I once read a novella written by someone who (I am entirely convinced) had not used an editor, and there was some kind of problem on virtually every single page. There was a worthwhile story buried in there somewhere which could have been teased out into something decent, but what they’d actually ended up with in printed form was a train-wreck (which was, of course, my lasting impression of their work).
I’ll give most books a free pass for containing a handful of typos (it seems unusual to read something with absolutely none), but there’s some threshold after which they’ll become a genuine irritation and distraction.
All of which to say that I agree it’s very important, and I hope that the painful process goes by more quickly than you’re expecting!
I reread the one novel I finished and had edited recently. And then the unfinished sequel I never managed to publish (yet). There was a world of difference between the two. I almost couldn’t believe I had written the first one. The second one: much more believable One of these days I will find the Muße (aka the idle time, look up Müßigang) and maybe also the Muse again to get to that.
I really dislike editing my own stuff. I keep finding typos well after I am done with every reread. For the IT documents I have been writing for the past year, I had someone else go through the editing for typos especially. Luxury. Also: as much as I despise Word… it is pretty good at finding mistakes.
Time was, part of what a “proper” publisher offered was not just editing but copyediting - so they’d say that you’ve spelled this name two different ways in different places, or this guy turns up in chapter 9 when he died in chapter 3, or whatever. That’s vanishingly rare now.
Given modern tools, I think “didn’t even run it through the spellchecker” is hard to justify putting out. Sometimes someone did run it through the spellchecker, but they accepted the first suggestion each time and it’s clearly the wrong word. I agree with everyone else, it’s hard to read through your own stuff, especially if you’ve done if a few times already. (Though rendering it in a different font , serif where it was sans or vice versa, and size is a trick I’ve found surprisingly helpful.)
On the reader’s side, the problem is not that I don’t get it or that the errors annoy me; typos where the meaning is obvious aren’t a concern at all. But especially if I have to stop and think “hang on, what did they actually mean here?” then any momentum I’ve built up for the story, my sense of involvement, gets lost and I have to start again, like tripping over while I’m running and having to build up speed again.
I can confirm your theory. In a first pass, most typos are just finger faults - easy to see or find with spellcheck, and they all but disappear with practice on the keyboard.
The real nasty ones come with revisions. And then revisions, revisions, revisions. That’s where you get the repeated words, the mismatched antecedents, the sentence fragment that you were going to come back to after you revised the other sentence, on and on.
Fiction goes through a lot more revision.
Edit: I completely forgot about dialog. That killed me as well. With all the intentional agrammatical constructions, fragments, etc. that come with spoken usage. It was hard to get through 500+ pages of spell check when it’s all intentional, intentional, intentional… eventually you miss a real one.
This crops up all the time in my job, but its particular speciality is to suggest that instead of “Guilty” I should have said “Not Guilty”… or vice versa.
I would keep this. Have someone challenge the speaker, who then explains that after three weeks they were called away and came back, so it depends on when you started counting.
Well dang. The rapid changes in weather, combined with my general level of fatigue (I haven’t taken a day off for reasons other than a medical appointment since March, at the very least) have made me sick. Just a cold, but it’s obviously made going to jiu-jitsu impossible (it’s VERY close contact, so a better contagion vector I cannot fathom). Just as I was getting back in the groove, too. I’m VERY annoyed. But I’m also exhausted.
On the plus side, it’s also been enough to get me to finally listen to what my body’s been telling me. For starters, I called in sick yesterday and today and will again tomorrow. Then, I’m taking next week and the following week off with the express purpose of recharging my batteries. I may or may not train, as my wife and I will likely head off on a small trip. It’s been forever.
Then I’ll be back. Possibly even with a vengeance.
As I understand it some readers want a particular thing, and don’t mind the quality as long as the particular thing is supplied. “More books about children at wizard school”, as it might be.
I’m guessing they will have a short run while people read them for laughs and share them for the amazement of what is happening. Then it’ll die.
But this reinforces that book success is more about marketing than writing. Ubersuccess requires both, of course, but if you want mild success, the former is more critical. A marketer with an LLM will sell more copies than an Author with only word of mouth.
I always love to point out that Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan) was a marketer by trade, and that’s how he rose above his peers.
There’s also consumer confusion to take into account. Targetting people who have only a vague idea what they were meant to be buying as a gift or thinking it’s part of a popular series. It’s what made mockbusters worth making.
And if it cost you barely anything to make, you can offer “amazing deals” because any money you get is profit.
One of these days I will find the Muße (aka the idle time, look up Müßigang) and maybe also the Muse again to get to that.