Nothing bothers me more than to be reading a story, and to find a misspelled word, poor grammar or improper punctuation. It has been a pet peeve of mine, since I was a youngster, to find documents that have mistakes in them. If I was the one that had made a silly mistake, then you had better stay out of my way, because I would be so angry with myself for being careless that I would be grumpy for days!To this day, I am still pretty hard on myself, but I am not sure that it is altogether such a bad trait. Lack of self-editing by authors who send their work in for consideration for publication is one of the main reasons that manuscripts are rejected. If an editor prepares to read a story, only to find that the story is riddled with errors, he will reject it immediately, a good story or not; it will be an irritation to him/her to read the story in unpublishable condition.
Certainly, you can understand that to an editor, if words are misspelled, that alone would indicate sloppiness on the part of the author in the preparation of the manuscript. It might also indicate that the author is someone that has a poor work ethic, therefore making him/her undesirable to work with. My advice is: present yourself in the best light possible, and if you want your book published, you had better be willing to go that extra mile and correct any mistakes that you possibly can.
If editing is not your forte, you could always hire someone to do it for you. If I were you, I would take the time to learn at least the basics, because, in my opinion, knowing proper grammar does help you to write better.
There are several courses to choose from, but I would suggest starting with the one that I am familiar with. Rob Parnell and Robyn Opie have teamed together to offer a course entitled "How to Edit for Success." It is a well-rounded course that offers such things as:
- Introduction to Manuscript Editing
- The Basics - Tips and Strategies to Ensure Your Success
- Editing for Story, Content & Rewriting
- Editing for Impact: Clarity, Sense, Logic and Transparency
- Editing for Submission & Publication
- Three SECRET BONUS ITEMS
Plus, if you want to learn to the best of your ability, you can also be mentored throughout the entire course! (*Note: Mentorship includes thorough feedback on your exercises, one on one guidance and individual help with editing your MSS.) If I were you, I think I would check out the "How to Edit for Success" course right away!
By the way, did you notice my new "favicon" that's located on the tab up above, next to my blog name? It looks like a capital letter "H" in a box, which stands for the "H" in my last name, Hammond, just like the one that is here on the right:
Until next time... stay safe, stay well and may God bless you all.
Cynde
Please visit my other blogs:
Cynde's Daybook ~and~ Usurper Exposed. Thank you!
