Looking a gift horse in the mouth

[Joesephus]

As anyone who has read my stories knows, I need help with editing.

Bless all who are will to spend time fixing my grammar, punctuation, and typos; especially given the magnitude of the task and the pay scale. However, in part because of my language skills, more properly the lack of them, I need more than the easy stuff. I'm not looking for someone to write for me but to take a critical eye at my writing and send me to the woodshed--often.

I can develop diarrhea of mouth at the drop of an adjective, but I just don't see it. Because I don't know if words are common or obscure I will use inappropriate ones regularly.

I guess I suffer from still being a student in addition to being a new writer. I want a prof to mark up my manuscript with vitriolic comments in blood red and send back the mangled body for resuscitation.

I'm arrogant enough to believe that I can do better if my shortcoming are pointed out to me, so...

Now, all this fatuous and bloated prose was to ask the simple question, how does one pick from among the 750 volunteer editors? I'd like to have three or four so I don't overload any one with all the re-writes I need to do.

Because Literotica won't let me connect unless I use a dial-up on my friend's computer, I can't hang out here as much as I'd like to. Thus my responses will slow.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I beg your pardon.




Allow me to suggest this. There's a quite useful grammar/writing text out there called "The Blair Handbook." It's been a great help to me. You might try that, or you might try any other, but I strongly recommend that you go to a real actual grammar text and work with it. Sometimes individual people have the rules a little confused; at other times, they know that you need a comma, but they don't know why. If you get too much of that, it will just hopelessly confuse you and muddle what you do know. It's a better plan to find something that sets out the real rules clearly and distinctly and that helps you to learn them. It's not the most immediate answer to editing your stories, but if, as you say, you are interested in becoming more proficient in the long run, I think that's the way to go.

 

[NoJo]

I need help with editing.

There you go, I edited your post for you.

 

[Weird Harold]

Now, all this fatuous and bloated prose was to ask the simple question, how does one pick from among the 750 volunteer editors? I'd like to have three or four so I don't overload any one with all the re-writes I need to do.

What I have done in the past is to pick ten to twelve volunteer editors based on their "blurbs" and contact all of them. That netted me five editors that responded to my requests. Three of the five turned out to be not the kind of editor I needed or could work with, so I repeated the process to find three more until I found five editors I could work with that were providing the feedback I needed.

The only way to find out if any particular editor is someone who you can work with and is proviing you with the kind of feedback you need, is to contact them and give them a shot at your story.

The reason I looked for five editors instead of one editor is because I've found that each editor finds different flaws in a story and combining multiple edits gives me a much better final product than relying on a single editor.

If you have access to MSWord or WordPerfect, the grammar check can be a useful learning tool if you take the time to understand why the grammar check thinks something is an error. Sometimes using a name like Frank or Mark can confuse a grammar check because the are words with multiple possible meanings. But being confused isn't the same thing as being wrong; if you can figure out why the confusion happened, you can learn from even "false faults."

 

[cantdog]

Cold, man.

 

[Joesephus]

Cold, man.

Forgive me, I'm not sure I understand.

 

[Joesephus]

I beg your pardon.




Allow me to suggest this. There's a quite useful grammar/writing text out there called "The Blair Handbook." It's been a great help to me. You might try that, or you might try any other, but I strongly recommend that you go to a real actual grammar text and work with it. Sometimes individual people have the rules a little confused; at other times, they know that you need a comma, but they don't know why. If you get too much of that, it will just hopelessly confuse you and muddle what you do know. It's a better plan to find something that sets out the real rules clearly and distinctly and that helps you to learn them. It's not the most immediate answer to editing your stories, but if, as you say, you are interested in becoming more proficient in the long run, I think that's the way to go.

I have read several different grammar guides and when I'm finished I think I underestand. It's applying those rules to what I write that seems a high hurdle.

I'm also slightly dyslexic and a careless typist so I leave off word ending, that creats certain grammar problems. However, I don't see them. Nor do I see the missing words. I also rarely see the extra words left over after I edit something to make it smoother.

Generally, most editors can find those sort of things. However, very few, have said "this 20K piece should be boiled down to 10k here are areas you might consider cutting."

 

[Joesephus]

What I have done in the past is to pick ten to twelve volunteer editors based on their "blurbs" and contact all of them. That netted me five editors that responded to my requests. Three of the five turned out to be not the kind of editor I needed or could work with, so I repeated the process to find three more until I found five editors I could work with that were providing the feedback I needed.

The only way to find out if any particular editor is someone who you can work with and is proviing you with the kind of feedback you need, is to contact them and give them a shot at your story.

The reason I looked for five editors instead of one editor is because I've found that each editor finds different flaws in a story and combining multiple edits gives me a much better final product than relying on a single editor.

If you have access to MSWord or WordPerfect, the grammar check can be a useful learning tool if you take the time to understand why the grammar check thinks something is an error. Sometimes using a name like Frank or Mark can confuse a grammar check because the are words with multiple possible meanings. But being confused isn't the same thing as being wrong; if you can figure out why the confusion happened, you can learn from even "false faults."

Thank you! I'll give that a shot. I didn't know if other had done somethng like that or not. I do always use Word's grammar checker. There are a few messages that I can't figure out on a regular basis, but it is still a good exercise.

 

[Joesephus]

There you go, I edited your post for you.

To show how dense I can be I kept going back to the orginal to see what chnages you'd made. Blush, very well done too!

 

[entitled]

Forgive me, I'm not sure I understand.

Cant's just odd. We lurve him anyway.

 

[cantdog]

Forgive me, I'm not sure I understand.

Sorry, my antecedents. I was calling Joe cold.

 

[Guest]

There you go, I edited your post for you.

maybe its just the beer talking but
*snicker*
you always make me laugh, monkey boy.