there is no way it'll get published anyway.

Polish is one thing, but perfection is another.

In my case, I've polished, repolished, re-wrote, re-edited sometimes as many as 23-24 times on some of my MS's and still don't have squat to show for it. I have one I'm trying again for the fourth or fifth time now (since 1995) and am on the 24th edit. I still believe in the story even though nobody else does.

In the meantime, I'm hard at work on two others.

It depends on the market. Have they ever accepted anything from you? If so, they may appreciate a note asking if it's ok to send a corrected version.

Some markets use any excuse to dump a story, some are more laid back.

I'm in a similar situation with a market I sent a story to 120 days ago. I have not just edited, but changed the story based on some solid feedbaack and made it (I think) a much better story. Since I don't know anybody at that market, I haven'y sent a query asking if they would rather see a better version. But, the longer I wait, the more I wonder. I think the old version is inferior, so I am expecting rejection and just wish it would get here.

rsmccoy said:

Some markets use any excuse to dump a story, some are more laid back.

Click to expand...

That's the thing. It's hard to say, it just depends on the editor reading the story.

Where do these mistakes occur? If it's within the first few pages I'd be more inclined to say withdraw / resubmit, but if it's later in the story, chances are that if they're reading that deep they're at least a bit interested, and if the rest of it is good enough and they like it, they'll just kindly send an email back expressing interest and letting you know, "In case you missed it, you left 'Another Example' in there."

Horace,

I say just pour yourself a cold one and chill out. It's no big deal. At least, I don't think so.

Not in a published novel, but in my first nano novel I was writing a sequel and couldn't remember the name of a minor character. So the line read Bru was his nickname, his real name was Bilbo Baggins I figured it would be easy to search for that name later and replace it with the characters actual name once I had dug through the first novel. Nope, I forgot. I self published that with the characters real name still as Bilbo.

Last novel I submitted, I forgot to put page breaks in for the chapters. I'm only half sure how to do it. They rejected the novel, hope that wasn't why.

(((((((((((((((YOU)))))))))))

...take a few deep breaths......

If its a good manuscript, it'll be accepted regardless. If it's not accepted... well, you can blame the little mistake and go away confidence unbruised!

Seriously, I just managed to get a partial read after sending a query with three typos in it (apparently Thunderbird's spellchecker doesn't work - who knew?). They know you're stressed and nervous when you send these things off, and things will slip through your fingers. As long as it doesn't look like a consistent error and your writing shines otherwise, they will overlook silly mistakes.

I was cleaning shelves a while back and found a copy of the magazine in which I had published my very first story. Feeling nostalgic, I read my story and to my *great* horror, I found out that I called one of the characters by one name in the first several paragraphs, and by a completely different name for the remainder of the story (I think it was Mr. Barker changed to Mr. Parker). I can't tell you how stupid I feel about that!

Stuff like that happens. It just amazes me that the story ever sold in the first place...

If you sell your story...wait, WHEN you sell it!!...just ask the editor to make the change.

I agree with Doodlebug, Horace. Editors do so much reading that they often miss mistakes. I see them online every day and wonder how someone let THAT get past. But then I've let the stupidest things get by before mailing, too. We are all human. If they write that they want the story, that is the time to tell them you noticed a few errors and would like to resend the story.