My thoughts on getting editors and proofreaders. · 6:07pm Mar 30th, 2013
I recently replied to a interesting thread and I wrote such a wall of text I may as well make it a blog post too. Because I would like to hear people's thoughts on my point of view in particular.
In response to this thread
"That was some good advice. After my own experiences with proof readers, I've kinda decided I don't want them. Nothing against them, but it's true that I should be the one to make changes and not them.
The problem is this is too much work, for both of us. Apparently I have atrocious grammar and sentence structure and many proof-readers have given up on my story. But I don't blame them.
The way I see it, I write for fun. My first story was very awful in the technical department, but despite that I got a huge amount of followers that simply enjoyed the plot and ideas that I was putting down for them to read, they appreciated my creativity. While I have tried and succeeded to an extent to improve my writing, from informative comments, it doesn't seem to make a difference. I can just upload a story fresh off the press, that I wrote drunk and only proof-read it myself once, while still being intoxicated. Or I can read it again and again with a focused state of mind and get a friend to at least fix up typos.
But what I have noticed is that most readers don't care. Proof-readers and editors do, sure. But the normal run of mill, high school educated readers, that read and write English as a first language, don't even notice the kind of mistakes I make. As long as it's legible English and they can follow what is going on.
I have this same attitude when I read other stories, unless the spelling and grammar is so bad it makes me suspect English is their third language. For example, Fallout: Equestria is probably considered the most technically well written fic ever. But to me it was too boring to finish, it was cliche, predictable and overall not a genre that particularly interests me. While I have read other stories from newbies like me, that have never written fiction before the pony fandom, that come up with really interesting and entertaining stories that I just can't stop reading until I pass out from lack of sleep.
Anyway... I kind of rambled so I'll try to make a concise point.
TLDR =
I feel sorry for people that are so obsessed about every story they read having to look like it was written by a English professor. Because of this, they can't look past the words and get absorbed into a story, because they are too busy being distracted by mistakes."
when's the next chapter of "my little slave" coming out?
Sounds like you need proofreaders who fix mistakes on the side. Wait a minute isn't that the purpose of them? To fix mistakes?Well then I have no arguments I can make.
I don't like that. I want a purpose for this comment.
Edit: The negative! The negative for your profile pic is neat. there's my purpose for this comment!
im......im sorry
i didnt mean to let you down i just have stuff to do and then i forget im sorry
You've stated your opinion on copyeditors—which is that you don't care about their contribution—but I'm a little curious what your opinion is regarding proofreaders in their entirety.
Far more important than correcting minor grammatical mistakes, the main goal of many proofreaders is to analyze the plot and characterization and explain to the author possible ways of improving those aspects of the story. Do you dislike that kind of proofreader, as well?
959083
I guess I don't really know the definition of proofreaders and editors myself.
I referring mostly to the people responsible for fixing spelling, grammar and sentence structure.
I kind of see commenters as proof readers in the sense that they tell you if they found the plot fun to read and point out plot holes etc.