Blogger: Rachelle Gardner
Here is a typical email I receive from writers I’m considering for representation, or clients whose proposals are about to be sent to publishers:
Dear Rachelle, I’m SO sorry to bother you and I hope it’s not too late. I was looking over my manuscript and I found a typo on page 3. I left the “e” off the word “the” in the fourth line of the second paragraph. Additionally, I realized I began chapter 1 four inches down the page and I think it needs to be only three inches. May I send you an updated and revised manuscript?
Okay, I exaggerated this a tiny bit. But I have to smile every time I get one of these. Of course, making sure your manuscript is impeccable is a good thing. But you will drive yourself, your agent (and probably your spouse and kids) crazy stressing over every little typo! Editors and agents (having just a teeny bit of experience in this) are capable of evaluating a manuscript without being distracted by a few small mistakes.
You’ve spent months or years writing that baby of yours, and trying to make everything perfect, and going over it a thousand times. So it drives you crazy to find a mistake after all that. You’ve sat in workshops and read books and blogs and you’ve had that whole perfection thing hammered into your head. You’re desperate to avoid being labeled an amateur and you’re terrified somebody will look at your spacing or your margins or your misuse of the word “infer” and begin spewing epithets as they hurl your pages across the room.
But listen. First, I read on my laptop or my iPad, neither of which are getting thrown across the room anytime soon. Second, there is a time to let go of all that paranoia and relax. Once you’ve submitted your manuscript—unless you’re going to pull it back and do a total rewrite—stop wasting precious brainspace worrying about the small stuff! For now, it’s done.
If your agent is about to send your MS to publishers, it’s okay to send a quick email saying, “I found a couple of typos on pages __, we might want to fix them before submitting.” But other than that, don’t stress. Once you’ve put your manuscript into someone else’s hands, this is a great time to put it away and avoid looking at it for awhile. Going over and over it will only make you crazy. Wait for a response before you tinker… and do your tinkering based on feedback, not on your own non-objective view of your own writing.
I’ve also had situations where authors have sent me their manuscript for a final read-through prior to publisher submission, and I’m going through it and line-editing as I read. (Not all agents do this.) Imagine my frustration when, a few days later after I’ve line-edited 100 pages, the author says, “Hey, I went back through my MS and made a few more changes. Here’s the updated version.” Aarrgghh. Again, once you place it in someone else’s hands, don’t keep making changes unless that has already been discussed and agreed upon.
But don’t worry. None of this is make-it-or-break-it stuff. I won’t like you any less if any of these things happen. I won’t label you an amateur and I certainly won’t make any judgments about you or your writing. I just thought you might like to see how things look from my side of the desk.
Hand the manuscript over, and give yourself a break.
Can you relate to this perfectionism? Have you ever been driven crazy by errors you’ve found after reading through your manuscript 1000 times?
Tweetables:
Don’t drive yourself crazy stressing over every little typo! Click to Tweet.
Once you’ve sent off a MS, put it away and avoid looking at it for awhile! Click to Tweet.
Stop wasting precious brainspace worrying about the small stuff! Click to Tweet.
Thanks for letting us know about it from your side! It’s a relief to not have to guess what you are expecting. 🙂 I probably err on the side of perfectionism to some extent. It drives me bonkers when I’ve just printed off my whole book to send to a test reader and I find mistakes in the smack center of the manuscript. I have just decided to do my best and not sweat a mistake here and there. At a certain point you have to just let yourself breathe. After all, there is such a thing as over-editing, and even some of the best, most professional books have a misprint here or there. That’s what second, third, and fourth editions are for, right? 😉
Here’s what I do: I write a first draft and edit. Then I give it to my editor. He edits. Then I rewrite. Then I do a read-out-loud edit. I reformat the manuscript to the page size and do one final edit. Done.
In my first book “A Train Called Forgiveness,” there were still a few minor typos. I’m finishing up my second book “At the Crossing of Justice and Mercy” right now. Learn more at http://www.danerickson.net. I think it will be tighter yet.
I think most readers are forgiving of a few typos. I have read very few books, even bestsellers from major publishers that don’t have an occasional typo. My advice: aim for perfection, but don’t stress. Get it done and get over it.
Dan, most readers are forgiving–unless they happen to also be writers! 🙂
P.S. I love split infinitives.
Perfectionism, might be the death of me 🙂
i let authors off the hook—and even published books off the hook—for a type-o or two. in fact, i never even consider writing about small type-os when i review. but while i allow others leniency, i always get so angry at myself. it is time we all let ourselves off the hook. no one is perfect. we all make mistakes. a misspelled word or a formatting error has nothing to do with the power, depth, or sheer enjoyment of a story and its world 🙂
Oh, Rachelle! I’ve so bin their, dun that, gott the tee-shirt.
By the way, I found an error or two in the comment. Shall I post it again?
Thanks for the reminder. Or, to quote my dear, sweet, patient, first-reader wife: “Let it go.”
Thanks for the chuckle, Richard. 😉
So funnie! 😉
I eye the manuscript I have sent about 100 times a day… thinking that I could probably go through and make it much better and it probably stinks royally and if I could just fix it again for the 30 millionth time, THEN it might be just right.
But so far, I have resisted the urge. Instead, I usually eat chocolate then write a little on my newest book.
This MIGHT be why I’ve gained about 10 pounds recently… Maybe I need to switch to a push-up per urge instead of piece of chocolate…
Perfect solution, Krista! Eat Chocolate!!
Haha…That sounds exactly like me!
Krista, I’m more than happy to help you avoid any more pounds – just send me some of your chocolate 🙂
I loved reading this. How freeing to see those pesky little errors from your side of the desk. I’m definitely a perfectionist. And, yes, I have driven myself crazy trying to make everything error-free, only to find something after I sent it in. Sigh.
I appreciate the grace you extend here, to not worry over little typos affecting another’s (agent, editor in particular) opinion of me or my abilities.
Thanks Rachelle!
Great advice. You’re right. By the time anyone else sees my manuscript–even my crit partners!–I’ve gone over the thing a thousand times. And there are still errors. And there still will be errors, even after they’ve seen it, because we’re not perfect. Even as I say that, I know I’ll reread this comment at least twice to make sure it’s perfect. Sigh.
I think my obsession with perfection is why God gave me my laid-back, don’t-worry-about-it husband. If I had a dollar for every time he’s said, “It’ll be all right….” (But I don’t know if the ellipses need to be inside the quotation marks or outside. Ack! I’ll click Post anyway since my husband isn’t here to talk me off the ledge.)
Jeanne said it perfectly – this blog post was freeing for me. Thank you, Rachelle.
No work of art will ever be perfected; it will merely be abandoned 🙂 Polish as best as you can until you get to a point of diminishing returns on that front… then be content with your best and move on!
I see you have a picture of me at the end of a day of writing.
I usually always find mistakes in anything I write even after it has been released for review or been approved for the engineering world to see. If its been approved, I am usually not to change a document unless it affects engineering. Then I have to make the change and go through the approval cycle all over again.
I love your example about reading and line editing and then the author sends you revisions. While I aim for perfection, I would hate to have wasted anybody’s time reading revising something again. I would hope my changes could be updated in the line edits themselves. At least, I could ask if I thought it would help.
Great approach, Heather.
I’ve noticed that more recent books have a lot of typos and other such problems. Usually it’s not a big deal, but it feels like it is getting to the point where there’s so many in any book I pick up that it breaks the feeling of connecting to the book.
What bothers me about my own writing isn’t such much typos, but when inferior words are used. Like Mark Twain said, it’s the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
I have a different experience — most of the recent inspirational novels (traditionally published) I’ve picked up at the library are well-edited and devoid of typos and grammatical issues. I have two perfect examples: Laura Frantz’s “Love’s Reckoning” and Julie Klassen’s “The Tutor’s Daughter.”
Five to ten years ago, there were glaring errors in some older inspirational novels, and poor cover designs. But these days, I think the authors and editors are doing a great job overall, and the art department is wonderful.
I can’t say the same thing about self-published books, though. Not much experience there as I tend to read mostly trad pub books.
Back when I was a textbook editor, I occasionally had authors who wanted to rewrite paragraphs (not make corrections, mind you, simply reword sentences in fresh ways) even after the plates were made and we were ready to roll presses! (Yes, “Argh!”)
We began explaining upfront the inverted pyramid of the cost mountain: making changes while it’s still in your hands is free, do as many as you want. Making changes after it leaves your hands involves other people’s time and materials and grows increasingly expensive at each stage of production. There simply comes a time when authors must let go.
Whew, Rachelle, you could not have written this post on a better day! I can now breathe a big sigh of relief. 🙂
I currently have my book proposal out to an agent and (of course) after going over the MS multiple times as well as having ten beta readers, I still found several typos/errors in the first 50 pages after I sent it.
Arghh is right! I have been stressing a bit about it and I don’t want to. You’re right. What’s turned in is turned in and I need to just settle for that.
Thanks for letting us know that the “perfection” we, unpubbed writers, have hammered into our little heads is not as severely punished as we thought.
Signed,
Grateful Unpubbed Author 🙂
I loved this, Morgan. 🙂 Congrats on sending your “baby” out on query!
Lol. Thanks, Jeanne!! 🙂
Rachelle, yes I can relate to such perfectionism, and those typos can be hard to catch. That is why it is vital to have a number of people read a manuscript before the author clicks “Send.”
I feel like a wide-eyed deer holding a red pen and MSS caught in the headlights of an agency truck.
“You’ve spent months or years writing that baby of yours, and trying to make everything perfect, and going over it a thousand times. ”
Uh-oh. Guilty as charged. I have rewritten some of my MSS countless times. My characters grew up and had kids and moved out of the house I put them in while I was trying to “fix” their stories. In the end, I liked all my first thoughts best. Could’ve saved lots of time there. I don’t how know many times I can rewrite my MSS to say the same things.
I’m not sure if I can ever get to this: “For now, it’s done.” But with God’s help, all things are possible.
Absolutely true, Rachelle. I have read my various pieces of writing over and over and have even read them out loud and backwards, trying to correct all my mistakes. Then I have brought copies of the writing to share with my critique group or have put a short essay on the projection screen to discuss essay parts in my writing classes only to find a typo or two. And I’ve reread the parts of my novel manuscripts that I thought I had perfected only to find a mistake or three in a chapter that I had read a million times (okay, slight exaggeration on the number). Yes, these little mistakes make me crazy. I am a recovering perfectionist and some days the recovery isn’t going too good! I would most likely be one of those writers who would send the “I left out the ‘e’ from “the” on page …” However, I promise I would never make changes while someone was line editing my manuscript. I actually have been on the other side of that and it is maddening.
Thank you for giving us the permission–and encouragement–to be imperfect human beings.
Blessings!
I love this post, Rachelle, and it made me laugh. Especially since I was one of those writers who sent you an apology email about all those typos. How do they slip through so easily? I love your advice, and I pledge to give myself a break on submitted manuscripts ever after!
Chuckling to myself here. The timing of your post is perfect for me. (There’s that word again!)
I was about to send a query off to you at 11pm the other night when my husband said, “Wait! Did you double, triple, quadruple check everything?”
“Yes, love. About a million times.”
“But I just saw you making changes. Did you reread it to make sure you didn’t miss a typo?”
Sigh. What if…? “Okay, hon.” I closed my laptop.
Better safe than sorry, but I will let go and send soon. 🙂
Yes!! You’re writing about me–it’s that same awful feeling as when you think, did I turn off the stove? I bet I didn’t.
The house is gonna burn down if I don’t go back home right this minute and check. 🙂
If I don’t, it’ll be all my fault. And our home owner’s insurance probably won’t pay for me doing something so stupid.
Ahhhhh!
Love this post. A good reminder to be professional but not paranoid!
Thank you so much for this post!
I will be facing this in about a month-your posts are incredibly timely as well. So glad I found this blog!!
Rachel, I appreciate this post, too. I try so hard to be error-free. It’s not just a writer thing for me. It’s a mental thing! 🙂 When I realized some time ago that I had sent out a manuscript to several folks with a 12-year-old girl “peaking” instead of “peeking”–on the first page no less–I was so embarrassed and I knew that had to be why they rejected it. But then a published writer critiqued the same version and didn’t catch the peak/peek problem either. So I didn’t feel quite so bad. Still embarrassed, though.
Oh I love this. I have to find creative ways to get my mind tricked into relying on the right side or I get paralyzed in perfectionism land. I’ve started art journaling for this reason. But for finishing my ms and calling it “done for now” I’ve yet to have a victory. One month, give me one more month! 🙂
Consider…you’ve just entered your baby into national unpublished MS competition. You sit back with a sigh of relief. A couple of days later, while having a casual read, you discover you left a comment to your editor slap bang in the middle of a page…in red…in bold…in font size 16. There is only one thing to do… you take a deep breath, offer up a quick prayer that the judges are colourblind to red, shrug your shoulders and say, ‘Que Sera Sera.’ 🙂
It’s not just me!!!
Great advice Rachel. Now I ain’t gonna be worrying bout nothing like this never again. Ok. Just kidding, nice to see a post about not being perfect and letting the process take over.
Oh, Rachelle, you’re speaking to me. 🙂 I went over my manuscript zillions of times, an editor worked her magic on it, two proofreaders did their thing after that, and yet a couple of mistakes made it into the printed book. When a reader spotted the first one and told me about it, I fought the urge to cringe. After all, I wanted my book to be error-free so readers wouldn’t think I’m a hack. Instead of groaning, I laughed. Why? Because–surprise, surprise–the pressure was off. There was a mistake, and yet readers were still enjoying the story. Who would’ve believed it possible? This recovering perfectionist was happy to be proved wrong.
And with the magic of print-on-demand technology, that error can probably be resolved before the next print run . . .
Thanks for that insight. I hadn’t thought about it from the editor’s point of view, and I for one, do tend to keep going back over again and again, making changes.
Also, loved that photo!!
Funny that you should post about writers who are never done with revisions. I’m preparing my manuscript for a contest, independently, though it’s also on my editor’s desk at the publishing house, with a fall release date on the calendar.
The problem is, an ARC may not be available in time for the contest, so my publisher has given me the go-ahead to submit my manuscript to the contest in whatever format I choose. You guessed it—in the process, I’ve made a lot of small changes and I’ve caught a few errors (even though I proofed it carefully before submitting it to the publisher in the first place).
So, yes, there’s going to be another version of it “out there” (unpublished, but out there, and in my computer). Whether my publisher or editor will want to see it is anyone’s guess.
They say a poem is never finished. I think that’s true about a novel. At some point it’s out of your hands, though, and you have to give it up.
Yep!
Margins fine. But misusing infer? THAT has to be fixed!
Thank you for letting us know how you feel, but what about other agents? It drives me crazy when one agent wants 1 inch margins and another 1.5 inches. I tried to resolve this by asking what the standard was at an open forum at a writer’s conference and was laughed at. I have read several recent novels from Christian publishers that were error-filled with homonym confusion, genre switching within the work, and misuse/overuse of adjectives, adverbs, and similes. Someone needs to fix this and wouldn’t it be better fixed by the author before it hits the agent and is published? I never find these problems in books published by large publishers.
I think the weak link you describe is the editor, who should have caught those obvious mistakes. Some readers won’t notice. We will. My reaction is the same as yours. I cringe.
Obviously, as writers we should always be polishing our skills, so those kinds of errors won’t even be in the manuscripts in the first place, but if they are, editors and copyeditors are there to see that they don’t make it to the printed page. A good editor is priceless.
Rachelle, Where did you find a photo of me before entering my first contest?
I used to drive my crit partners crazy by revising the same day after I’d submitted something. I finally wised up.
Great to hear from your perspective. Thanks.
So hard to let your baby go out into the cold cruel world where it might be rejected for any reason. Good to know it’s not the small stuff that matters most. Your post about selling a product of value to others really helped me let go too. I’m ooching towards SEND! Thanks so much.
Like so many others here, I have found this post to be so freeing. I tend to be perfectionist about my writing (not so much about other things), and I have to say it does reduce my enjoyment in my craft. This post is like forgiveness from the Universe. Once I have done the best I know how, I can let it go. Thank you.
And to give a visual example, I used the wrong email addy which generated the wrong avatar. I am now practising my newfound letting-it-go. Oh, well. 🙂
Phew. What a relief!
Great writing! Very informative and helpful. Thank you!!
Pheww! Thank you for that post, Rachelle. I needed this.
I feel the pain all over again as I read this post. Try as I might I just can’t be perfect. Thank you for the balance.
Someone (wise and profound) said, “A novel is never finished until its published.” So I suppose all these post-submission writer-regrets will continue as long as we put pen to paper… or finger to keys.. or dragon speak to microphone…whatever. Forgive us our sell-punishing insecurities. Great post.
Rachelle, thanks for a great post. I have stressed to the point of insanity because my proposal is with an agent at this time. I have grieved over any errors and worried if the formating was off, in transit, due to technical errors out of my control, etc. Sharing your expertise has helped my feelings a great deal. Thank you!
I appreciate how relaxed this sounds. I need to hear this sort of thing more often as I work on a manuscript with only the pages numbered and I’m sure I’d over edit them.
overedit 😉
In a graphics class, the teacher handed out a flyer from the printer’s shop urging customers to proof their work before signing off. Great idea. Too bad the printer didn’t check his flyer too with several typos. I was the only one who spotted them; our eyes are forgiving and we all had a good laugh and a reminder that it’s the message not the mistake that gets the prize.
Amen and thank you so much for letting us off the anxiety hook. Never fails to amaze me how you can look at a manuscript 900 times and fail to see a typo until it’s been shipped off for scrutiny.
That said, there is no reason, no valid excuse, for typos and errors in a published book. I DO think readers mind. I know that whenever I’ve read a poorly edited book (mostly self-published e-books) the mistakes are like speed bumps, slowing me down and diminishing my pleasure. It’s not OK to shoot for getting almost everything right. Perfection is still the standard. My bookshelves are filled with novels and non-fiction examples of writers, agents, editors and publishers who would not settle for anything less and succeeded.
I’M SO SORRY Rachelle .
In my last posting, I spelled your name wrong, double spaced my comments . . . when I meant to single space them and spelled several words the way my mother taught me to and not the right way.
I hope you still read what I had to say.
I recently switched to editing in Microsoft SkyDrive just to avoid this particular kind of frustration. Now I share the current document-in-progress with the author; they can view my changes and comments at any time while I am editing, and if they write any new scenes or make changes at my suggestion, I can immediately see what they have done. Of course, this requires a certain level of trust, and if we haven’t developed that yet then I don’t give them editing privileges when I share the document and require any changes to be created in a separate file and emailed to me.
The most frustrating things about obsessively-compulsively editing a manuscript are:
1. I fret so much about editing my manuscript that I’m no longer actually writing my manuscript. How can I start Chapter Five when there could possibly be a misplaced comma in Chapter Four somewhere?
2. I edit the manuscript so much that it no longer resembles what it originally was. This is okay as long as the changes are okay. But when they’re not, and the thing no longer bears any resemblance to what it once was, you’re utterly lost.
3. I edit the manuscript so much that I create new typos and silly mistakes every time I fix a typo or a silly mistake.
Maddening.
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