Frederikke Byron's Blog - Posts Tagged "advice"
The typo that ruined your life
We all know them. We all make them daily. Yet we are ruthless when we find them in other people's work.
Typos.
I think I can safely say, that typos are something that most writers fear pops up in their newly published manuscripts, as they can completely ruin the meaning of a sentence.
My favorite mistake, that luckily one of my tests readers informed me about, is the following:
"I'm king of bleeding out". Here one 'g' instead of a 'd' completely decimates this otherwise very serious sentence and turns it into a laughing stock. But, what can you do other than laugh about it? I mean, it's hilarious.
Luckily this was caught by one of my test readers, but this next typo was not:
"I crabbed my ankle". Ow... You can imagine my utter panic when I found out that this specific mistake had made it through the ever watchful eyes of my tests readers, and escaped to be published! What a difference a 'c' makes.
When you're in your own world, your fingers dashing over the keyboard, you don't think about whether or not an 'h' sneaks into 'were', or if you missed a letter here or there. A good example of missing a letter is this:
"I shot him an annoyed glace". How do you shoot someone a glace? Of course here a pesky little 'n' is missing, but it had a huge effect on the sentence.
I could go on about the different typo's I found when going through my work, but it would take me all day.
Instead, I will give you some advice. Whether you are writing a new bestselling novel, or if you are working on a school project, or finishing your master thesis, then these three things could save you a lot of grief.
1. Test readers. They will notice the biggest mistakes, such as "king of bleeding out", and give you great input on the content.
2. Read your text out loud. This way, you will for sure notice if one or more sentences makes no sense.
3. Use services such as "Grammarly" to check your work after you've finished.
For "The Seeker", this program helped me notice the "crabbed" instead of "grabbed" incident, and around 1000 other small mistakes. But as seen, small mistakes can make all the difference in the world.
Thank you for reading!
You can read a sample of my new book "The Seeker" here:
https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin...
Typos.
I think I can safely say, that typos are something that most writers fear pops up in their newly published manuscripts, as they can completely ruin the meaning of a sentence.
My favorite mistake, that luckily one of my tests readers informed me about, is the following:
"I'm king of bleeding out". Here one 'g' instead of a 'd' completely decimates this otherwise very serious sentence and turns it into a laughing stock. But, what can you do other than laugh about it? I mean, it's hilarious.
Luckily this was caught by one of my test readers, but this next typo was not:
"I crabbed my ankle". Ow... You can imagine my utter panic when I found out that this specific mistake had made it through the ever watchful eyes of my tests readers, and escaped to be published! What a difference a 'c' makes.
When you're in your own world, your fingers dashing over the keyboard, you don't think about whether or not an 'h' sneaks into 'were', or if you missed a letter here or there. A good example of missing a letter is this:
"I shot him an annoyed glace". How do you shoot someone a glace? Of course here a pesky little 'n' is missing, but it had a huge effect on the sentence.
I could go on about the different typo's I found when going through my work, but it would take me all day.
Instead, I will give you some advice. Whether you are writing a new bestselling novel, or if you are working on a school project, or finishing your master thesis, then these three things could save you a lot of grief.
1. Test readers. They will notice the biggest mistakes, such as "king of bleeding out", and give you great input on the content.
2. Read your text out loud. This way, you will for sure notice if one or more sentences makes no sense.
3. Use services such as "Grammarly" to check your work after you've finished.
For "The Seeker", this program helped me notice the "crabbed" instead of "grabbed" incident, and around 1000 other small mistakes. But as seen, small mistakes can make all the difference in the world.
Thank you for reading!
You can read a sample of my new book "The Seeker" here:
https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin...
