Hey guys. As a proofreader/editor, I've compiled a small list of things which you should do before hiring an editor/proofreader, so that you do not embarrass yourself.

1) RUN IT THROUGH A SPELLCHECK.
Yep, it's not that hard. Copypasta it into Google Documents (now called Google Drive, because Google), click "Tools" to open a dropdown menu, select "Spelling..." and it'll go through and tell you where every single misspelled word is. It's that easy. It saves your editor time, and doesn't make you look like an incompetent nincompoop. Seriously, do it.

2) UNDERSTAND PROPER ENGLISH GRAMMAR.
If you don't understand why "'I'm fat.' She said" is wrong, go check out this awesome guide by Ezn. Done? Good. Now we can move on.

3) PROOFREAD YOUR OWN DANG STORY.
That might sound obvious, but some people have thick skulls. Guys, when you write a story, you should read through it at least three times before making your proofreader go through it. In fact, if you can, read it out loud. If something sounds unnatural out loud, it should probably be reworded. Seriously, if you can't respect your own story enough to do that, how can you expect them to?

4) AVOID LAVENDER UNICORN SYNDROME AT ALL COSTS.
This one might just be personal, and it's way more technical than the previous ones, but there's (almost) nothing that makes my eyes bleed more than LUS. For those of you that don't know what it is... if you find yourself repeatedly describing Applejack as "the blonde" or "the orange pony" instead of just calling her by name, you're doing it wrong.

Since this one can be slightly confusing, I'll provide a few examples (red indicates wrong, green indicates right):
"I love books!" exclaimed the lavender unicorn.
"I love books!" she exclaimed, her lavender coat shimmering in the moonlight.

"Apples are my specialty," said the pony with the apple cutie mark.
"Apples are my specialty," said Applejack, displaying her cutie mark.

See the difference? The red examples add nothing to the story; we all know Twilight is purple and Applejack has an apple cutie mark. The second two examples, however, add something to the scene. We didn't know Twilight's coat was shimmering, nor did we know that Applejack turned slightly so that the narrator (or the pony she was talking to) could see. This can be a hard line to walk sometimes, but mastery of it can make reading your story much more pleasant for your proofreaders.

5) AVOID INFO DUMPS.
Ever read a story where the main character starts off by telling you about his entire life story, what he looks like, and what all his motivations are? That's an info dump. If you're going to tell the audience (or, in this case, your proofreader) about the character, find a creative way to do it over time. Basically, if your entire character's life, appearances and personality is described at once, highlight that entire text wall and hit backspace. It's time to rewrite.

6) CHECK YOUR PROOFREADER/EDITOR'S PROFILE BEFORE MESSAGING THEM.
This one is terribly annoying to proofreaders. Check their profile, see what their preferences are. If they obviously don't like grimdark, don't send them your grimdark story. It's that simple.

7) DON'T WRITE AN ENTIRE ESSAY ABOUT YOUR STORY FOR YOUR PROOFREADER.
Keep your notes curt. Tell the proofreader what genres your story includes, tell them what the general storyline is, tell them what you expect of them. Don't paraphrase the story for them, give them a brief outline.

8) COMMON SENSE. PLEASE.
Zervziel said it better than I ever could, so I'll quote him:

Logic and common sense are a godsend. A little thought about how character's actions might affect others or how other's might react to said reactions will go a long way to avoid facepalm-enducing moments.

9) DON'T TAKE THINGS PERSONALLY. EVER.
Your proofreader will find things wrong in your story. If he thinks your grammar in a paragraph is bad, don't get mad at him. It's probably your fault anyway. Just because your proofreader is dissecting your story doesn't mean he doesn't like you, it just means he wants you to be a better author.

That's all I've got for now. Be sure to leave comments about anything you think should be added, and don't be afraid to give me your opinions!

Have a nice day,
-UV

2143121

That picture...

2143083

k

*deletes entire story*

2143083
For number 3, does it count if I used 'the Samurai'? If so I may have to rethink my writing to a certain degree

2143210

That one is really a call-by-case kinda thing. If you're doing it repeatedly though, then yes, it's probably LUS.

2143253
But it feels so unnatural constantly repeating their names, and just 'he' and 'she' doesn't cut it, especially when there is more than one person in the scene

2143210

I'd say that you can refer to somepony as 'the samurai' if their training / profession / social status is directly relevant to the sentence.

'"I'm hungry," said the samurai' is silly.
'"I will defend you!" said the samurai', less so.

2143310
Well I guess it was okay for the first chapter then, because that was him fighting in a battle
As for the rest of the story, I'll see if I can do something about that. Thanks

2143310

What that guy said.

2143083 I don't understand why so many people don't use a spelling checker thingy first

2143083
The only time #4 has ever broken my immersion in a story was when it was done to extreme excess, and in those cases there was usually quite a few other issues with the story anyway. Like everything else, learning to use it properly and in moderation is the key. I don't get why so many people poop masonry when they see it,

EDIT: Stoopid numbers,

2143432

For me, it's because the superfluous words detract from the meaning of the situation, especially when dialogue is involved.

2143432

To be fair, it generally doesn't feel too bad to me until the writer gets desperate:

Twilight Sparkle was worried. The pony with the purple striped mane didn't know what to do. Celestia's faithful student didn't want to risk offending her blonde farmpony friend by refusing an apple, but the bearer of the Element of Magic had already eaten far too many apples that day. In sheer desperation, the librarian pointed behind the pony with three apples as her cutie mark and shouted, "Look out! An apple-eating spider is right behind you!". As the stetson wearing pony turned with alarm, Shining Armour's sister grabbed the apple and threw it away. The lavendar unicorn smiled. Problem averted.

See? That 'lavendar unicorn' at the end would completely throw someone out of the story. Straw that breaks the camel's back and all that.

2143714
Aw, c'mon, that's not so bad,

2143083
Well, it seems that everyone's already pointed out the fact #4 isn't that well defined in this list. Other than that ... Firefox and Chrome both have decent in-built spellcheckers and Google's only a click away.

What I'm really saying is that Gdocs can suck my balls, the only benefit over writing here is that you can colaborate collaborate (Firefox caught that one for me) easier. Other than that, screw Gdocs. Damn Drive ...

2143083
All of my yes to this, speaking as a fellow proofer, especially #3. If anyone asks for advice on self-proofing, I always recommend that they print a hard copy of their draft and read their story out loud while following along with the tip of their pen or pencil. It works for me, anyway.

2143083 I have several points that should help.

First up: Check their profile for clues as to whether they want to read your story or not. In my case I had one fellow PM me asking me to preread their story where their human character falls into Equestria and starts a revolution to overthrow the Princesses who are being cast as the villains.

Anyone who took a decent look at my profile would see I'm A) Part of Protect Celestia and B) the notification informing people that I'm a moderator of said group and as such do not want to read stories about the Princess being evil or simply used as a mere set piece to make another character look good. I was so gobsmacked by this one fellow I had to share it with the group founder.

Second: Don't send them immense text wall PMs unless they ask for information. Provide a short but sweet summary about your story. Include whether you write in word and then past it here or if you work in Google docs where they can help you as you write.

Third: Patience is definitely a virtue, but if you have a prereader who's been silent for a while give them a poke or two and don't immediately assume they hate your story. It's more likely they got to working on something and forgot. That said don't harass them.

Fourth: For the love of all that is holy, warn us if you're going to be intentionally playing somepony OOC before we go in and correct it.

Finally: Logic and common sense are a godsend. A little thought about how character's actions might affect others or how other's might react to said reactions will go a long way to avoid facepalm-enducing moments.

2143083
On your point 4, I must object. LUS is one thing, but there's nothing wrong with occasionally using descriptions for characters.

2143083

But... if you do all that, why would you even need an editor?

2144304

I think I worded that badly. Descriptors are good, but only in some formats. For example:

"Yes," the purple unicorn said.

"Yes," she said, her lavender coat shimmering in the moonlight.

The first adds nothing to the story. We already know what color Twilight is. The second, however, tells us something about what's going on.

2144493

Because no matter how many times you go over it, there will still be mistakes. The Editor/Proofreader's job is not to hold the writer's hand, it is to clean up the mistakes that they missed.

I must admit, that I am guilty of breaching rule 1. My Google Doc just didn't want to spell-check properly. Google search results pointed me to changing the language on the Google Drive (gear icon -> Settings -> Language). That didn't help any so I had to make due with tools like Grammarbase.

Today I've finally found the solution and I'm sharing it here in case anyone else has the same problem. The solution was, to go to the particular Google Doc and there you click File -> Language and set it to English. Stupid, I know. But it's just hard to find if all the help forums are pointing you somewhere else.

I wish this was mandatory reading for anyone writing a story...

2144199

Apparently I'm "out of the know." What's an OOC?

2145377 Out of character

2145174

Trust me, so do I.

Can't stress LUS enough. I had one sentence of it in a fic I'm writing (I knew exactly when I did it) assuming it was fine. I went back the next day and read it and it was awful- totally immersion breaking.

It's one of the most innocent but most crucial thing to understand. Names and said tags are invisible, descriptions are not.

2143083

2145571

Yeah, and the problem is, a lot of aspiring authors don't even see it as a problem. It's not that they're incompetent, it's that there's just a knowledge gap there.

2146436

Bahaha.

Hey guys, see Craine? He's my proofreader. *Swags out*

2145395

Aah... Why would you do that in the first place? O_o

Also, your profile picture is pretty much the best thing since pizza.

2144164

I seem to remember your name from somewhere... Oh, you're the guy I still haven't moved to Novice in TPG's documents. *Hides from the awkwardness*

2146836
No worries. It's a lot of people to keep track of.

2143197

Just realized I completely skipped your comment.

Given that Craine (one of the best proofreaders I've had) proofread at least three of your stories, I'm going to say that you're doing fairly well.

2146982

We've got like, 90 pending applications to go through as well.

Yay, work.

All really awesome advice for new writers! I'm definitely still fine-tuning how many times I'll look over something before I send it away to be brutalized (I'm trying to define revision vs. editing, and I guess editing is just a more formal process?).

The piece of writing advice I'm working on now is show vs. tell, or as Chuck Palahniuk calls it "thought" verbs. I stumbled on this article not too long ago, and it blew me away because I'd never seen show v.s. tell explained so clearly:
http://litreactor.com/essays/chuck-palahniuk/nuts-and-bolts-%E2%80%9Cthought%E2%80%9D-verbs

My proof-reader also says I need to work on active vs. passive voice, which I have trouble with. I think I understand the basic concept, and could correct a couple examples in my English class, but most of the time I still forget to look for it in my own writing.

I've never been adept at grammar, so thanks for the link to Ezn's guide! I should probably make notes or something ...

2146836 The most common answer to the "Why would you portray somepony as out of character?" is often comedy which some authors take as a chance to pull characters out of their usual behavioral zones which I think is a bad idea. Say someone pranks Celestia. That simple act loses a good deal of punch when she's portrayed as a the usual trollestia. However if the character is being played closed to their established personalities, then it gains new meaning. Especially if the prank is mean-spirited. Despite what many bronies say, she's never done much more than a little bit of slight teasing.

2144057 It's true... especially since GDocs has this tendency to break what's already right because it only has one way of looking at every case

2144304 There's so many factors that go into this one. The biggest one, in my opinion at least, is the flow. If you ARE running through, explaining everything, because it's a peaceful winter's morning - that's fine. Just don't do it when it just ends up slowing down the story. Also, just as the general why not to do it: Because you'll be a better writer when you make yourself stop doing it.

2146836 Don't worry, you've still done more than I have in the past 8 months or so...

And my personal pet peeve, for any aspiring writers out there: When "pegasus" is used as an adjective - such as when describing "guards", it does not get conjugated - it's Pegasus Guards, not Pegasi Guards. Hop to it people, spread the word!