No one wants mistakes in their manuscript but how do we avoid them?
Obviously, we should use Spelling and Grammar checks to eliminate those mistypes etc. Make sure you are checking in your language, e.g. English (UK) not English (US), for your market. No excuse these days for spelling errors. Grammar is not so easy. The checker in Word does not have a good grasp of grammar, so it is down to you to know it. It doesn’t understand plural value words such as “people” which require an “are” not an “is”. It may also want you to change punctuation, commas, colons and the like. Is there someone you could trust and ask to do a check for you?
The professionals have a team behind them (see their Acknowledgements) – editors, agents – but even then mistakes get through.
The technical errors:
- The translator of Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole had a suspect with pooh under his fingernails. Left me wondering where he’d concealed Tigger and Piglet.
- Adrian McKinty’s Sean Duffy hired a Ford but, a page later, parked a BMW.
- Ian Fleming fitted Bond with a Walther PPK automatic but added a holster for a pistol.
Checking our own work for errors is necessary but very time-consuming and tiring, yet it must be done. If you have friends and family (and I sincerely hope you do) you could ask them to check a chapter each, rather than the whole novel. That should not be too much of an ask.
Get writing. Best of luck
Keith Lawson
Credits
Photo by Suzy Hazelwood
