ronde
Really Experienced
- Joined
- Jan 21, 2001
- Posts
- 908
The worst for me was changing a name in the story but leaving the original name in the title. I got several comments like, "Who the hell is Martin?" It happened like it usually does for me. I started with one name and in the middle of writing, I changed it. I did go back and change the name in all the story, just not in the title.Just had a new story released and the second comment called me out on a pretty major character's name changing from Susan to Sarah about two-thirds of the way through the story. Now, I've been working on this story for a while and have read it and re-read it dozens of times. So, why did I not see this? Sure, I need an outside editor but I hate to impose...
Question for you is, I'm pretty sure we've all had it happen. What's your most egregious miss.
Don't feel bad about your mistake. I've done it more than once. You didn't find it because of the way our brains work. Your brain remembers what you wrote, and when you proof-read, if it sees an error, it just mentally corrects it to what it remembered.
The only cure is some significant time between the reading and the writing, enough time for your brain to forget what you wrote. For me that's at least a week and two weeks is better.
There is a way to find all the name changes in a story. Use the spell checker in your word processor. Type in the correct name and then let the spellchecker find all the occurrences of that name. If you're sure you used the name in a linethe spellchecker didn't find, find that line and check the name. Also, if you do spot a name change, use the spellchecker to search for the incorrect name and change them as you go.