That moment when...

[ShelbyDawn57]

Just had a new story released and the second comment called me out on a pretty major character's name changing from Susan to Sarah about two-thirds of the way through the story. Now, I've been working on this story for a while and have read it and re-read it dozens of times. So, why did I not see this? Sure, I need an outside editor but I hate to impose...

Question for you is, I'm pretty sure we've all had it happen. What's your most egregious miss.

 

[Stimtheone]

I have been very fastiduous about this, so never had it happen, but my current work is getting double-scrutinized because I noticed myself accidentally write Vella instead of Valla.

 

[Lifestyle66]

Just had a new story released and the second comment called me out on a pretty major character's name changing from Susan to Sarah about two-thirds of the way through the story. Now, I've been working on this story for a while and have read it and re-read it dozens of times. So, why did I not see this? Sure, I need an outside editor but I hate to impose...

Question for you is, I'm pretty sure we've all had it happen. What's your most egregious miss.

My wife pointed out one mistake I made recently after I published a story. I changed "Sarah" to "Sara" in one case.

I used to have many problems with my stories when I first started posting. But I found a program "Speech2Go", which allows me to copy the story into it and create an MP3 audio file to listen to the text-to-speech bot read EXACTLY what I wrote. Sometimes we read our work an SEE what we expect. So, listening to to bot read it highlights a lot of my mistakes, even just passages which don't flow right.

You can use the build-in text-to-speech functions to do it. But for my longer stories, I listen to them as MP3's while doing other work around the house or when driving.

"Sara" sounds exactly like "Sarah" in the audio.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

My wife pointed out one mistake I made recently after I published a story. I changed "Sarah" to "Sara" in one case.

I used to have many problems with my stories when I first started posting. But I found a program "Speech2Go", which allows me to copy the story into it and create an MP3 audio file to listen to the text-to-speech bot read EXACTLY what I wrote. Sometimes we read our work an SEE what we expect. So, listening to to bot read it highlights a lot of my mistakes, even just passages which don't flow right.

You can use the build-in text-to-speech functions to do it. But for my longer stories, I listen to them as MP3's while doing other work around the house or when driving.

"Sara" sounds exactly like "Sarah" in the audio.

I use the Immersive Reader in Word. unfortunately the change didn't catch my ear either. DOH...

Will be checking out Speech2Go, though

 

[StillStunned]

Back at uni, I did a course on publishing. We were given a manuscript and told to turn it into a book.

It went surprisingly well. We did all the editing, proofing, design, layout, more proofing. Got a great deal on some fancy paper. Handprinted the dust covers. Presold our entire print-run before they came back from the printers. We were so pleased with ourselves.

Then the books were delivered, we all gathered round and opened the first box. The books looked amazing. Right until we turned to the table of contents, and there, right in the middle of the page, the third letter of a word was randomly printed with a capital letter.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Back at uni, I did a course on publishing. We were given a manuscript and told to turn it into a book.

It went surprisingly well. We did all the editing, proofing, design, layout, more proofing. Got a great deal on some fancy paper. Handprinted the dust covers. Presold our entire print-run before they came back from the printers. We were so pleased with ourselves.

Then the books were delivered, we all gathered round and opened the first box. The books looked amazing. Right until we turned to the table of contents, and there, right in the middle of the page, the third letter of a word was randomly printed with a capital letter.

Obviously the typesetters fault...

 

[Lifestyle66]

I use the Immersive Reader in Word. unfortunately the change didn't catch my ear either. DOH...

Will be checking out Speech2Go, though

When looking at Speech2Go, don't be shocked at their default price if it says $80 or more. Dig into their website for the $40 version.

 

[Bazzle]

I think characters changing names throughout a story is the number 1 fail?

Its happened at least twice in my stories...the daft thing is not even Anonymous called me out on it. They are normally very good at finding my faults.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I think characters changing names throughout a story is the number 1 fail?

Its happened at least twice in my stories...the daft thing is not even Anonymous called me out on it. They are normally very good at finding my faults.

And inventing all kinds of new ones you never new about before. LOL

 

[EmilyMiller]

Just had a new story released and the second comment called me out on a pretty major character's name changing from Susan to Sarah about two-thirds of the way through the story. Now, I've been working on this story for a while and have read it and re-read it dozens of times. So, why did I not see this? Sure, I need an outside editor but I hate to impose...

Question for you is, I'm pretty sure we've all had it happen. What's your most egregious miss.

I have a story in which the FMC is using the name of another of my FMCs right up to the denouement. Of course I ended up using FMC#2’s name once before I meant to.

No one has called me on it, but I see it all the time .

ChatMLE

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Much the same. I had one MMC named both Jonas and Janos. And, yes, I'd read it about 235 times before hitting Submit.

 

[SyleusSnow]

I use the Immersive Reader in Word. unfortunately the change didn't catch my ear either. DOH...

Will be checking out Speech2Go, though

Balabolka is free and runs entirely on any Windows computer. It can open an MS Word file directly, save to MP3 and do other tricks.

The default voices are old school robotic, but I find that actually helps find errors better than the smooth "natural" voices in Word and other software.

Regarding errors, the first 750-word story I ever submitted had a typo. Shouldn't be possible, right?

And I too had a story where a character reverted to another name about halfway through. It was published for two entire years before a reader helpfully pointed it out.

 

[Demiurging]

Once named two secondary characters nearly the same thing, the male and female forms of the name, and there's a literal, physical note that was on my computer monitor to change it before publishing.

Forgot about the note, published. Oh well...

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Just had a new story released and the second comment called me out on a pretty major character's name changing from Susan to Sarah about two-thirds of the way through the story. Now, I've been working on this story for a while and have read it and re-read it dozens of times. So, why did I not see this? Sure, I need an outside editor but I hate to impose...

Question for you is, I'm pretty sure we've all had it happen. What's your most egregious miss.

This exact same thing happened to me with a recent story. "Minerva" appeared as "Miranda" about two pages in.

In my case, the story had been through a dozen beta readers and two editors and they all missed the screw up, so I hope you find solace in that.

 

[MrPixel]

I’d started with “Copywrite Victoria14xs 2023.” Yeah. I did that.

It's a more common problem than one would think. My wife and I, both with commercial graphics backgrounds, long ago arrived at the truism, "Nobody proofreads headlines..." or subheads, captions, sidebars, callouts, indexes or even footnotes. It's like 100% of your attention is on getting the body copy right, everything else is incidental.

In my particular corner of that trade handling legal documents, however, true proofreading was paramount, as in a staff of honest-to-gosh professional proofreaders, whose full-time job was to do just that and only that. I wish I could recall some of the eye-rollers they found, but there were just too many committed by legal secretaries to remember.

 

[StillStunned]

In my particular corner of that trade handling legal documents, however, true proofreading was paramount, as in a staff of honest-to-gosh professional proofreaders, whose full-time job was to do just that and only that. I wish I could recall some of the eye-rollers they found, but there were just too many committed by legal secretaries to remember.

I have 25 years of editing/proofreading for lawyers, accountants, bankers and other assorted suits. The biggest mistake I found was right at the start of my career. The front page of an annual report was supposed to mention 13.5 billion dollars in turnover. What it actually said was 15.3 billion. You'd be surprised how long it took me to get that changed. In the end it was the day before the text went to the printer when the company's internal auditors sat down with the external auditors and myself, and I insisted that they see what they'd done.

There were a lot of surprised looks and "gosh, lucky you caught that" remarks. Then I showed them the four previous versions with my handwritten corrections. I'd highlighted it in every single version, and no-one had made the change.

 

[MrPixel]

What it actually said was 15.3 billion.

Oh, there is one do I recall and have mentioned previously. We were preparing a big proposal United Technologies was doing for the Space Shuttle Project, under their subsidiary "United Space Boosters". Proofreader caught "Untied Space Boosters" in two or three places. So I wrote code to scan all 350+ pages for more, and there must have been at least two dozen.

They didn't get the contract, but at least it wasn't over "untied".

 

[EmilyMiller]

That moment when...​

Thinking about it more. I have written a few stories in which real Lit friends feature. I’ve accidentally used their real (or at least Lit) names in these instead of the pseudonyms I gave them. Always caught it in draft. But still.

ChatMLE

 

[jhealy55]

Feel you on this. First story where I had two female characters, one more adventurous than the other, I keep shifting names mid-scene at the point where the less adventurous one took a step deeper.

I read and reread the story multiple times before posting and never saw it. Even after it kept getting called out in earlier chapters and I was working intentionally to spot/avoid.

Mind plays tricks on us all the time. We see what we expect to see more often than what is really there.

P.S. - if anyone has a bead on the true identity of "anonymous" they are high on my list of people who could use a beating. Right up there with some artist named Rohrshack (sp?). Guy makes these crazy ink splash things and they pop up on line all the time. For some reason he thinks its hilarious that they are always about my ex-girlfriend hooking up with the guy who pushed me off a swing in third grade.

 

[Devinter]

In my official Valentine's Contest story, I wrote that Valentine's Day is February 12th. But I'm not going to edit it. I am going to live with my shame.

 

[StillStunned]

P.S. - if anyone has a bead on the true identity of "anonymous" they are high on my list of people who could use a beating. Right up there with some artist named Rohrshack (sp?). Guy makes these crazy ink splash things and they pop up on line all the time. For some reason he thinks its hilarious that they are always about my ex-girlfriend hooking up with the guy who pushed me off a swing in third grade.

Yeah, Rorschach was a total pervert.

In my official Valentine's Contest story, I wrote that Valentine's Day is February 12th. But I'm not going to edit it. I am going to live with my shame.

I imagine all these readers panicking that they've booked a fancy restaurant for the wrong date.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Thinking about it more. I have written a few stories in which real Lit friends feature. I’ve accidentally used their real (or at least Lit) names in these instead of the pseudonyms I gave them. Always caught it in draft. But still.

ChatMLE

It's OK, Em. I know I'm a slut and a bit of a bitch. make me famous. LOL

 

[EmilyMiller]

It's OK, Em. I know I'm a slut and a bit of a bitch. make me famous. LOL

Not recently. Talking about Dylan (multiple stories), Jenna (Something Has Come Up), and Gemma (The Kiss). A Good Girl Gone Bad is explicitly about @EStaccato (like her Baby It’s Cold Outside was explicitly about me).

ChatMLE

 

[yowser]

Back at uni, I did a course on publishing. We were given a manuscript and told to turn it into a book.

It went surprisingly well. We did all the editing, proofing, design, layout, more proofing. Got a great deal on some fancy paper. Handprinted the dust covers. Presold our entire print-run before they came back from the printers. We were so pleased with ourselves.

Then the books were delivered, we all gathered round and opened the first box. The books looked amazing. Right until we turned to the table of contents, and there, right in the middle of the page, the third letter of a word was randomly printed with a capital letter.

An old 15th century German printer's term 'der Fehlerteufel' (the 'mistake devil') described the typos that appeared on the final printed page of a work, even after diligent proofreaders (often local university faculty, learned men all, earning some extra thalers) had been thorough checking the final galley prints, multiple times, correcting all the mistakes, and yet there in the final copy was a glaring typo!

How did that happen? A Fehlerteufel must have inserted the error in between proofreading and production! There was no other explanation. The contemporary digital equivalent is surely alive and well.

 

[StillStunned]

How did that happen? A Fehlerteufel must have inserted the error in between proofreading and production! There was no other explanation. The contemporary digital equivalent is surely alive and well.

You know, that does sound like the most plausible explanation.