Appearing in Public With Your Zipper Open

[dr_mabeuse]

Why is it that a story can look fine to you in Word, but then when it's published on Lit you suddenly see all these terrible ungainly sentences and great slugs of awkward prose, or--worse--entire chunks of the story that are repetitious or unnecessary?

Is it something about that columnar format and font Lit uses that makes all the gaffes suddenly glaringly obvious? Or is it just the knowledge that now you're exposed?

Does this happen to you, too? Or does your stuff read the same when it''s posted as it did when you were writing it?

---dr.M.

 

[minsue]

I vote for your last option, Dr Z. I'm much more critical of anything I do once I let someone else see it. Put it out the for the world to see and suddenly it's unbelievable crap.



Love the thread title, BTW. Well put.

 

[Guest]

I thought this was another political thread about Bush's performances in the debates.

 

[carsonshepherd]

Argh, that drives me insane. In the very first sentence of one of my stories, I put East Coast instead of West Coast- screwing up the whole meaning! and didn't even notice until someone sent me an e-mail pointing it out. I just wanted to go through the floor.

 

[Guest]

Why is it that a story can look fine to you in Word, but then when it's published on Lit you suddenly see all these terrible ungainly sentences and great slugs of awkward prose, or--worse--entire chunks of the story that are repetitious or unnecessary?

Is it something about that columnar format and font Lit uses that makes all the gaffes suddenly glaringly obvious? Or is it just the knowledge that now you're exposed?

Does this happen to you, too? Or does your stuff read the same when it''s posted as it did when you were writing it?

---dr.M.

I wonder if it has something to do with the waiting period before posting.

College profs always lectured me about leaving the term paper or article on the shelf for a week (after it was written) and then getting it out to edit. That enabled you to examine it with fresh eyes.

Is this the same sort of thing, perhaps?

 

[carsonshepherd]

I thought this was another political thread about Bush's performances in the debates.

No, that would be "Appearing in public with karl rove's hand up your ass."

 

[minsue]

No, that would be "Appearing in public with karl rove's hand up your ass."

*coughsputterchoke*

 

[Guest]

*coughsputterchoke*

Coffee spews are so uncomfortable.

Damn, that was funny, carson!

 

[Green_Gem]

Dr M, you hit the nail right on the head about suddenly seeing the glaring gaffes as soon as it goes online. I have had a recent public comment where the reader was very flattering about the story but mentioned he had seen a few typos/grammatical gaffes and I immediately felt my face flush in shame. I'd seen them as soon as they went up and kind of hoped they wouldn't be noticed while I quickly submitted an improved edited version. Ha! Who says the Lit readers aren't alert?!

My problem is that I try to edit as I go along, and so by the tme I'm done with the story, I'm really sick of it, and obviously the final edit is not done with fresh eyes. SweetSubSarah may have a very good point there about putting it aside for a week and then looking at it again, or perhaps I need to get someone else to do a final edit.

Now, anytime you really want to get caught with your zipper down in public, swing past my place...

Green_Gem

 

[English Lady]

I publised a story not long back which i had written for my hubby originally. I changed the names for lit....but I forgot to change the shortened form of a name. so twice in the story the guy was calling out the wrong blummin' name....eeek!

 

[neonlyte]

I publised a story not long back which i had written for my hubby originally. I changed the names for lit....but I forgot to change the shortened form of a name. so twice in the story the guy was calling out the wrong blummin' name....eeek!

I hate it when that happens - she really hits me

 

[English Lady]

I hate it when that happens - she really hits me

*LOL*

 

[Colleen Thomas]

The format may have something to do with it. Sentences that seem to "flow" in word, tend to look very clunky once posted. The arbitrary breakes in the lit format are especially hard on blocks of spoken dialogue, adding pauses that break up the way it should be read to be read as spoken.

On the other hand, many of the gaffes sem to appear like magic once it's posted. I think it's a mental thing too. A kind of removing of blinders that comes when you realize changeing it is no longer a matter of a few key strokes, but no invloves resubmitting. This is especially true of trivial problems that seem to be maliciously happy to know you won't fix them cause they aren't worth the effort.

-Colly

 

[BlackShanglan]

For me, it's a question of perspective. Whenever possible, I sit on my stories for several weeks and then come back to them. It's the only way I can pull myself out of the heat of the moment and see what I have actually written rather than what I intended to write. While it's all still fresh in my mind, I tend to see my mind rather than the paper and it all looks great. I've learned my lesson on posting anything right after it's written, however good I think it. Inevitably, a few weeks' rest brings me back to it appalled with what I missed. Given what still gets *through*, I don't dare post in haste any more.

But at least I have Carson to tell me when I am inadvertantly exposing myself I recommend the service to anyone.

Shanglan

 

[dr_mabeuse]

The format may have something to do with it. Sentences that seem to "flow" in word, tend to look very clunky once posted. The arbitrary breakes in the lit format are especially hard on blocks of spoken dialogue, adding pauses that break up the way it should be read to be read as spoken.

Yeah. I think it's the font too. I write in Times New Roman and it's almost like the serifs hide a lot of screw-ups. When Lit switches it to Arial or whatever it is, all these sentences that seemed to flow now come clunking out like Marley's ghost (hey! an allusion! )

I don't like sans-serif fonts. It always seems to me that they shout a little too much, and look naked and unfriendly.

---dr.M.

 

[millennium_bard]

It drives me nuts when Lit adds breaks where there weren't any before. or conversely eliminates breaks when I had placed them there for good reason.

Still, most of my stories get decent comments, so I'm not too concerned about it

 

[Guest]

... all these sentences that seemed to flow now come clunking out like Marley's ghost (hey! an allusion! )

You silly twat, you're not supposed to point them out. P.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Yeah. I think it's the font too. I write in Times New Roman and it's almost like the serifs hide a lot of screw-ups. When Lit switches it to Arial or whatever it is, all these sentences that seemed to flow now come clunking out like Marley's ghost (hey! an allusion! )

I don't like sans-serif fonts. It always seems to me that they shout a little too much, and look naked and unfriendly.

---dr.M.

I had a friend in college who was a drama major. At parties, if he got drunk enough, he would do shakspearian readings from penthouse variations. For all the laughs, he could make really badly written "stroke" drivel sound good.

So much of the written word, has conotations to the spoken word. Where you put emphasis or a pause can mean a lot.

I think the font here kinda acts like a reverse of my freind. It's more like a clyinical scientist giving a reading of something hot. Kinda cold and non intimate.

-Colly

 

[Alex De Kok]

I have seen it suggested that converting to a different font, then reading through again, can sometimes show up errors. I use Rough Draft as my usual fiction wordprocessor, mainly because of its useful scratchpad where I can make notes without losing the plot, so to speak (sorry!)

Rough Draft, when typing, doesn't break the line where they would be broken when printing. If I save the file with a different font and then load it into a different word processor, Word, say, or OpenOffice, the line breaks occur in different places which also helps in spotting the blunders.

It can help.

Alex

 

[Guest]

Alex, that's a great idea. I'll do that from now on. Thank you!

Perdita

 

[cookiejar]

Heck, I just came in to see dr_m show his bits. What a rip off!

 

[carsonshepherd]

But at least I have Carson to tell me when I am inadvertantly exposing myself I recommend the service to anyone.

He has any number of witty comebacks for that one. But he's being good...

A note: ALWAYS preview your submissions before hitting submit! Talk about exposing oneself?

 

[carsonshepherd]

I don't like sans-serif fonts. It always seems to me that they shout a little too much, and look naked and unfriendly.

I have wondered this a thousand times. What exactly is a serif?
Like... a midieval peasant or something, right?

 

[Liar]

Yeah. I think it's the font too. I write in Times New Roman and it's almost like the serifs hide a lot of screw-ups. When Lit switches it to Arial or whatever it is, all these sentences that seemed to flow now come clunking out like Marley's ghost (hey! an allusion! )

I don't like sans-serif fonts. It always seems to me that they shout a little too much, and look naked and unfriendly.

---dr.M.

I write all my stuff in Arial or Verdana, or sometimes even the fixed width font in Windows Notepad.. That might be why I don't seem to have that particular kind of problem. (Or maybe I just write flawlessly? Not bloody likely.)

And I can't stand Times when reading on a screen. It looks like an ant walked by with a digestion issue. Serif fonts are great for readability, but only if the medium you read on has enough dots per inch resulotion to hide that it IS in fact built by square LEGO blocks. In a book, definitely. Printed on my inkjet, maybe if I don't make the font too small. On screen? So far haven't seen it look right.

#L

 

[Liar]

I have wondered this a thousand times. What exactly is a serif?
Like... a midieval peasant or something, right?

It's the little bends and "feet" at the end of lines in fonts like Times as opposed to Arial, that is straight all the way.

#L