Mistakes you should never make

[Dark_Logan_]

Have only just realised that in the course of making my most recent submission I've cut and paste an early draft not a proof read/edited version of the tale.

Surprised that it got to over 5,500 reads with a dozen likes before anyone pointed it out.

Along with the hideous spelling and grammar of the draft the fact that one of the main characters names flip flops from being Pippa to Rosie must be hideously jarring for the reader.

Edit submitted so I'll suffer the ignominy until its changed in punishment for not proof reading what I uploaded before hitting submit.

If only to make me feel a little better about myself; what's the biggest submission error you've made?

(don't tell me you're perfect)

 

[SimonDoom]

I made the same mistake. I was writing two stories at once, and when I submitted the first one I had inadvertently referred to the female character by the name of the female character in the other story. This was pointed out to me by a reader before I discovered the error, but I submitted an editing request to the Site and the change was made.

 

[StillStunned]

Not here, but for a professional editing job: I sent a text back to a client with "pubic" instead of "public".

Here I've left in a couple of typos, but the only mistake I've made was one of consistency, where I described a character's dagger as heavy, and later as slim. I got that one changed.

 

[TheLobster]

Not here, but for a professional editing job: I sent a text back to a client with "pubic" instead of "public".

Here, the error would go in the opposite direction.

 

[StillStunned]

Here, the error would go in the opposite direction.

When your mother has public hair, it's really time to get out the trimmer, I don't care what Anonybush says.

 

[Dark_Logan_]

Not here, but for a professional editing job: I sent a text back to a client with "pubic" instead of "public".

Here I've left in a couple of typos, but the only mistake I've made was one of consistency, where I described a character's dagger as heavy, and later as slim. I got that one changed.

I can better that

About 15 years ago professionally I once replied to an email forgetting to omit the customer, thinking I was responding to colleagues.

Calling him a "Bullying Sh*t of Man" could've gone worse and led to a very awkward apology before he actually admitted he was applying undue pressure to some of my team !!

 

[alohadave]

Surprised that it got to over 5,500 reads with a dozen likes before anyone pointed it out.

One of my stories has thousands of views and only one person (on another site) pointed out that I stopped mid-sentence in one part.

I was going to flesh it out, and never got back to that part.

 

[intim8]

the fact that one of the main characters names flip flops from being Pippa to Rosie must be hideously jarring for the reader.

Just tag it "surrealism" and it becomes high concept art.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Don't be in too big of a hurry to take the plea bargain.

 

[lovecraft68]

Few months back I submitted a story, and there was a site glitch where the last section never came through. I didn't realize it until the first few comments all mentioned it. I PM'd Laurel and told her I'd submitted the story again, and she fast tracked deleting the original and getting the new one up.

The mind blowing thing was the incomplete story was still in the 4.7's with mostly positive comments....

 

[Dark_Logan_]

Few months back I submitted a story, and there was a site glitch where the last section never came through. I didn't realize it until the first few comments all mentioned it. I PM'd Laurel and told her I'd submitted the story again, and she fast tracked deleting the original and getting the new one up.

The mind blowing thing was the incomplete story was still in the 4.7's with mostly positive comments....

TBF I've still got one of my tales that's missing the final two lines.... fortunately it ends just as well and slightly ambiguous without those two lines so I've never revisited and kept the intended twist to myself

 

[Britva415]

what's the biggest submission error you've made?

I wrote and published chapter 6 before writing and publishing chapter 5. I actually tried numbering it "chapter 6" but it got rejected because of the mis-sequence, so, for now, it's chapter 5 and when I do publish chapter 5 I'll have to publish a title edit to chapter 6 at the same time.

Skipping the chapter doesn't fuck up the series reading. They're a collection of vignettes which do have a temporal order, but each one's narrative doesn't depend on previous narratives. Still, when chapter 5 is published, it'll add some completion and fill in a small blank in the series.

 

[THBGato]

Don't be in too big of a hurry to take the plea bargain.

Don't think anyone's going to post anything more serious than that.

(All I've done is muddle some characters' names. Submitted an edit after @intim8 pointed it out - thanks.)

 

[Britva415]

We still talking about Lit?

 

[LoquiSordidaAdMe]

Don't be in too big of a hurry to take the plea bargain.

There's never a "spit-take" emoji when you need one. Glad you're still doing well enough to be irreverent about your past.

 

[LoquiSordidaAdMe]

...what's the biggest submission error you've made?

Oof! Nothing that bad. I have a fantasy story that opens with a nursery rhyme. I meant for the whole thing to be italicized so it would stand out from the text of the actual story. Unfortunately the submission form misinterpreted my clumsy HTML tags, and only the first couplet was formatted correctly.

 

[lovecraft68]

Don't be in too big of a hurry to take the plea bargain.

And don't smart off in front of the judge and make the people in the courtroom laugh.

 

[Britva415]

There's never a "spit-take" emoji when you need one. Glad you're still doing well enough to be irreverent about your past.

 

[dmallord]

After posting some stories, I noted that every emdash in them became -- instead. I found that annoying, and after a number of diggings, I learned that I could use the HTML equivalent to replace it and have it show properly.

I edited one story to test this with numerous replacements: &mdash

The re-post came back as "Johnny&mdashwhat the hell?" etc. in dozens of places. Responses from readers were, "What the fuck is up with that weird &mdash thing all through your story? You need to fix that; it's damn annoying!"

The article I read had the HTML code in the middle of the author's sentence where he used a semicolon. I mistook the punctuation mark for part of his sentence instead of part of the HTML. [I'm not a coder.]

The correct coding should have been: —

Damn! I had another repost! Oddly, the scoring didn't seem to matter after the corrections.

I figured Laurel, must be thinking this guy is an ID-10-T error!

 

[Britva415]

I figured Laurel, must be thinking this guy is an ID-10-T error!

I bet this kind of thing happens often enough that she doesn't think about it much at all.

 

[Flybynite1892]

In a professional setting I once wanted to reference the "penal system." When my writing was out there in the world, I realized I had, in fact, referenced the "penile system."

Dear reader, feedback was swift.

 

[SmokingFap]

Have only just realised that in the course of making my most recent submission I've cut and paste an early draft not a proof read/edited version of the tale.

Surprised that it got to over 5,500 reads with a dozen likes before anyone pointed it out.

Along with the hideous spelling and grammar of the draft the fact that one of the main characters names flip flops from being Pippa to Rosie must be hideously jarring for the reader.

Edit submitted so I'll suffer the ignominy until its changed in punishment for not proof reading what I uploaded before hitting submit.

If only to make me feel a little better about myself; what's the biggest submission error you've made?

(don't tell me you're perfect)

It wasn't a story on here, but I didn't realize when I was sending out resumés about 30 years ago for marketing communications jobs that I had forgotten a critical "L" in a key word in my Experience section. Nearly threw up when I realized I had sent out at least a dozen resumés that boasted about my experience in "pubic" relations.

Spell-check can't save you from every problem...

 

[MelissaBaby]

There's never a "spit-take" emoji when you need one. Glad you're still doing well enough to be irreverent about your past.

That all seems like it happened in another life now. In part, I am sure, because I wrote about it.

 

[ElectricBlue]

It wasn't a story on here, but I didn't realize when I was sending out resumés about 30 years ago for marketing communications jobs that I had forgotten a critical "L" in a key word in my Experience section. Nearly threw up when I realized I had sent out at least a dozen resumés that boasted about my experience in "pubic" relations.

Spell-check can't save you from every problem...

Did you get jobs, though?

 

[Lifestyle66]

Have only just realised that in the course of making my most recent submission I've cut and paste an early draft not a proof read/edited version of the tale.

Surprised that it got to over 5,500 reads with a dozen likes before anyone pointed it out.

Along with the hideous spelling and grammar of the draft the fact that one of the main characters names flip flops from being Pippa to Rosie must be hideously jarring for the reader.

Edit submitted so I'll suffer the ignominy until its changed in punishment for not proof reading what I uploaded before hitting submit.

If only to make me feel a little better about myself; what's the biggest submission error you've made?

(don't tell me you're perfect)

I noticed those issues when I started reading your story.


I had a similar problem when posting. So, my habit now it to write the story to about 90-95% complete, then format it to post. I copy & paste it into the site's text post screen and save it. When reviewing the online version and before clicking to "Publish", I copy and paste that version into a text-to-speech program and listen to it again. That audio version tells me all of the grammar and context mistakes.

But, even then, I miss some shit.