I wish I had noticed this before. After re-reading what I thought was the final, final draft of a project, I noticed that I occasionally had problems with the way sentences segued into each other within certain paragraphs. Each sentence belonged within the paragraph, just a couple sentences seemed out of place, like they needed to be moved within the paragraph to make the paragraph more coherent, or more easily followed. By correcting these misplaced sentences I also had to alter them slightly because I sometimes ended up with repetition of certain words (mostly pronouns or names) in back-to-back sentences due to moving them around.
Because I'm the author I knew what needed to be said within the paragraph, but I didn't always present it in the most logical or dramatic way. The paragraphs in question were read over literally dozens of times, but I didn't pick up on the problem until I spotted one particular occurence and then started looking for more such occurences. It didn't happen often, but it was frequent enough to give me more headaches and force me to revise yet again.
I also looked at another story I finished early last year that I failed to sell and noticed the same problem. Incidentally, the occurences are most common for me in the first two chapters. Hardly ever saw it in the remainder of either piece.
Anybody else suffer this same writing ailment? When do you notice it--early on, or after you've incessantly edited for months? Am I the only dyslexic freak here? Do you pro writers eventually just grow out of this habit and form your sentences in perfect sequence from the get-go?
This makes the editing process even more daunting. After sweating such trivialities as character depth, rhythm, word choice, plotline, continuity, and a host of other dramatic and grammatic challenges, I now have to study sentence-by-sentence to make sure the idea for each paragraph is presented correctly, and not just in a manner that makes sense to me since I know what I intended to mean in each paragraph.
Because I'm the author I knew what needed to be said within the paragraph, but I didn't always present it in the most logical or dramatic way. The paragraphs in question were read over literally dozens of times, but I didn't pick up on the problem until I spotted one particular occurence and then started looking for more such occurences. It didn't happen often, but it was frequent enough to give me more headaches and force me to revise yet again.
I also looked at another story I finished early last year that I failed to sell and noticed the same problem. Incidentally, the occurences are most common for me in the first two chapters. Hardly ever saw it in the remainder of either piece.
Anybody else suffer this same writing ailment? When do you notice it--early on, or after you've incessantly edited for months? Am I the only dyslexic freak here? Do you pro writers eventually just grow out of this habit and form your sentences in perfect sequence from the get-go?
This makes the editing process even more daunting. After sweating such trivialities as character depth, rhythm, word choice, plotline, continuity, and a host of other dramatic and grammatic challenges, I now have to study sentence-by-sentence to make sure the idea for each paragraph is presented correctly, and not just in a manner that makes sense to me since I know what I intended to mean in each paragraph.
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