Happy Writer Wednesday!
I cannot tell you enough how important it is to read your manuscript with "fresh eyes" before you submit or publish it. We have a tendency to read things the way we INTENDED them to be written, and not the way we ACTUALLY wrote them. This is even more true if you're reading on the same device you wrote those words on!
In order to catch errors and typos, change it up! Print out your manuscript. Put it on your Kindle. Read it out loud. This will help you catch mistakes you might have otherwise overlooked.
With so many readers now using ereaders, giving your manuscript a pass or two on your ereader will allow you to see it how most readers will. Something might flow well in a Word document, but not so much so on an ereader. Those short sentences that made the scene pop on the computer may seem choppy and rudimentary. Those paragraphs that you thought were the perfect length might end up seeming incredibly long on an ereader.
I cannot count how many times I've thought something looked great in Word, only to see it on my ereader and realize the paragraph is way too long, the sentence doesn't flow well, or I have a typo. It's so much less stressful to find those errors before you send your baby out into the world than it is to have a reader point them out later!
You put your blood, sweat, and tears into writing your manuscript. Give it one more pass and help it glow!
No comments:
Post a Comment