Finding Errors After Your Story Has Been Posted

[Comshaw]

I was poking around my account and somehow found myself re-reading my highest rated story. I get to the second page and I found two OBVIOUS errors. I must have gone over that story at least 3 times including using MS Word spell and grammar check and yet I totally missed those two. Bothers me because it was almost flawless. Ugh!

As a sausage-fingered, dyslexic, two-fingered typist, I have more flaws, missed punctuation marks and misused words in my rough draft than a dog has fleas. Well, my dog anyway. AND no matter how many times I go through a story, after publication I'll find at least 4 or 5 mistakes. It's like the universe is giving me the finger. It either makes me blind to them when I'm checking the story, or it hides them and then allows them to climb out into view after publication. It's a damn good thing I work in my den, 'cause I can close the door, jump up and down in the middle of the floor and scream without scaring my wife to death.

Comshaw

 

[anthrodisiac]

I've definitely noticed errors after the fact, especially in my earlier works. But the process is onerous and they aren't huge, and I'm intentionally not doing anything about them because I don't want to feed my sense of perfectionism. None of them are catastrophic or impacting the story, just minor mistakes (usually, I've noticed, when the change has to do with something I did in my second-to-last pass and I made a mistake correcting/adding/removing something), so I can live with it.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

I've definitely noticed errors after the fact, especially in my earlier works. But the process is onerous and they aren't huge, and I'm intentionally not doing anything about them because I don't want to feed my sense of perfectionism. None of them are catastrophic or impacting the story, just minor mistakes (usually, I've noticed, when the change has to do with something I did in my second-to-last pass and I made a mistake correcting/adding/removing something), so I can live with it.

I read that as erogenous again, AH!

 

[RejectReality]

Editing anything nowadays is playing with fire, because you have no idea if the AI detector is going to cough up a hairball on you.

On top of that, it takes an excruciatingly long time to process. On top of that it's damn near pointless for anything that isn't an error that makes you want to curl up in a fetal position and cry, because most of the people who read something old in your catalog already like your writing enough to dig into it, and are going to overlook flubs. The one exception would sort of be a series you're about to continue, because new people will tend to start at the beginning, so cleaning up early chapters/episodes could have retention power.

Editing should get a little quicker and a lot easier once the point-n-click editing actually goes live. Versioning will make it easier for Laurel ( already being tested in a somewhat wide fashion via Story Games ) and not having to do the archaic submit with a note in the title will make it less opaque and intuitive for authors.

Doesn't cure the AI pitfall or the "what's the point" problems.

Best just to get it as right as you can the first time, and take your lumps for anything you missed. People appreciate humble.

 

[live4thebj]

Well I just submitted the story today. I literally lost count how many times I read it edited it and so on. The last piece was I felt the sex scene was too rushed. Got that out of the way and one last edit and submitted. This time after a long time I am allowing comments. Let’s see what the readers think.

 

[ClintonBrooks]

I was poking around my account and somehow found myself re-reading my highest rated story. I get to the second page and I found two OBVIOUS errors. I must have gone over that story at least 3 times including using MS Word spell and grammar check and yet I totally missed those two. Bothers me because it was almost flawless. Ugh!

I did this on my first story I published. On the second word of the story, I wrote, "peaked" instead of "peeked". I missed it despite multiple reads. I tried to let it alone, but after a month I could just let it sit there, so I submitted an updated version, which allowed me to fix a couple of other little things too.

I think my mind grows numb to my story after editing and re-reading it.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I did this on my first story I published. On the second word of the story, I wrote, "peaked" instead of "peeked". I missed it despite multiple reads. I tried to let it alone, but after a month I could just let it sit there, so I submitted an updated version, which allowed me to fix a couple of other little things too.

I think my mind grows numb to my story after editing and re-reading it.

This has peaked peeked piqued my interest.

It's easy to start getting the mind numbies when editing, which is why reading aloud can be so useful, because your brain reads the word(s) you meant, not necessarily the word(s) on the page. Editing on a computer is probably the most difficult way to edit. Printing things out can be good, but read-alouds are one of the best tools, especially if it's not you reading it.

 

[Bazzle]

Normally found in the first two paragraphs

 

[RetroFan]

It happens and it is very hard to pick up especially in longer stories. Once in a story about urban exploring in an abandoned theme park the MFC gets her period early that month and I mention her unwrapping a sanitary pad, then mention her doing the same thing two paragraphs later.

A similar theme can also throw you. For example the main setting of one of my Halloween stories is an American high school in Connecticut 1959 and the principal is a strict, humorless middle-aged man. I also have another story that takes place at Halloween 1960, and although set across the country in San Francisco and a different premise the MMC is a high-school teacher with a mooching and cheating wife and his boss is the principal, a strict and humorless middle-aged man. And although the two principals have different names the similarity caused me to make a mistake and once reference the principal in the 1959 story by the same name as the one in the 1960 story written several years earlier.

Most amusing was a fat fetish/BBW story I wrote where the MMC has been lusting over the FMC for years and when they finally have sex he reflects that 'it was worth the weight' not 'worth the wait'.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

When it's here, what's done is done. I rarely if ever read anything after it's published, so I don't see it.

 

[lc69hunter]

I was poking around my account and somehow found myself re-reading my highest rated story. I get to the second page and I found two OBVIOUS errors. I must have gone over that story at least 3 times including using MS Word spell and grammar check and yet I totally missed those two. Bothers me because it was almost flawless. Ugh!

I wrote a story about something that happened in the 70's, and referenced cell phone conversations. The readers jumped on that very quickly. I pulled the story, repaired it and republished

 

[live4thebj]

I wrote a story about something that happened in the 70's, and referenced cell phone conversations. The readers jumped on that very quickly. I pulled the story, repaired it and republished

That’s funny. Did you make it a rotary phone at least?

 

[lovecraft68]

Missing an error in your story: