spell check – Almost An Author

Don’t Trust Your Spellchecker

As writers, many people choose the course of least resistance. It’s easy to leave the spelling and grammar in your manuscript to your computer. Then the machine can mark any of these errors, you can go through each one, save it and be finished with that process. In this article, I want to give you some additional actions to make sure you submit the best version of your material before hitting the send button to that editor or literary agent.

Book proposals require a lot of work, and anything you send to a publisher should be completely error- and typo-free. Here’s some additional steps every professional writer will take to make sure your submission is in the best possible shape. First, set it aside for a period of time—a day or even a few hours before returning to it and then read every line carefully and aloud to yourself. Why take this step to read it aloud? Because the ear is less forgiving than the eye.

I will print my manuscript, grab a pencil or pen and read through it aloud. As I see something that needs to be changed, correct the paper version of my manuscript. Take the time to read every page of your proposal aloud. I encourage you to review it multiple times, rewrite and make sure every area is complete and your proposal is error free of typos. Also don’t completely trust the spelling checker and grammar features of your word processor. Yes, these feature help but you should not completely trust them.

Recently an author sent a manuscript that I read. When I informed her that it had numerous typographical or spelling errors, she instantly became defensive and said she had spellchecked it numerous times. The English language has many similar words, which your word processor program will not catch. You will have to read and reread your proposal aloud, in order to catch these types of errors.

Here is an example of two sentences that only a person can fix:

The red book was read.

The read book was red.

Each sentence is technically correct, but which one did the author intend to use? Only a person can make this decision and not a machine.

Throughout the publishing industry, there is all this talk about artificial intelligence. In my view you can use it for some things like research and possibly some initial drafts but at the end of the day, the words have to be done in your writing voice. I encourage you to drastically revise and rewrite anything generated from artificial intelligence to avoid any potential conflict.

Consider also taking your proposal to a critique group of other writers. (If you want to learn more about this topic, read my detailed article at terrylinks.com/critique.

Be careful who you let read your proposal, and always take the feedback of family members with a grain of salt.

Ultimately, you are the only person whose opinion on the proposal counts before you send it to a publisher and get their feedback. Some people tend to absorb every positive and negative word from other people. They need to evaluate the comments, take the good ones, and discard the poor ones (purely a subjective call on your part).

After receiving this feedback, make sure you’ve corrected and rewritten every sentence of your proposal and sample chapter to the best of your ability. This type of detailed approach to your proposal will aid in the reception of your materials at the publishing house. Too many proposals and cover letters arrive with missing and misspelled words. Your proposal will rise above the others if you have handled this concern with care and professionalism.

W. Terry Whalin, a writer and acquisitions editor lives in California. A former magazine editor and former literary agent, Terry is an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing. He has written more than 60 nonfiction books including Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams and Billy Graham. To help writers catch the attention of editors and agents, Terry wrote his bestselling Book Proposals That $ell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success. Get a free copy of his proposal book (follow the link). Check out his free Ebook, Platform Building Ideas for Every Author. His website is located at: www.terrywhalin.com. Connect with Terry on Twitter, Facebook, his blog and LinkedIn.

*Book Proposals That $ell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success*

5 Words That Spellcheck Won’t Catch

Thanks to computer technology you no longer need to be a great speller to be a writer. If you want to be a published writer and you’re relying on spell check to make your prose error-free, don’t. The Spelling & Grammar function in Word is indispensable as a first check on typos and grammar, but it takes a human knowledgeable in the quirks of the English language to catch these homonyms.

Complement-compliment: This is an easy pair to confuse since they both have a rather positive meaning. They are not interchangeable, however. Use compliment when you’re telling your mother-in-law how great that hat looks on her. You might even tell her it complements her eyes. Here’s the difference: to compliment is to praise or offer a positive comment. Use complement when something or someone completes or makes perfect.

Joe’s baritone is the perfect complement to Alice’s soprano. They make lovely music together.

OR The coral-colored ribbon complements your auburn hair.

Bear-bare: The errors I see are not so much with these root words, as knowing to which a suffix may be added. Hint: only one. So it might be helpful to review the meanings of the root words. Although Merriam-Webster identifies six distinct meanings of bare, they all convey the sense of emptiness, lack, uncovered, lacking clothing, scant. Bear has assorted noun and verb meanings. The meaning that seems to cause difficulty for adding the suffix able, is to endure or carry the weight of something.

Jennifer has quite a load to bear right now with a sick child, a laid-off husband, and obstinate parents.

With the right attitude and encouragement, however, her load may be bearable. But never bareable.

Past-passed: Passed is the past and past participle form of pass. It is almost always a verb. (The exceptions are so rare, I’m not going to confuse you with those.) Past, however, can be used as noun (a previous time), adjective (gone by), adverb (to pass by or go beyond), or preposition (beyond the age for or of, later than, after).

In the past, (noun) many folks passed (verb) time in face-to-face conversation with their neighbors. Now, they rush past (adverb) one another in a mad dash to get home and past (adverb) the next level of CandyCrush.

Waste-waist: I don’t want to waste a lot of time on this pair. Suffice to say, use waist to refer to the midsection, midriff, midpoint. Waste has multiple meanings and uses: to consume or spend uselessly; to become physically worn, lose strength; left over, unconsumed products. If you’re going to worry about one of these, it should probably be over wasted time, not your waist line.

Peak-peek-pique: And finally, my favorite personal pet peeve. It seems many writers know the meaning of the verb pique, to arouse one’s interest, but apparently not its unique spelling. It’s often written as peak which means top or summit (mountain peak) or peek which means to glance or glimpse (take a peek at what’s behind the curtain). Pique can also be used as a noun meaning feeling of irritation, resentment as in wounded pride. If you want to send an editor into a fit of pique, pay attention to your peaks and peeks.

And don’t rely on spell check.