Storytime, boys, and girls.
I always knew... Several months ago, I concluded my English language education was subpar.
Who knew you could receive advanced degrees and not know how to write well? EVERYONE who knows how to write well knows subpar writing skills do not impede receiving a parchment.
I overcome my lack of formal education in the English language arts with a couple of tools and strict adherence to a process.
Tools: MS Word and its new Editor, coupled with Grammarly, and MS Word Read Aloud.
Process:
- Write drunk (that’s a joke, I rarely drink).
- Edit sober (that is not a joke).
- I perform a complete top to bottom edit.
- Send the manuscript to the Beta Editor.
- I make changes and corrections based on the feedback from the Beta Editor.
- I run a top-to-bottom review with Grammarly and the MS Word Editor.
- Send the manuscript to the genre-specific Developmental Editor.
- I make changes and corrections based on the feedback from the Developmental Editor.
- I run a top-to-bottom review with Grammarly and the MS Word Editor.
- When I am happy with the results, I put on headphones and use the MS Word Read Aloud feature to read every single, no skipping, no speed-reading, read and follow, EVERY WORD.
- Sometimes, I send it to a Copy Editor and repeat steps 8-10. Sometimes, I go direct to publishing.
I bet you can guess which problem in my writing the tools highlight the most often. Give up? Because of the way my thoughts translate to the words on the page, the common-splice is my nemesis.
What I learned from my process was something most people learned in ENG101: Style is important, but there is no substitute for reading and reading and reading with an eye to flow and correctness.
Also, before I get flamed, NO, I do not accept all the changes recommended by MS Word or Grammarly. However, if they both chatter at a passage, it is likely I did something wrong. I examine the section closely. Where they are contradictory in their recommendations, I look closely at the selection and make adjustments.
Not sure this will help anyone, happy to answer any questions. (See what I did there?)
Cheers,
R.C.
UPDATE: I recently started reviewing my work for overused words. This site:
WordClouds is useful.
UPDATE: 14-SEP-2020
This is a snippet from the weekly summary Grammarly issues:
TOP 3 MISTAKES 1. Missing comma in compound sentence - 13 alerts
2. Comma splice - 6 alerts
3. Squinting modifier - 5 alerts
Those numbers are down week-over-week.
Cheers,
R.C.