I started this piece quite some considerable time ago. At the time, my novel was in the early stages with the publishers. It has been published over a year now, which tells you something about how long it takes for me to get a job done sometimes!
By sheer fate, and the irony of the universe, just after deciding to write about making mistakes and the value of editing quite some time ago, my publishers sent me an email with the edited version of my novel, The Pukur. It was fascinating – in a horrifying kind of way – to see more or less every single page with ‘track changes’ edits – quite literally, thousands of them.
Here I am, dishing out writing advice, having edited so many books and articles for clients; I should be able to bash out error-free copy for myself without a problem, right?
It would be so lovely if that was true. The reality is somewhat different.
The truth is, we’re really bad at seeing our own mistakes. Take heart though – even the best miss the errors. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve read news reports online from top papers like The Guardian and seen errors in spelling, grammar and, most often, ‘copy and paste’ errors – where, while editing their piece, the authors have moved some text around but forgotten to make sure parts of original sentences haven’t remained behind. It is rare I read a traditionally published book and don’t find errors – even ‘rookie’ ones crop up. In my ‘other life’ as a teacher, I regularly read sections from official exam board text books and see all sorts of errors – and these books – eye wateringly – sell for as much as $50 with ease.
A final example (and one I take great encouragement from): I follow legal commentator, David Allen Green’s regular blog posts. The posts are excellent and written by a highly intelligent man (arguably the best commentator on governmental and political issues around). He enjoys a huge following and is highly respected. While he doesn’t claim to a writer by profession, nevertheless, law is an area where you have to be extremely precise with words and he will be someone who is used to poring over words with a fine toothcomb – indeed, he has even given out such advice to would-be lawyers. And yet, without fail, DAG’s blog posts contain at least one error each time. Often they contain many more. He has, at times, joked about the errors in that self-deprecating way the British do so well.
How can this be? Is he being sloppy? No.
The fact is, none of us see our own words well. We struggle to see any words well, to be honest. Take this well known illusion:
Well done if you noticed that ‘the’ occurred twice. I didn’t spot it the first time I saw it. This next one is absolutely fascinating and speaks for itself:
As it says, we don’t read every letter. We ‘clump’ letters together and recognise them as a shape. We also do this with whole sentences. Our minds ‘fill in’ the sentences as our eyes run along them. Our brains make predictions about what comes next. As long as the words don’t appear at a glance to deviate from what we thought was coming, we accept that our predictions were correct.
No wonder then, when doing our own writing, that mistakes happen. Once the words are written, we don’t ‘see’ them properly after that. Our brains tell us what we expect to be there, rather than what’s actually in print in from of us. From the beginner writer to the finest editor on the planet, we make errors. Ironically (but not unexpected), even my editor made a couple of mistakes in her editing of my book. We’re all human, mistakes will happen and we won’t always see them.
Accept sloppy writing then? No. Learn the tricks for editing and, for big(ger) jobs, get an editor.
Self Editing
Learning to edit is absolutely the key difference between the amateur and professional writer. Most jobbing writers are not using words cleverly. They don’t write brilliant ideas. They simply communicate well and avoid leaving many errors around. You can’t pick them all up (I guarantee you’ll find some in my posts), but you can eliminate the glaring ones that you missed. There’s numerous tricks to use. Here’s a few:
- Take breaks and review – I’ve written this post over the course of several days (Ed note: this was an optimistic line at the time – it’s actually taken years now). It wasn’t intentional, I just got too busy (story of my life). But I took advantage of those breaks to re-read what I’ve written and check for errors. I found at least one error (missed word, faulty punctuation etc) each time and usually ended up rewriting some passages too so they sound better. Never ever write something and then immediately publish or send off to publishers. Always take breaks and come back – even if just an hour later to go through once more before pressing send.
- Leave in the ‘top drawer’ – extending the first point, it used to be advised that you leave manuscripts in your top drawer back in the days when people were writing hardcopy and either typing or handwriting their work. Leave it in the top drawer and then come back to it a few days later. The same advice works today except the ‘top drawer’ is on your desktop or in a special folder where you can come back to it when you’re ready. With practice, you don’t need to leave work for days. I leave work for one day if there’s no deadlines to meet. If I need to get an article to an editor faster, I make sure I finish writing in the morning, leave for a few hours and then edit in the afternoon. At the very least, go make a cup of tea (something I’m going to do right now!) and come back after a tea break before doing your editing.
- Edit in reverse – This was a genius piece of advice I picked up from god-knows-where a long time ago which is super. The idea is this: edit your last paragraph first, then second to last and so on until you edit your first paragraph last of all. Its simplicity disguises how clever this is. By doing the editing backwards, your brain is thrown off-kilt, as it were, and causes you to read more carefully rather than ‘assuming’ the words you’re reading simply because you know where they’re going.
- Develop editing habits in all your work – By this I mean: edit everything you write – even text messages. We all spend a crazy amount of time out of the real world and on our devices. In many ways it is possible we all do more writing than we ever did before the internet age, but it is easy to ignore this because we ‘only’ write short form – texts, email replies, messages, comments, tweets and so on. Instead of blasting these off as soon as you’ve written them, take the time to look over them and edit. I confess, in the midst of an argument on Twitter (X, but I refuse to call it that), I don’t do this often enough and that always comes back to bite me on the ass. People on Twitter can be insanely horrid (and yes, that includes me – Twitter brings out the worst in you); they will crucify you for errors.
- Don’t ignore spellcheck – this may sound obvious, but many of us ignore the red wriggly lines we see so often. Spellchecks and grammar checks have come a long way from the early days when suggestions were wrong more often than right. As long as you make sure they are set to the right language (so, as I’m British, I have my spellcheck et al set to UK English and not US, Canadian, Indian or a host of other versions), then they are very useful and accurate these days.
- Not every mistake is actually a mistake – I’m being contentious here but I do believe this firmly. Many grammar rules are simply nonsense. Often they were made up by individuals who had a particular axe to grind – such as the absurd ‘never split an infinitive’ rule. Some are basically obsolete now – such as few/less, which/that, or the ‘proper’ use of semicolons. Some are changeable. Use of hyphens, for instance, always change. Once upon a time, ‘weekend’ was hyphenated. Now it isn’t. Generally, this happens with hyphenated words; they become one and drop the hyphen. Language is changing all the time and, ironically, it isn’t the English professors changing it: it is the common people. Usage dictates the rules; it isn’t the other way around. So the upshot is this: write as efficiently and clearly as you can, and use grammar and spelling to help you do that. Where communication is improved through following a rule, there the rule still has value. But often, old ways of doing things don’t matter any longer. Don’t let the ‘rules’ worry you. Use them as tools – useful ones – to help you.
Get an editor
This is advice that writing ‘experts’ say all the time and it is routinely ignored by all writers – budding or experienced – unless they happen to be lucky enough to work full time and can afford one.
Editors don’t come cheap. If you’re a low-budget writer or just starting out on this career, then you’re unlikely to recoup the cost of an editor for a long time to come – if at all. But then, if you’ve read the previous parts in this series, you’ll know I don’t advocate writing for a living – there’s easier ways to earn money. Write because you have something to say and want people to read it, not to get rich. Very few manage that. If you have that frame of mind, then an editor is worth the cost to make sure you communicate what you want to say as effectively as possible.
I’ve had assistants in the past whom I employed to spellcheck, order my writings, or organise parts of some of my sites. Recently, I’ve taken on someone new to help me with social media and to get me writing my new book. She. Has. Been. A. Godsend.
Not only has she rejuvenated my desire to write, but she’s freed up my time so I can concentrate on the writing itself by keeping the rest of my world in order. Most of all, she’s reading, revising and editing my work and keeping it error free.
I can’t say how much I love this woman for sorting me out and giving me the safety net I need to get back to writing properly. I’ve been coasting too long since covid. Plus it is nice to share this journey with someone. Writing is a lonely business usually.
Not everyone gets to be in the privileged position I’m in where they can hire someone to work with them every day, every month. But you can definitely hire an editor to proofread your book, make suggestions and guide you towards writing the best thing you’ve ever written. Trust me, an editor is well worth the expense.
Mistakes are okay
Whatever you decide to do, let me say again: mistakes are okay. Everyone makes them; not every mistake gets picked up. The big difference between the amateur and the professional is the pride and effort taken to make sure you said what you meant to say. A piece riddled with spelling errors, grammar gaffes and generally confused waffle, just looks like you didn’t care. A piece with the odd mistake here or there probably won’t even be noticed. The important thing is that you get out there and write. Mistakes can always be corrected, trust me.
Read all A Brief Guide to Writing here:
A Brief Guide to Writing: 1 – Introduction
A Brief Guide to Writing: 2 – Why you shouldn’t be a writer
A Brief Guide to Writing: 3 – Thinking like a writer
A Brief Guide to Writing: 4 – Budgeting income as a writer
A Brief Guide to Writing: 5 – Mistakes, editing and you
A Brief Guide to Writing: 6 – The Writer and The Black Dog of Doom
A Brief Guide to Writing: 7 – Feedback
A Brief Guide to Writing: 8 – What Happened to That Damned Turtle?
A Brief Guide to Writing: 9 – Instant Plots
Social Entrepreneur, educationalist, bestselling author and journalist, D K Powell is the author of the bestselling collection of literary short stories “The Old Man on the Beach“. His first book, ‘Sonali’ is a photo-memoir journal of life in Bangladesh and has been highly praised by the Bangladeshi diaspora worldwide. Students learning the Bengali language have also valued the English/Bengali translations on every page. His third book is ‘Try not to Laugh’ and is a guide to memorising, revising and passing exams for students.
Both ‘The Old Man on the Beach’ and ‘Sonali’ are available on Amazon for kindle and paperback. Published by Shopno Sriti Media. The novel,’The Pukur’, was published by Histria Books in 2022.
D K Powell is available to speak at events (see his TEDx talk here) and can be contacted at dkpowell.contact@gmail.com. Alternatively, he is available for one-to-one mentoring and runs a course on the psychology of writing. Listen to his life story in interview with the BBC here.
Ken writes for a number of publications around the world. Past reviewer for Paste magazine, The Doughnut, E2D and United Airways and Lancashire Life magazine. Currently reviews for Northern Arts Review. His reviews have been read more than 7.9 million times.
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