Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Summer Reprise Series #3: Quick Tip: BE aware of what one word can help you do

Summer Reprise Series #3: Quick Tip: BE aware of what one word can help you do
First published August 19, 2014

This blog entry was written just after I received The Observers – A Science Fiction Odyssey, back from my Editor at KoehlerBooks. Before I jumped into this "almost final edit" of that book, which was be released in December of 2014, I thought I pass on a few thoughts about the editing process.

This blog still reveals my naiveté about the depth of editing required in a finished manuscript, but the Quick Tip is a good one.

After reading through the proof copy of RIFTS – A Science Fiction Thriller, I was doing my final edit. I remembered reading something I wanted to change, but hadn’t marked it. That’s not a good idea. I think that’s one major reason God created sticky notes and different colors for highlighting.

I really didn’t want to skim the whole second section of the book trying to find the offending verbiage. I did remember that the word be was associated with the paragraph I was looking for. I have no idea why I had that thought.

I did a search for the word be. I was careful to put a space in front of the b and another space after the e because I wanted only the word be, not belong, because, amber, adobe, or any other iteration of a word with be in it.

What I got was.
A long list.

But, also
A way to find other oddities in the text that required editing.

I found out that by reading the text around the word be provided me with a completely unbiased view of the text. That brought typos, comma use errors, and grammatical faux pas into literally immediate focus because I wasn’t reading the story then.

Did I catch all the glitches in the manuscript by this stroke of genius luck?
Nope. 
But the manuscript that was printed as RIFTS is the most error free of any of the books I’ve published or had published.

Be daring. Try it. You’ll like it. Because it works!

I’m currently working on what should be the final edit for The 5th Page, a detective novel. I have learned that it takes time and effort—and professional help—to reveal enough of the problems in a manuscript to consider calling it “ready” for publication. You’ll find other Reprise posts this summer that focus on the editing process. It’s one of the two areas in which I have grown the most as an author.

Next Blog: Oh, how I love to read [select one option] (a book on paper) (an ebook)!

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My website is: www.crdowning.com

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