Evening authors! So, what is your favorite misspelled word? No
I don’t mean in the sense of funny things that come about like my tentacle/ testicle
snafu. What this post will be focusing on is an editing tip that many of you
may not even realize. We, all of us, have certain words that we have a bad
habit of misspelling. Sometimes this gets to be a major issue if the misspelling
is another word entirely. This could be an issue of “learning bad habits” where
you were you memorized it that way and it just stuck or it may be an issue of
getting words mixed up. Whatever the issue, I’ll give you some tips on how to
fix or avoid the problems.
Grammar Nazi Pet Peeves.
This section has to do with word choice and is actually one
of the most covered in traditional schools. Things like “their, they’re, there”
and “whose vs who’s”. These are major grammar issues that get the Grammar Nazi’s
rolling in with a red pen Panzer Division. A PENzer Division if you will. There
is a long list of these types of problems, and for brevity sake I’ll not
include a list here. (If you wish for a longer list let me know and, if I get
enough interest, I’ll work something out.)
Homonyms: Peek/Peak, Stair/Stare
Homonyms, the word itself is funny, but the issues they
cause during editing are nothing of the sort. For those bad with vocabulary, homonyms
are words with different spellings and meanings, but are pronounced the same.
They can crop up in your writing as you are visualizing the elements of the
story and quickly writing it out before you lose the “mental picture.” The creative
side of the brain (right) is separate from the side that controls words (Left),
so this sort of problem can rear its ugly head every now and then. There’s
nothing wrong at all with it happening. The trick is to RECOGNIZE that fact,
and keep in mind you have to fix it during edit.
The “I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”
These annoying errors have to do with a word choice error
caused by confusion of meaning. Homonyms have a presence in this category, but
it’s more than that. An example from my own list(that’s also a homonym): clinch
and clench. For this pair only one letter separates the meaning from the
intended and wrong. One (clinch) means to confirm, the other (clench) means
closing into a tight ball. A random pair of commonly misused words is elicit
and illicit. Elicit means to bring about something. “A soft touch of his hand elicits
a growing smile from his companion.” Illicit means illegal and can be remembered
since they both start with “ill.”Example: “His illicit activities landed
him in jail.” They are obviously two different words with completely separate meanings,
right? However, if you confuse the words you may make the same mistake
repeatedly throughout your transcript, and never be the wiser.
What now wise guy?
The important part: Fixes! If you couldn’t tell from my
previous posts, I am a big fan of lists. Having side documents help me organize
my thoughts and helps prevent me from forgetting important things. On top of
that, it is impossible to know and remember everything, unless you are an immortal
with a perfect memory that is. For these problems, lists are an important step.
Unfortunately, you’re not likely to know it’s happening until a beta-reader
gets a look at it. If any of your beta-readers point out even ONE instance of
the above, or similar, issues make a note of it in a list. Then you need to
search the entire document with the ever faithful “Find” feature. Find and
replace is okay, but you have to be very careful as misclicks can make
unfortunate changes.
Others may have the mindset of: “Why not just avoid causing
those problems in the first place?” That is an awesome idea, thank you for
sharing that thought with us, Captain Obvious, but unfortunately we are only
mere mortals and SOMETIMES make mistakes. Of course once you make note of the
problem, and repeatedly have to fix it, you’ll make mental changes and make the
mistake less often. Eventually this self-editing will eliminate the problem but,
in the meantime, lists can help you target your personal list of common errors
and raise the quality of your writing.
--Kirk
