I'm over at Inkspot today, the blog for Midnight Ink authors, talking about editing the galley proof for my November book release, A Basket of Trouble, the long-awaited third book in my Claire Hanover gift basket designer series. My main concern is that A Basket of Trouble be a fun and exciting read. Hopefully no readers will be pulled out of the story by stumbling across a typo, spelling or punctuation error in the final book. Have you been pulled out of a story recently by such an error? Tell me about it in a comment there!
3 comments:
Now that I'm doing more freelance editing than writing, I tend to read everything with an eye to catching mistakes. I suppose that sounds horrible of me, but truthfully, I just can't help it. Minor punctuation errors won't pull me out of a story, but some mistakes do have me turning back pages to check what the writer originally said. For example, I'm currently reading a mystery with very likable characters and an interesting plot. At one point, though, the heroine climbs two different sets of stairs in a school to get to a certain room, then finds a body in that room. Several pages later, the author says there's a door in that room that leads outside to the courtyard. How can you have a door leading outside from a room that's obviously at least two floors up from the courtyard? Those kinds of mistakes can draw me out of the story.
I've always been a nitpicker for editing errors--apparently it's in my DNA. I've found errors in every major newspaper and magazine and pretty much every book I've ever read. Needless to say, when my first book was being edited this spring, I was obsessive about finding every, single glitch. I haven't found any real errors, but did find a couple of places I wish I had worded differently.
Thanks for your comments, Mary and Terry! Yes, I've had the experience (now that I'm a writer) of catching more errors in what I read, from newspapers/magazines, websites/blogs, and books. My husband, though, has ALWAYS been a nitpicker even though he's not a writer. What particularly drives him up the wall is when people mix up affect and effect.
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