Having Doubts?

[cbrymm]

I'm just going to add something that I've found helpful in the editing process

I've notice most of the people responding to this thread have found it helpful to print out and read their work to check for those little things that interupt the fic's flow. I've found that taking that one step further by printing the piece, reading it, and then re-typing it is really helpful. I find that when reading my own work, I already know what I wanted to say and even though that's not what I've written, its what I read.. if that makes any sense at all. By going back and re-typing it, you force yourself to read the actual words and not what you think you wrote.

[Katharyn]

Print and read is definitely a good technique, cbrynmm (welsh name by any chance?) and has helped me a lot on the past.

I can also see a great deal of logic in retyping for just the reasons you said. "What you thought you wrote" is exactly why people need beta readers - because (definitely in my case) I blind myself to the simplest flaws just because my mind tells me its right. I might try that if I ever get to take a break and try a one-shot or short fic. Sadly it's not a tactic I want to try on a 10000 word part - at least not at the speed I get to work now! In a sense though you can become your own beta reader through this technique, at least for actual errors, discontinuity etc. I think, perhaps, print/read works in kind of the same way. It's a different look, a different format to a screen, and there is also something different about reading from paper.

All I would add though is that it's reading aloud I find is the greatest benefit. How you speak a line is how you want it to read, and vice versa. It'll clear up punctuation if nothing else. Where this isn't so great is where your looking to work on ideas that you might have missed. I think the lack of ease of moving changes back is a handicap there, so perhaps its best for your final polish. Certainly that's when I read aloud.

Very interesting, I'd never even considered your suggestion about typing though. Thanks!

Katharyn