Thread: Don't forget editing debris--for God's sake.

This is has an example of editing debris.

It happens when we edit using word processors and it will jack your story as bad as using "whoa" instead of "woe" or using a comma without a conjunction to separate two independent clauses.

You didn't mean to do it. You weren't ignorant about usage or grammar, but you're credited with it anyway--ironically it's the result of editing your writing. In the example above, I initially wrote: "This has been an example of editing debris." The problem is I only deleted "been."

My intentions were good. I tried to make a passive sentence sound more active. Instead, I end up looking like a moron.

If you think I'm writing this to pontificate; I'm not. It's my penance for having just sent a review to an editor I want to impress with just such a mistake. I feel like an idiot. So "instructing" someone, anyone, makes me feel...well, I still feel like an idiot.

The best thing to do after editing with a word processor is to give it one more read, especially if you've deleted long pieces of text, or made complicated changes in sentences like this: "I told you," she said, "he told me, 'I think I'm going to end it now.'"

Uhgggg!

Turn off all word processor edit functions. Edit with your brain. That's why you have one.

Which direction are you from Maison Blanche? I grew up in Gulfport.

Originally Posted by garza

Turn off all word processor edit functions. Edit with your brain. That's why you have one.

Which direction are you from Maison Blanche? I grew up in Gulfport.

Yeah, that would be a good move.

And if it matters, I'm from California.

Early this week, I was sent the final PDF proof for my novel, Wolfwraith, which is scheduled to come out in a week. In this novel, for each chapter I used an interrogative sentence of dialogue from within that specific chapter. Until now, I'd only been sent the MS Word version.

Some editor must not have realized the sentences were actually chapter titles and put them down as the first line of the chapter's text. Talk about confusing.

As far as using grammar and spell-check to catch problems, you can't rely on them at all. If you're a writer with problems in spelling and grammar, you'd be better off to have your work edited by a capable person.

Another problem I've had is using "find and replace". If the word you are replacing has ANY chance of being in the middle of some other word, or can be used in some other context, you're screwed. For instance, If you decide to change the name of a character, Tim, to Dave, you might get a word like sdaveulated. One way to avoid this is to type tim in as space-t-i-m-space and the replacement in as space-d-a-v-e-space.

Hope that contributed to the thread.

JohnB

Oh I concur JohnB!

As a screenwriter who is too cheap to buy a copy of FinalDraft and who regularly abbreviates character names during the writing process (to two letters of course) the find and f*cking replace function is the bane of my existence.

Thanks for the tip though, hopefully it saves me from looking like a complete moron in the future when words like sdaveulated pop up in my dialogue. It's happened before...

Originally Posted by WriterJohnB

Some editor must not have realized the sentences were actually chapter titles and put them down as the first line of the chapter's text. Talk about confusing.

That's terrible. So, will they be able to fix that before it goes to print, or is uploaded to Kindle?