Francis Berger
  • Blog
  • My Work

Typos Breed Typos

4/19/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Nothing irritates me more than typos.  When it comes to others making them, I am quite forgiving; however, when it comes to my own work, typos drive me insane.  Typos are frustrating because I am utterly blind to most of them.  I simply do not see them in the text because I am reading what is in my head rather than what is on the page.  This is especially true of longer pieces or projects on which I spend an enormous amount of time.  After I finished what I believed at the time to be the final draft of The City of Earthly Desire, I was horrified at the amount of typos and errors early readers noticed - typos and errors which I did not see at all. 

I have completed several revisions of the novel since then, carving away the typos and errors bit-by-bit.  The current text of the novel is much cleaner than the first I placed on the market nearly two years ago, but as I am completing what I hope will be my final proofread of the novel I am noticing something rather troubling within the text.  In my seemingly never-ending quest to root out typos, I am, in some instances, creating and planting more typos.  This happens most frequently in the cut-and-paste parts of my corrections where I accidentally cut out an article or pronoun or paste an extra article or pronoun in the text without noticing. This results in sentences like:

 "but he accepted it as part of of some cleansing process . . ."

"He left town for a few days, but he'll back"

These are not huge errors, but they do affect the flow of the prose and there are many errors like the ones above in the text.  This bothers me immensely.  If I ever get around to writing another novel, I'm going to seriously consider asking for help from a dozen beta-readers and hiring the services of a professional typist to put together the final draft.  I truly believe it would be money well spent. 

 

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    RSS Feed

    Blog and Comments

    Blog posts tend to be spontaneous, unpolished, first draft entries ranging from the insightful and periodically profound to the poorly-argued and occasionally disparaging.
     

    Comments are moderated. Anonymous comments are never published (please use your name or a pseudonym). 

    Emails welcome:

    f er en c ber g er (at) h otm   ail (dot) co m
    Blogs/Sites I Read
    Bruce Charlton's Notions
    Meeting the Masters
    From The Narrow Desert
    Synlogos ✞ Aggregator
    New World Island  
    New World Island YouTube
    ​Steeple Tea
    Berdyaev.com
    Adam Piggott
    Fourth Gospel Blog
    The Orthosphere
    Junior Ganymede

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    June 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    April 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012

    Picture
    A free PDF is also available in My Work. 
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.