Proofreading Through Your Own Writing Weaknesses

Every writer has strengths and weaknesses.  At some point, it's important for each writer to recognize what their particular weaknesses are.

I made a list of my weaknesses and it's an expanding list that I add to with every book I write.  You can see a glimpse of part of it to the left.

This list is within a longer document I call "Info - Proofreading" and I keep lists of lots of things to check regarding the development elements of a storyline, my own personal troublesome words, and other information that I want to remind myself of about proofreading in general.

I pull this list up when I get ready to proofread and scan it to remind myself of all that I want to check for.  I have my notes about Writing a Novel in 8 Layers also in this document.

The above list of troublesome words is at the end of the long proofreading list and I add to it every time I find a word that was misspelled and I read over without noticing the mistake.  This way, I'm keeping track of my weaknesses as an author and writer.

Some of the words are spelling traps for me.  Some of them are just words I tend to use too often and some are the adverbs that are frowned upon these days like just, really and very.

Once I review the list I then go into some other strategies that I have developed over the 14 to 16 nooks I have written.  I go into them below and I also have a video at the end of this blog post where I go into it live.

I search and find each of my troublesome words to make sure I've used them and/or spelled them properly.

Once I'm done with that list, I search through the document using the Control F (Find feature) to check that all of my quotes have an open quotation mark and a close quotation mark.  It takes a little time to do this, but I feel much more secure when I check them.  I ALWAYS find an extra one or a couple of missing quotation marks.

USING ALL CAPS TO FOCUS:

Another strategy I have developed regarding troublesome words is that I used the Fine and Replace Feature.  By capitalizing the words, there's no way I can read over them.  It forces me to stop and analyze each one to make sure I am making a decision about each word.

Let me give you an example:  In my last novel, I replaced all of the HE WAS and SHE WAS verbs with all capitals so that I could look at each one and decide whether I could use a more descriptive verb.  I found this very helpful.  Now, this does make the first proofread a bit tedious, but it's okay.  I would rather move slowly through the first proofread to make sure I address all of my tricky words.

READ ALOUD WITH MICROSOFT WORD:

After proofreading the text for my spelling, grammar, and verb weaknesses, I then shift over and use the "Read Aloud" feature in Microsoft Word and I listen to the book read back to me.  This feature may only be available in Microsoft 365, but there are certainly plenty of other platforms where you can copy and paste your manuscript chapter by chapter and have it read back to you.

WHAT ABOUT THE EDITOR?

Now, some of you may say, why bother if you're just going to hand over the manuscript to an editor?

I do this much proofreading because I don't want to pay for an editor to go through my manuscript like a grammar school teacher with a red pen correcting  silly mistakes I made from typing too fast, reading over my troublesome words, or my sloppy grammar problem. I want the editor to have a clean manuscript so they can concentrate on and check the details of the story, my time references and make sure the storyline makes sense.  I want them to make sure I haven't assumed the reader knows something too soon and other details like this.

I have found that with a clean manuscript, this is where my editors are focused. The mistakes they find and/or suggestions they make are all ones I missed and would have continued to miss.

Great proofreading on a writer's end
leads to a more valuable and
higher-grade professional edit.

I hope these quick proofreading tips will help other writers get up on their feet quicker than I did.  I try to write blog articles and do the videos I wanted to see when I was first starting out.

Below is a panel of my books that are all available on Amazon for sale.

CHECK OUT THE VIDEO THAT GOES ALONG WITH THIS BLOG POST BELOW:

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});