bookCommon Writing Mistakes

http://freereads.topcities.com/commonwritingmistakes.html

Most books aren't rejected because the stories are "bad." They're rejected because they're not "ready to read." In short, minor stuff like typos, grammar, spelling, etc.

I don't mean places where we, as authors, deliberately break the rules. Those are fine. They're our job. Language always changes with use, and we can help it on its way. No, I'm referring to places where someone just plain didn't learn the rule or got confused or overlooked it during the self-edits.

I've been editing novels for over a year. Looking back at my experiences, I feel like sharing the most common mistakes I've seen. If you'll go through your manuscript and fix these before you submit it to a publisher, your odds of publication will increase dramatically.

Once you've found a publisher who publishes what you write, you want to present yourself in the best way possible. Submitting an unedited manuscript is a bit like going to a job interview wearing a purple Mohawk, no shoes, torn jeans, and a T-shirt. Your resume may be perfect, and your qualifications impeccable, but something tells me you won't get the job.

The publisher's investing a lot in every book it accepts. E-publishers tend to invest loads of time, and print publishers tend to invest an advertising budget and the cost of carrying a large inventory. Why ask them to invest hours and days of editing time as well? If the publisher gets two or three or ten nearly identical books, you want yours to be the one requiring the least editing.

The first thing you need to do, and I hope you've already done it, is use the spelling and grammar checkers in your word processor. It'll catch many of the "common mistakes" on my list. But I've been asked to edit many books where the author obviously didn't do this, and I confess that I may have been lazy and let a couple of mine get to my editors unchecked. Bad Michael!

There are some other valuable lists on-line at the following websites:

Common Errors in English
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors

Words That Are Often Confused
http://lbarker.orcon.net.nz/words.html

Here's a list of the mistakes I see most often.


Feel free to drop me a line at laroccamichael@hotmail.com.

e-mail to laroccamichael@hotmail.com

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