Names? I nearly did it again.

[oggbashan]

My most frequent fault is that the names of my characters are inconsistent.

I check, recheck, and still they slip through.

I was reviewing my three-quarters finished entry for a song for a story.

This time I printed it out and checked every name and how often they occurred.

There are four named characters. The first name appears 30 times; the second 53 times, the third 19 times but the narrator, the fourth name, appears only three times - and I got the name wrong on its first appearance!

What is your most frequent fault and how do you check for it?

 

[SisterJezabel]

What is your most frequent fault and how do you check for it?

Pronouns. And as often as I read and re-read and read it out loud I still miss one or two and an anonymous commenter is always there to remind me!

 

[Bramblethorn]

In my current series, the protagonist is Sarah and one of the supporting characters is Lucy. While writing my latest chapter I somehow lost the ability to distinguish between these two names and kept mixing them up. It's taken four beta readers to catch the last of the Sarah-Lucy mix-ups in my draft... at least, I hope that's the last of them.

 

[oggbashan]

My next most common fault is having a comma at the end of a sentence instead of a full stop (period).

My excuse? My eyesight makes it difficult to tell the difference.

 

[tomlitilia]

My most frequent fault is that the names of my characters are inconsistent.

I check, recheck, and still they slip through.

I was reviewing my three-quarters finished entry for a song for a story.

This time I printed it out and checked every name and how often they occurred.

There are four named characters. The first name appears 30 times; the second 53 times, the third 19 times but the narrator, the fourth name, appears only three times - and I got the name wrong on its first appearance!

What is your most frequent fault and how do you check for it?

I used to get names wrong a lot too. That's why I started writing with codes for names, typically M1 and F1 for main male and female character, respectively. Sometimes it works to use F2, F3 etc for additional characters, but the codes work even better if secondary characters have codes that relate to something descriptive of either their appearance or status, e.g. B1 for boss, S1 for secretary, R1 for a redhead, A1 for Asian ethnicity etc. When the story is complete, I just search and replace all codes with names. I typically decide on names early on, but still use the codes until I'm done. It has substantially reduced my naming mix-ups.

I have some annoying patterns when I write that I try to get rid of. For instance, in many of my dialogues, characters start their phrases "So, I..." I have to check the story when it's done by searching for "so,". I also have some words I overuse that I search for and make sure they don't appear too often. I've also tried to reduce overuse of "that" by searching for it and asking myself if it's needed. Boring, but hopefully it teaches me a lesson to break these patterns

 

[vanmyers86]

My biggest fault is omitting words and then not seeing that they're missing when I proofread because my brain knows what I meant to say.

You know, like the joke about the edition of the Bible in which the ten commandments are all missing the word "not" due to a proofreading error.

Beta readers help, but even they miss some of them.

If anyone has a solution for this, there's a lot of money to be had from writers like me!

 

[TeroWright]

I used to get names wrong a lot too. That's why I started writing with codes for names, typically M1 and F1 for main male and female character, respectively. Sometimes it works to use F2, F3 etc for additional characters, but the codes work even better if secondary characters have codes that relate to something descriptive of either their appearance or status, e.g. B1 for boss, S1 for secretary, R1 for a redhead, A1 for Asian ethnicity etc. When the story is complete, I just search and replace all codes with names. I typically decide on names early on, but still use the codes until I'm done. It has substantially reduced my naming mix-ups.

This is actually a really cool idea. If I had a naming problem, I'd certainly consider this technique.

My most noticeable fault is that my characters all tend to talk the same, or at least most of them do. In general, I feel like this is the kind of slip-up that can have a pass as people in groups tend to talk alike the more they hang around each other, it's just their personalities that set them apart. As a writer, if I notice my characters starting to say similar things, I'll write it off as an observation from a nearby character that they've heard something before, and maybe it sets something new into motion, or they shrug it off.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Names... not anymore as I always, even if there are only two people in the story, put the names at the top of the story along with who they are and what they are like. But every once in a while I still get them switched around. I catch most of them before I submit them.

Then there's than and then. I know which is which and it always jars me out of a story when I see them used in the wrong context, but I still, sometime, misuse them myself.

To, too, and two. I have found myself using to instead of two in some places and I'm sure it's just that I type fast. I usually catch them right as I'm typing them, but sometimes I miss them until my final edit. Gammarly does catch the to, too misuse but seems to leave the to/two mix up alone.

 

[NotWise]

Homophones and near-homophones (taught and taut, for instance). I get them switched up all the time. Fortunately, our dear readers are happy to point them out.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm like NotWise. My most common error when I write is the unthinking use of homophones. I'm a relatively fast, but not careful, typist. I'll type "I no the answer" when I mean "I know the answer." I have to proofread carefully to catch the errors because Grammarly and MS Word don't always catch them.

I can think of one occasion on which I wrote the wrong name of a character in a story -- it was the name of a character in the previous story I'd written. A reader caught it and remarked on the error. I submitted a change to the story, the only time I've ever done so. In every other case I've just lived with my many errors.

 

[oggbashan]

I used to start with vanilla names (almost like M1, F1, etc) and then use search/replace.

That failed when I had misspelled the vanilla names like John and Mary as Jonh and Marie.

 

[BiscuitHammer]

Generally, just the pronoun typo, he/r

Names, occasionally. I have a minor character named Trilby in one of my stories, and every once in a while, she becomes 'Tribly' as my fingers fly over the keys and I fail to notice. Similarly, two of my main characters, Alex and Alexa, get mixed up in a sentence on occasion.

The problem is that I'm terrible at editing my own work. Because I know what I meant to say as I proofread, my mind sometimes glazes over misnomers and imperfections and they escape my scrutiny and sneak into a published story. Most of my readers seem to have the required neurons to recognize a simple gaff and will point it out in a review if necessary, which I appreciate. The more synaptically hobbled ones, however, will have a tantrum, saying I confused them. And I am sorry it happened, I don't like making mistakes.

This is why I've begun to utilize a beta-reader and editor. A very long-suffering individual.

 

[KeithD]

What is your most frequent fault and how do you check for it?

Not closing dialogue quote marks. I check for it by doing one final run through the story checking all double quote marks.

 

[yowser]

You know, like the joke about the edition of the Bible in which the ten commandments are all missing the word "not" due to a proofreading error.

This 'joke' has a basis in fact. The King James 1631 bible in England (printing it was a coveted and lucrative monopoly from the crown) managed to mangle the 7th Commandment, and printed 'thou shalt commit adultery' missing the evidently important 'NOT' part.

The king was not pleased, 1000 copies were recalled and the printer fined the considerable sum of £300.

 

[Bramblethorn]

This 'joke' has a basis in fact. The King James 1631 bible in England (printing it was a coveted and lucrative monopoly from the crown) managed to mangle the 7th Commandment, and printed 'thou shalt commit adultery' missing the evidently important 'NOT' part.

The king was not pleased, 1000 copies were recalled and the printer fined the considerable sum of £300.

Very valuable today if you can lay your hands on a copy.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Marked_Wicked_bible.jpg

 

[mfan2112]

I am really bad at overusing the word really.

I use Pro Writing Aid (free account) to catch a lot of technical issues. And they have localization settings for UK, Canadian, US, and Australian English.

https://prowritingaid.com

I find it really catches a lot of my really bad errors.

 

[Omenainen]

Very valuable today if you can lay your hands on a copy.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Marked_Wicked_bible.jpg

And lo and behold, there were Loving Wives!

I'm sure I've got loads of recurring errors. The one thing I don't do (I think...) is mess up homophones, because I've had to learn them word by word when I've already been able to write.

 

[Luv4hotwives]

I’m always writing “if” instead of “of” drives me crazy every time I do it. I use a couple different sites for spelling and grammar checks, but they miss it. And I tend to a lot when I read through stuff again.

 

[Luv4hotwives]

My most frequent fault is that the names of my characters are inconsistent.

I check, recheck, and still they slip through.

I was reviewing my three-quarters finished entry for a song for a story.

This time I printed it out and checked every name and how often they occurred.

There are four named characters. The first name appears 30 times; the second 53 times, the third 19 times but the narrator, the fourth name, appears only three times - and I got the name wrong on its first appearance!

What is your most frequent fault and how do you check for it?

I had name issues very recently on a story I had stepped away from for a couple months. Came back to it and went on a writing frenzy. I finished and when proofreading it discovered all the characters names changed about a third of the way through lol. It was all names I had used in other stories too.