A General Plea for Editorial Mercy

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mscelina

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*Forget that I'm a writer; listen to the editor for a minute.*

Please stop.

Please stop for just a minute before you push that button and hit send. Take a moment to look at what you're sending out. ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY SURE THAT EVERYTHING IS CORRECT? I mean--you wouldn't send that snippet to an excerpt contest with that grammatical error glaring from the first line, would you? You wouldn't mistake the noun for the verb and send it out to be voted on, right? I mean, you and I both know that excerpt is from an unedited novel that isn't out yet.

Apparently, only I know that 'breath' is not a verb.

There's something wrong with our relationship.

Any time you put your work out there on the web, it is an advertisement for what you do. If you put an unedited snippet on your website and you have spelling errors in it, or enter a contest where the public votes and have a grammatical error in it--what do you think people will think of you? Let me say this as clearly as I know how:

EVERYTHING MUST BE EDITED. EVERYTHING.

I realize that I'm only your editor, but your career is important to me. I spend a lot of time working on your material to make it as professional and polished as I can before it hits the great beyond. If I can edit your novel, why not trust me to take a look at your excerpts BEFORE you send them out?

Please.

Thank you.

*disclaimer--not all editors will feel the same way as the one who made this post. They may not want to check out your excerpts, etc before you send them out for the world to read. If your editor doesn't, then have someone else check them for you. You have no idea how stupid you will look if you send a glaring error out in the first line of an excerpt submitted to a popular vote contest. Trust me.*
 

mscelina

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Yeah, I was more than a little upset by that. It wouldn't be quite so painful if it wasn't a grammatical mistake that I've pounded into that writer's head over and over and over. If I could sluff it off as a typo it wouldn't have been quite so painful.
 

Soccer Mom

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Double ouch. A typo makes you look careless. A grammatical error makes you look ignorant.
 

Bubastes

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I was going to comment, but Soccer Mom beat me to it. There is a difference between careless and ignorant, definitely.
 

mscelina

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The purpose of excerpt posting/contests is basically to advertise your book. A writer cannot advertise their product if there are errors in their excerpt. I had a writer not too long ago with a huge misspelled word in a BLURB. If you can't make sure that your BLURB is error-free what does that say about your story?

There's just no such thing as too much when it comes to checking your work. Everyone makes mistakes; it's part of the business. Even I misspell words, and I daresay all the rest of us do too. But, it's my job as a writer to glean all those mistakes out of my work before springing it on the general public. You cannot look TOO professional in this business and unfortunately, it's all too easy to look ignorant.
 

Mr. Chuckletrousers

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Yeah, I was more than a little upset by that. It wouldn't be quite so painful if it wasn't a grammatical mistake that I've pounded into that writer's head over and over and over. If I could sluff it off as a typo it wouldn't have been quite so painful.
Take a breathe or two and clam down. Speling and grammer is not such the big deal. Its not liek anyone pay attention to thoughs little things thee's days..
 

blacbird

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I was going to comment, but Soccer Mom beat me to it. There is a difference between careless and ignorant, definitely.

Less than you may think, methinks. In manuscripts I've reviewed and edited, there is definitely a strong correlation between the number of grammatical mistakes and the number of typos, misspellings, erroneous punctuations, etc.

Carelessness is often the first symptom of deeper ignorance.

In things other than writing, too.

caw
 

Phaeal

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I just hope all these people who want to be writers without learning to use words don't take up masonry :Headbang:, or computer repair :Hammer:, or lumberjacking :e2chain: .
 

tehuti88

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This is why I stopped reading most fiction, even that open for critique, online. Heaven forbid I should correct something that's wrong, I'd be lambasted with "I know that's wrong, I'll fix it later, just focus on the STORY!" Erm, no thank you. Not if you're not willing to make the STORY as error free and easy to read/comprehend as possible.

And I'm not even an editor.
 

Darzian

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I did a critique for a 70K MS once. It was a nightmare- grammar mistakes in every other line. I eventually stopped doing a line by line and somehow reached the end out of courtesy. Even worse, the writer informed me it had been checked thrice. :Shrug:
 

mscelina

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The point I was trying to make was fairly specific--the manuscripts will be edited. What writers need to double check are the blurbs, the press releases, the excerpts, contest entries--anything, in short, that represents them as a writer because it will affect sales. A typo in a forum post is one thing; a typo on a blurb posted on your website is another. It's just a reminder that everything regarding a writer's career needs to be checked by somebody for accuracy before it goes anywhere.

It's not like it's hard to do. I've misspelled my MC's name before. There's just no excuse not to double or triple check everything.
 

writerterri

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This is hard to believe, but some people don't read their stuff a second time or third time?


I've noticed that. I get some emails from companies that have a mistake in the first paragraph. I think, didn't this person read what they wrote?
 

SPMiller

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Now that I've thoroughly edited and betaed my work, I'd be impressed if you could find a single mistake, Celina ;)
 
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