Stupid mistakes we always miss

[Xenobia]

Have you ever spent hours finishing a chapter and proofreading it, only to find AFTER you've uploaded it that you have all these fucking errors you missed somehow? Why does this happen? Why is it so much easier to spot errors when reading over the material as if I'm not the author? Is it just because I have a different perspective? I about rammed my head into the keyboard a few hours ago after catching a really stupid mistake that I honestly should have seen BEFORE uploading. It was just a simple spelling error but damn, it pissed me off.

Does anyone else do this? I mean, do you upload something after proofreading just to find ridiculous errors you should have been able to catch? And, does this make anyone else want to throttle themselves for being so damned blind? Gaaaahhh!

[Guest jj19]

Always happens to me, you get caught up IN the fic, so your mind fills in all the little holes and mistakes, at least that is hoe I see it.

[marley_station]

Isn't that why we use betas?

[CloverReef]

Totally happens to me. Even with a beta. I think you miss things when you're focusing too hard on catching them.

[Guest jj19]

Isn't that why we use betas?

Betas are great, but still human. Especially if you ask them to beta it ASAP...

B)

[Keith Inc.]

It's the ENTER key. Or the ENTER/SUBMIT/PUBLISH button indicator.

Somehow, that magnifies our intelligence.

I swear, the computer could project a 10-foot tall message, written in bold, all caps, in a flaming font, saying "PERFORMING THIS ACTION WILL DELETE FOURTEEN HOURS OF EFFORT. DO YOU WANT TO CONTINUE, STUPID?" and if i'm in the zone, i can't hit ENTER fast enough. Or ACCEPT or 'Yes, i AM that stupid,' whatever it takes.

Once that key or mouse button goes far enough down, though, once the computer recognizes the command, i instantly become aware of what i've done. what the consequences are. Where i will be on the weekend, trying to recover. Dammit.

If only the SPACE key could make us that starm.

[Calanthee]

...and Here I thought I was the only one this happen to, because I am just a lousy proof reader, people probabley think I don't check over my story for mistakes, but I do I do, yet as soon as I publish a chapter.... errors, mistakes, lousy grammar, missing and abused commas, bad spelling, the most hateful of all ... missing words squeeze out of the wood work like literary demons to make me cringe in embarassing disgust.

I had two betas and they both ran away screaming in utter horror and we need violent military strength spelling and grammar check that gives us an electric shock and yells at us , "Hey dummy fix that you ass!"

A foul misguided abuser of the english language, Cal

PS. Yet I refuse to give up writing my sexy stories for they keep me sane!

[Jaded_Star]

I do this all the time! Proof reading always starts out well, then my brain goes on autopilot. A lot of errors just seem to go away somewhere between my eyes and my conscious mind. I'll go back and read something, knowing I've posted it somewhere and find all kinds of things wrong, despite having proof read everything at least twice.

[brohne]

I have found that starting at the end of the chapter and reading it backward while double checking the format catches a lot (not all) errors. But yes, for some unknown reason once it is 'published' I catch all kinds of stuff.

[Guest pontaloon]

I find that the reason we, as authors, can't spot our own mistakes if becuase when we read we know what's coming next. you can pretty much guess or remember what the next word is, and therefore don't pay much attention to it (how it's spelled etc...). That's my problem at least. That's why i love betas ^^. They see things for the first time and have to pay attention when the next word comes up and therefore can tell if somethings not right.

[Guest Tuftiperkys]

The problem is that when we read, we don't read every word - our eyes don't even land on every word. We make a limited number of fixations per second but work mostly in saccades that suppress input so we can keep our eyes in motion. Tihs is why we can raed cleteolmpy jbumeld wrods pvoidred the frist and lsat ltetres are the smae. Albeit, slower than we normally can. We have to work around things like repetition blindness, automaticity, and top-down processing (such as: I broke a wine class in class yesterday). Conceptually-driven processing tells us 'glass' and often that's what we'll see.

I find it amazing that I catch as much as I do honestly but, I agree, there is some sort of mystical connection to the 'publish' button that immediately highlights errors. I have no idea why.

[TheDeceiverGod]

I suspect it has more to do with the fact that we're the authors than some magical connection to the publish key. Though it's certainly true that once it's up someplace else, it seems like a monkey managed to get in and type in a few things while I wasn't looking. But I think it's because, when we're looking at it in, whatever format we use to work on it. I use Word, we know what the word is supposed to be, we know how the story is supposed to play out, and so that's what we see. While when we're reading it someplace else, we're reading it, the words have moved, the paragraphs have been stretched out or compressed, but everything is never exactly where it was when we were working on it. We have to actually look at the words to figure out what is being said, and so when we made a mistake or said something not quiet as clearly as we thought we did, we notice.

I swear, if I had a nickle for every time I hit that 'edit chapter' button just to fix up a few errors here and there, then went back to reading and saw a half dozen more...

[Daye]

The idea that when reading we know what is supposed to be there, so we miss what is actually there is pretty bang on the mark. Happens in essays as well. One of my lecturers always advised we finish essays and assignments several days early. So we could not look at it for a couple of days and then proof read it when we've forgotten what we thought we put.

Sadly, the desire for reviews and feedback and so forth usually overrides the part of me that thinks I should leave it a couple of days then proof read it again and post it.

[Guest jj19]

Well that really is the great thing about betas. Even if you have a bad one, a couple days of not working on it is great. And a good beta will improve the fic. And a great beta drastically helps.

Thankfully I have a great beta

[_C_]

That is why before I post a chapter of anything, I widen the margins so the words are rearranged, PRINT it and go over it with a red pencil. I'll use two pieces of paper above and below each sentence that forces me to read one line at a time. I catch 99% of my errors like that. Still, when I do ALL THAT and run into that 1% I missed, GAAAAAAAAAAERLKJFLSKDJFLSKDJFSLKDFJSLDKFJ!!!

[Willowstara]

Same here, I guess because when you are writing and you are really into that story your mind doesn't see the mistakes, even if there's little red squiggly lines under it. It can take me a while before I go back and realized I made a mistake or a spelling error etc. I know when I am in a story I don't think about anything else except for I am writing about, especially if it's an intense scene or one you really get into writing and you forget the world around you.

[FairySlayer]

Everyone's already said why (a long time ago too), but the problem is so frustrating that I'm compelled to say how much it irritates me too! I'm still finding mistakes in stories from years ago, even if they'd been proofread by others and reviewed since.

Until a year ago a friend and I were each other's proofreader — editors really, since we'd trade detailed notes and take some ownership. Sadly, she was kidnapped by real life and I haven't found anyone else. (Those who've offered to take over for her either don't know about the "adult" aspect of my writing or don't know about proper punctuation. Yes, I'm living dangerously now.) Even having a proofreader isn't perfect because after proofreading someone else's work twice it becomes harder to catch that author's mistakes. Like with our own stories, our brains tell us, "Yeah yeah yeah I saw that already!"

Whether or not I have a proofreader, when I believe a piece is ready to post I just walk away. Like Daye mentioned, for at least a few days (usually a week) I don't look at or think about it. Only then can i see most of the glaring mistakes, though still too few of the smaller ones. If it looks like my previous pass sucked then I'll finish and wait again. Eventually I would send it for proofreading and, yet again, not even look at it until she returned the marked-up copy. (People changing their stories while I'm proofreading them is my biggest pet peeve.)

But crimminy! One time I re-read and fixed a story that I hadn't looked at for over a year; then two years after that I read it again and found more real mistakes. (I'm not counting things I would have done differently or better.)

_C_, you're hardcore! A printer (with a scanner too) is high on my list of things to lust after, but I simply don't have space for even a small one. On the other hand, the last time I tried printing a markup copy of something at the library their print server refused to release the job for ten minutes, so maybe the terror factor will push me over the edge to get one.

brohne, I may give "backwards reading" a try for finding typos, but if I keep seeing "Worship Satan!" then I'll have to give it up.

[ShadowsPale]

I am glad I am not the only one that does this. I proof read twice, let the chapter sit while I get to work on the next one and then come back to find more mistakes. It never fails that when I read over the chapter after it has been posted, I see TONS of places where I dropped a letter, forgot to add a word, used the wrong tense or spelling. What is worse is when I see places that seemed so clear while proof reading suddenly reading like they were written by a 12 year old.

The few times I was lucky enough to have a beta, the mistakes were still missed but to a much lesser volume and the areas where the wording went wonky didn't happen as often. My guess is that the brain, at times, supplies the information we expect to see making us blind to what is really there. It is my thoughts that in order to post a completely error free piece of fiction there would have to be several pairs of eyes looking it over and not just once.

[Guest dwitefry]

A nice place for a first post, and a nice topic in general, because I'm sure everyone on any site like this has done this thinking thier the biggest tool in the world - me included, isn't it nice to know you're not alone?

My method for posting is to write in Word, spell checking as I go using those ever help red jaggedy lines, then copy it out to my browser making last minute changes and proof reading as I go, then spell check that and STILL have wrong words and spelling errors. I reckon the internet is just a hard and fast supporter of Sonamy and purposefully changes words around during the time it takes to load the posted text

MeX

[TheCheeseCat]

I used to do that all the time.

Now before I post anything I try to get at least 2 different people to proof read it for me. If one doesn't find something, hopefully the other will.

[Guest dwitefry]

I used to do that all the time.

Now before I post anything I try to get at least 2 different people to proof read it for me. If one doesn't find something, hopefully the other will.

You're lucky to get two people who will, no one i know would entertain the thought of proof reading anything erotic or 'adult' I'd written. I have no fanfic friends IRL (Or anywhere else for that matter) - OH WOE IS ME! lol

MeX

[Tempestuous]

I currently don't have a beta, but if need be, I just turn to my ruthless friend to rip out some mistakes from my chapter.

My most common mistakes are when I mix up my native language with English and accidentally write a random Dutch word in there. My spellchecker totally misses it because there's no spelling errors in the Dutch anyway.

Oh, and back in the day when my spellchecker was shit, it would correct instead to in stead, prepare to prepair, and so on. I had no idea of this mistake because I just figured my spellchecker was some divine thing that knew things better than me.

Way to fail, self.