proofreading

In the previous post I mentioned various proofreading methods I considered for my short story collection, The Year of the Elm (TYOTE). While the objective in all cases was the same — eliminating nagging typos and errors — each method had different strengths and weaknesses.

Because I knew TYOTE would be read by almost no one, and would bring in almost no revenue, I decided to pursue the option that promised to teach me the most about the proofreading process, and about my own ability to spot mistakes. Against all advice, and despite knowing in advance that I could not be one hundred percent successful, I decided to proofread the final draft of the collection myself. (Full disclosure: one other person gave the stories a proofreading pass early in the process.)

Having written professionally in a number of mediums I know I have a decent eye. Not great, but good enough to catch a lot of common errors. Still, like every writer, I have my nemeses. For example, I am constantly transposing ‘from’ and ‘form’, and no spell checker can save me from that fate. Even when I consciously watch for that mistake, slowing my eye to a letter-by-letter crawl, I invariably miss an instance. (Case in point, when I originally wrote ‘from’ and ‘form’ above, I wrote it as ‘from’ and ‘from’ — and didn’t catch the mistake until re-reading the sentence for the umpteenth time.)

Too, it’s worth noting that much of my professional writing has been script work, both in the motion picture and interactive industries. While I certainly don’t want typos in my milestone drafts, a typo in a script feels like less of a crime simply because a script is a blueprint, not a finished work. When I really came to terms with the fact that I would be producing a finished product with my name on it, my level of concern (and vanity) about typos markedly increased. Where I previously felt that typos in a script were unprofessional, I suddenly felt as if typos in my short story collection would be a personal criticism of me. [ Read more ]

Note: It has been brought to my attention that I failed to note that I ultimately chose not to implement the process outlined below. This omission happened while revising the original post and was unintentional. See comments for more.

This winter past I spent a fair bit of time thinking about how best to finish the editing process of my short story collection, The Year of the Elm. In particular I considered a number of possible proofreading solutions in order to track down as many typos and errors as possible. Along with hiring an editor or doing the work myself, I came up with what I thought might be a way to merge the inherent functionality of Smashwords with the goal of open-source proofreading.

In an exchange of emails, Smashwords CEO Mark Coker graciously helped me refine the idea in a manner consistent with the Smashwords TOS, which states that only finished works can be published through the site:

9d. You further warrant the book represents a complete work:
• this is not a work-in-progress
• the uploaded file is not a partial sample or sample chapter, or is not a collection of sample chapters
• the uploaded book represents a complete story with a beginning, middle and end

Because any work (fiction or nonfiction) that is ready for proofreading should be finished in every other respect, the proofreading process falls into a gray area relative to this requirement. For that reason, I need to stress that the proofing I am talking about is just that: a final attempt to track down typos and other miscellaneous errors after the entire work has been written, revised, edited and checked by as many eyes as possible. A work that has errors on every page, or obvious mistakes in abundance, is in need of copy editing, and is not what I would deem a finished work. [ Read more ]

Proofreading Your Own Work

Extending Smashwords’ Functionality