Errors

I read a great story over the weekend, only spoiled by the fact it was full of errors. There was a common thread and that was not to have the apostrophes denoting possession, i.e., Susan’s dog, although these were in place some of the time. Then there were the basic errors of wrong words, like had instead of head, for example. I actually really enjoyed the story. It was well-written, had a good plot, great characterization, was fast-paced, just full of errors.

Having written two books myself and these blogs, I know how easy it is for the eye to miss a mistake and read the sentence as if the offending word is correct. It often takes a further set of eyes, or placing the writing in a different format, to pick something up. I know I have been guilty of putting out a blog with a mistake, using their when I meant there, for example and I’ll pick it up after I have published the blog, in a further reading. It becomes very hard to critique one’s writing for the umpteenth time as well, as I found out when I sent my last book to production. With each step, I was sent a copy to okay the text. Each time I picked up more errors, mostly minor, but errors just the same. I okayed the final viewing before the print run, only to find two more, minor errors. To correct these, I had to order 50 more copies, which I did. The books in the first print run all contained these mistakes. In my first book, which I paid an editor to examine, (I used an editor for the second as well) a couple of errors also escaped our eyes. Once again, I was sent a copy for final perusal before printing, but missed them.

I know grammar rules have relaxed somewhat since I was at school and I definitely know that in many young people, they are non-existent. One just needs to read a bit of Facebook to see this. But for a book, that is out there for all to read, it is off-putting to come across mistake after mistake.

And this is not the only book I have read like this, lately. The first one was also a great read but like the one above, it contained many errors, to me, spoiling the overall quality of the book.

Now my next dilemma is, do I say something? I enjoyed the story, that I can be honest about but I know how precious some people can be towards their work. Any criticism becomes like an attack on that person, rather than just on what is written. I developed a tough skin, regarding my writing, when I was a journalist. Articles were cut and sliced to fit a hole, rewritten for a more dramatic finish, or given a totally inappropriate headline, when the sub-editor hadn’t actually read the story they were giving the title to. As journalists, with our names on said articles, we had to carry all of this. Something along the lines of ‘’suck it up buttercup’’.

It is easy to be critical of another’s work and I am super conscious of someone reading this blog and picking up grammatical errors. ‘’Well, she can’t exactly talk.’’ My spell check wants me to add a comma after story in the paragraph above but I have overruled it as I don’t think one is necessary there. And then I had to check on the internet to see if a hyphen was required for overruled in the last sentence. We are fortunate in today’s world in that we can find our answers in mere seconds. More the reason to not have work full of errors.