# Proofread Please



## Shouden (Feb 12, 2009)

hey everyone, I just finished the second draft of a story and posted it on FA, but I would like some help in catching anything that I missed in editing. It would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

There's the link to the story:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1988762/

Warning: This is not a story that minors should read as there's a lot of harsh language and some nudity and sexual situations.

Anyways, thanks again.


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## GraemeLion (Feb 12, 2009)

Shouden said:


> hey everyone, I just finished the second draft of a story and posted it on FA, but I would like some help in catching anything that I missed in editing. It would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
> 
> There's the link to the story:
> http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1988762/
> ...



I can take a look at it, but have you gone through it a few times yet yourself?


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## Shouden (Feb 12, 2009)

yes, I have. I'm sure I've got most of the mistakes, but the more eyes, the better.

Thanks, again.


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## GraemeLion (Feb 12, 2009)

Shouden said:


> yes, I have. I'm sure I've got most of the mistakes, but the more eyes, the better.
> 
> Thanks, again.



Well, the structure could use some work.. do you just want spelling done on it, or spelling and grammar, or the whole deal?


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## Shouden (Feb 12, 2009)

umm...anything would be great really. Even opinions on the structure might help. Of course in the end, it's my story, and I will decide what structure is best. However, any help would be welcomed.


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## GraemeLion (Feb 12, 2009)

Shouden said:


> umm...anything would be great really. Even opinions on the structure might help. Of course in the end, it's my story, and I will decide what structure is best. However, any help would be welcomed.



Well, that's fine.  I'm just used to the real world, where editors rip things to shreds.  Currently, there are some grammar rules being broken a bit here and there.  Spelling, I got about fifteen or twenty words.  

Some of the paragraphs are disjointed and leave me hanging as to where the commentator is standing.  I'm a big fan of "show, don't tell", and you do a lot of telling.  Perhaps shifting to the active voice would help in areas.   When characters speak, you should always start a new paragraph.

There's a lot of subject/verb disagreement as well.  Tense shifting too.  

I'd run it through a few more times and possibly rework some areas heavily.   It needs a lot more work.

How should I get the spelling corrections back to you?


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## Shouden (Feb 12, 2009)

you could just post them here. Thanks, I'll go over it some more tomorrow...or tonight.


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## GraemeLion (Feb 12, 2009)

Okay.. here's the spell corrected text.  

RC


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## Shouden (Feb 12, 2009)

thanks  I'm going to do some more editing tonight. hopefully by next week it will be done.

A good rule of thumb is: "If you change something in the story, go back and read the whole thing." That way, you'll know if it still flows like you want it to. I have also found that using tools like the Speak function on a Mac helps pick out misspelled words or odd sounding sentences.

Anyways, thanks again. (I'm kind of hoping Scotty will help me out with this, too. He usually has some great tips.)


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## M. LeRenard (Feb 13, 2009)

If you'd like, I could give this one a thorough run-through.  Just from reading the first few paragraphs, I would say you could benefit from a little in-depth study of your writing habits.  I'm not exactly an expert, as you know, but I think I could help you out with the major stuff.
Let me know just how nasty you want your proofreader to be.  I might even print this out, go over it with red ink, and then scan it and send it to you as a .pdf, if you'd like.
If you want to post the revised version after fixing all the stuff Redcard pointed out, that would be fine too, just so I don't repeat anything that's already been said.  But either way, I don't think you're quite done yet.


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## GraemeLion (Feb 13, 2009)

M. Le Renard said:


> If you'd like, I could give this one a thorough run-through.  Just from reading the first few paragraphs, I would say you could benefit from a little in-depth study of your writing habits.  I'm not exactly an expert, as you know, but I think I could help you out with the major stuff.
> Let me know just how nasty you want your proofreader to be.  I might even print this out, go over it with red ink, and then scan it and send it to you as a .pdf, if you'd like.
> If you want to post the revised version after fixing all the stuff Redcard pointed out, that would be fine too, just so I don't repeat anything that's already been said.  But either way, I don't think you're quite done yet.



I'd like to point out, I just did a spell check and some VERY light grammar fixes.  I'd need a few days to rewrite the rest of it, and so decided to stop before doing that to see if another draft or two would shake things out.

I didn't red-ink it like I typically do my own work.


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## Shouden (Feb 13, 2009)

M. Le Renard said:


> If you'd like, I could give this one a thorough run-through.  Just from reading the first few paragraphs, I would say you could benefit from a little in-depth study of your writing habits.  I'm not exactly an expert, as you know, but I think I could help you out with the major stuff.
> Let me know just how nasty you want your proofreader to be.  I might even print this out, go over it with red ink, and then scan it and send it to you as a .pdf, if you'd like.
> If you want to post the revised version after fixing all the stuff Redcard pointed out, that would be fine too, just so I don't repeat anything that's already been said.  But either way, I don't think you're quite done yet.



That would be great, M. Le Renard. Um...you can be as nasty as you want to be, just be sure that it's constructive criticism and not destructive criticism I reallllllly appreciate this, you guys.


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## M. LeRenard (Feb 13, 2009)

> I'd like to point out, I just did a spell check and some VERY light grammar fixes.


Well, okay.  Maybe I'll just go ahead and go through it right away.


> Um...you can be as nasty as you want to be, just be sure that it's constructive criticism and not destructive criticism


I only ever say something if I think it will help.  I just don't want you to be flabbergasted if it comes out with hardly an original word intact (not saying that will happen, necessarily).


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## Chanticleer (Feb 13, 2009)

If it's come down to active criticism and you're in need of a second opinion I might be able to lend a hand. I'm hardly an expert on grammar though.


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## Shouden (Feb 13, 2009)

The more eyes on it the better. It should help get the flow right and all the kinks ironed out. And maybe in a couple more passes, everything will be fixed and the final draft can go up on FA.


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## M. LeRenard (Feb 13, 2009)

Okay.  I didn't end up printing it off, because I didn't feel like going down to the computer lab, so I just color coded my editing.  Red text is simple correction (misspelling, misplaced comma, whatever), and blue text is my commentary on things (reasons why, places I think you could change the wording, whatever).  If I got a little too snarky at times, I apologize, but hopefully you can use some of this.
Also... you ought to use spellchecker every now and then.  I'm sure it would have caught most of those orthographic errors.  You spellcheck, then you proofread to find what it missed, yes?  It's not a worthless tool, after all.
Anyway, good luck.


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## Shouden (Feb 13, 2009)

yeah, I would use spellcheck if it would work in Notepad. Thanks again.


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## M. LeRenard (Feb 14, 2009)

Notepad?  Maybe you should think about upgrading one of these days.  I'd recommend OpenOffice: http://www.openoffice.org/
If you don't like all the gizmos of these more modern programs, it's very easy to turn them all off.  So it'll be like Notepad, but with more fonts and the ability to spellcheck.
It's a thought, anyway.

Edit: Also, if you use Notepad, can you open that .doc file I posted?  I could resave it as .rtf or something if you need me to, though I'm not sure what would happen to the formatting.


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## Shouden (Feb 14, 2009)

yeah. I forgot about Wordpad. that will work for now. I'm used to using Apple's Pages, but right now, my Mac isn't working. I'll have to get it fixed one of these days.

Also, I took a read through of the story with all your corrections and pointers, and none of them came of too strong and all were really good. (Even caught a couple you missed.) I might steal a couple of your suggested wordings and phrases. I will probably end up editing that doc and just swapping it with the other one, as I like the format better.

Seems like I need to do more showing and less telling when I'm writing stories. But be able to switch to telling when I do scripts. Haven't been doing scripts lately, so, I'll be sure to set my switch to "show".

I wrote some of that story when I was tired, and there were some things that I didn't really care for, that you mentioned. And there are some more details I need to toss in there, as well as more emotion.

Anyways, thanks again.


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## Shouden (Feb 14, 2009)

alright, corrections done, and third draft is submitted. If you see any other corrections that need to be addressed, let me know.

Here's the new version:

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1995615/


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