Names and authors needing proofreaders

[Morrighan]

I was wondering first if anyone else had trouble coming up with names for their characters. It is absolutely impossible for me to use common names for mine--they either have to be names I made up or names that translate literally into something (Cerridwynn being one of my favorite names, it means "sacred poetry.") I can stare at the monitor for hours trying to think of the right name. The second I have it, I'm off, but I spend a LOT of time on the baby name sites.

Second, there's a lot of authors posting here asking for proofreaders, and I'll volunteer. I've been writing for over a decade now (scary thought--I'm getting old) and I was lucky enough to have some outstanding teachers who showed me what to look for. No snuff, scat, or bestiality, though, please. There's some subject matter I can't get past. *sheepish smile*

Morrighan

[boccaccio2000g]

I share your difficulty coming up with suitable names, particularly names for female characters. For some reason, a great many female names just have no erotic resonance for me.

Boccaccio

[Kallie Thomas]

Oh, I have no real trouble making up names--my problem is trying to come up with names I don't think are TOO common. You'll notice I had one of my stories removed recently--"Cyber." Some poor sod in England is in the job market, and a google search of his name brought up only one return--my story. He emailed me, asked if I would consider changing the name. I'm easy, I asked Jinn to pull it until I can get around to editing it.

Hope you got the job, Shane

Kallie

[Aurelius]

Kallie, that made me smile, but yes it could be awkward for a person and the author.

I'm sure I posted on the forum before that I 'Google' my character names before I post just in case this happens. I had a near miss on an early story. The closest I've come since was someone thinking Aurelius might be a long-lost relative. Oh, how the Aurelius clan has declined!

If there is a writing tips section on this site I recommend that Googling character names is added. If a writer is committed on a name it's pretty easy to vary the spelling to 'ungoogle' it, and save another poor job hunter from further embarrassment.

I wonder whether Shane enjoyed the story?

[Finding_Fantasy]

I don't ever seen to have troubles coming up with names for characters no matter what I write. A lot of my names are generic, however, though I do some spelling improvisations, like Jehsea instead of Jessie.

As for proof reading. Always. Mostly my proofreading is for typos. My typing skills leave a lot to be desired. Microsoft word does take care of a lot of that, though. Aside from typing, my biggest hurdle is punctuation. I sometimes get confused as to where the commas or semi colons go. I am always looking for proofreaders, though TG is pretty good about doing that for me.

[Kallie Thomas]

LOL, I proof like mad, sometimes have my husband proof, too, and I still find at least one glaring mistake AFTER the story goes live. Guess I shouldn't feel too awful about it, though--I find minimum a dozen errors in most New York Times bestsellers, too. Guess some mistakes have an anti-proofing field around them.


Kallie

[Finding_Fantasy]

LOL. Yeah I have found several spelling/printing errors in a few of the books that I have and those are from big name publishing companies!

[teamster]

Although I would be happy to offer my services as a proofreader for anyone who feels they could use the help, probably my qualifications are not nearly as good as Morrighan's, judging be the careful and cogent way in which she phrases her posts [whether I agree with her opinions or not]. I would venture the opinion, though, that it is difficult to proofread without editorializing, so it would certainly be helpful if the writer and proofreader are sympathetic in terms of the nature of the subject matter. So before anyone sends me anything to proof, please take a look at some of my own work and see if it rings a bell with you, or if indeed you feel that I am qualified for such a task.

As far as naming fictional characters is concerned, I don't know how important the name you choose really is, although they do need to be appropriate to the time and place of the story. Obviously it would be difficult to create a convincing male dom with a name like Milton or Melvin, but I have no problem using fairly generic names and letting the characters' actions define them. I had a lot more trouble naming my daughter when she was born, since I knew it was something she would have to live with for the rest of her life. The good thing about fictional characters is that you can always change them... with any word processing program it's a simple matter to just command it to switch "Angela" for "Alison" throughout the whole text. So don't let it bog you down...just pick a working name and go ahead with your story. When and if you think of something better it's easy to change.

[Morrighan]

That's a great idea, Teamster. (I mean the name switching thing.) You would not believe how much time I waste just trying to name my character.

Morrighan

[janie]

Please, i would love to!

I am an instinctive proofreader and the main problem I have reading nearly anything is that I can't turn it off! No matter how engrossed I am in the content of what I am reading, be it job ads or fiction, the spelling/grammar/punctuation errors just leap at me distractingly. I would love to find legitimate employment for my talent/curse but I can't.

I have been coming to this site for a little while now and yes, having now visited the forums and seen some of the input here, I will try to review some of what I have read. In the meantime, many thanks to all of you who have put yourselves out here. However, I have to say that for me the #1 reason for failing to continue to read any story past the first page is the obvious lack of proofing. It pains me too much to think that the author had no sympathetic and literate friends to run it by before posting.

If I can help anyone here I would feel a little useful and I have nothing better to do.

janie

[Aurelius]

Welcome to the website, Janie.

I would love to find legitimate employment for my talent/curse but I can't...If I can help anyone here I would feel a little useful and I have nothing better to do.
janie

You mean as opposed to illegitimate employment? Have you considered the proofreading underworld? (Ok, so it's not really funny, it just tickled me.)

I have a similar talent/curse, the problem is it only manifests itself AFTER my story is posted on the site, not while I'm sweating over it on my computer!

It's true that many of us authors here could use a proofreader. It is such a chore. I expect your generous offer could net you a bulging postbag. If not, you could send an email to any author whose stories you like and who needs more proofing. I can't imagine anyone being offended by such a gesture.

[janie]

Thank you Aurelius, pleased to meet you.

I meant 'legitimate' in that being currently unemployed I must apply for a minimum number of jobs each fortnight in order to claim dole payments, which means applying for an awful lot of jobs that I really don't want. I hate that. I should feel bad about not getting any of those, but the only jobs I really want are for proofreading and are few and far between. For me that just wouldn't be work, you see. It is not in the least a chore for me. It just happens anyway which is why I would be delighted to be able to offer that service here where I am reading anyway.

I have thought to ask a few whose stories I particularly liked but who really needed more proofing and wasn't sure how they might take it, the main reason I haven't reviewed any either. It felt somehow petty and pedantic. I really am not like that, except for written language, apparently.

By all means ask me. I read very fast.

janie

[Aurelius]

Hi Janie honey. I knew what you meant, I was just joking with ya. You have my sympathies re the dole situation. I was in the same situation myself until recently. It sure is a rigmarole these days! I'm scraping a living self-employed now.

If you did proofreading here we could provide you with references for your job hunting

[TheLordofStorms]

Some of the things i do for names is to look at foriegn language names, like Japanese or Gaelic. They can provide a good base for names. Another way is for me to delve into my old AD&D books if i am working on a Scifi/Fantasy tale...

As for proofreading, i could use any and all help/advice i can get i usually sit on a finished piece a week or so rereading it before posting.....


Storm (rob)

[fetish101]

I always like the names the good writers of star trek come up with..especially from deep space 9. (yes I like star trek..) [insert trekky joke here]

[EstabanBacca]

Anyone interested in this onerous chore... please IM or e mail me. We can talk about it. Anyone who might get their feelings hurt if we don't end up collaborating should probably stay on the porch though. No room for dudes or prudes at dizzy altitudes!

[slave ruthie]

names - yes i know waht you mean, they can take ages to appear then suddenly WHAM and you can write the next bit lol - soemtimes the names jsut came before the character and i end up saying "who the heck is THIS and waht is SHE or HE doing in here???" but mostly it is stories of real people like i found the name Guljana from the second bride (i think she was age 14 or 15 and he was about 36 at the time) of Mullah Omar, and Master Charles was a wonderful (sadly now deceased) Dom from Calgary...guess i don't have a real method at all (sigh).

spelling is difficult for me unless i use clickntype with a graphic tablet and pen instead of a keyboard - that way ican type quite fast with my left hand but i find i can't rely on word's spellchecker and since i started writing mainly for Gary Robert's US-based site i try to use American spelling and phrases when i can...and that can be fun lolol

then proof-reading...well i do get Phil to read it over but soemtimes all i get is a sort of monosyllabic 'grunt' and it gets handed back unchanged so i don't rely on my Beloved Master (gasp, shock horror!). it coems down to the occasional comment from ppl who have to endure my stories, such as Master Ira that pointed out how my slaves had a tendency to mew when gagged rather than moan lolol

i have no solutions except to beg anyone who reads my stories to tell me about things to change or correct. i don't try too hard with my general writing like posts and emails (yes, iknow it shows lol) but that's my fault

the thing i worry about more is the descriptions have to be right and realistic and consistent so if soemthing is on the right side and the person turns round it has to be on the left, or where possible with Phil's help (and within reason of course) i try to work out the physical way soemthing is doen - like placing an ankle spreader bar that's very long is easier to fit one end then lift up the person's leg bent to get the other one doen - stuff like that. and details - the internet helps but soemtimes if you can see a place it helps too. i needed to find and walk around a Belgian chateau to get the sheer idea of it as a location, i've been on the roof of a tower block at night to see waht it might be like, and to bring as much real detail into a plot to help the extreme details blend in better...

proofing is so helpful and i wish i had that skill to offer others but if ppl are stuck for names maybe i can help with suggestions or ideas?

love & respect

ruthie
XXXXXX

[j]

Some stories are posted with such a need for proofreading that it amounts to a stylistic choice by the writer; others are almost perfect. Most, by and large, are in need of substantial combing for

-typos, some of which are amazingly recurrent ('their' for 'there' and vice-versa), some others being almost unique to a writer - I can tell some writers by their typos;
-lazy turns of writing ('could care less', 'youre' for 'you're', etc);
-worst of all, inconsistencies, changes of proper nouns, sometimes complete garbling of paragraph orders:
-some choices in typing - I loathe the fashion of de-capitalizing proper nouns and pronouns which refer to slaves. Sorry Slave Ruthie! It makes for stilted reading. I always reverse it in my personal copies.

So I almost always read onscreen with a red pencil, so to speak. Yet I won't offer my services for proofreading. (well, I did once, but it came to naught). If a story does not grab me by my baddest parts, I find no interest in removing the mud and slime from its diamonds.

[catpaws (melinda)]

I agree that the main reason I stop reading a story is because of poor editing and proofing. Much to my chagrin the poor use of grammar or misspelled words can become so distracting to me that I find focusing on the story itself to become difficult. The other day my jaw began aching while reading a new one, and I discovered I was sitting here gnashing my teeth! *lol* (so much for the enjoyment of pleasurable relaxed reading). Ok, call me anal about grammar! No worries I've been called worse! Point is, I'd be more than happy to proof stories if anyone wishes me, too. I've done it professionally in one of my past lives and my first degree is in English (the Language).

In the meantime, y'all just keep up the good work...

Melinda

[catpaws (melinda)]

How humiliating to discover that my post contains a grammatical error...*shaking head*....that sentence should read that I would be most happy to proofread if anyone wishes me to. This was certainly another lesson in humbleness...

Melinda

[JakBird]

I would be most happy to proofread if anyone wishes me to.

Figures of speech in a colloquial setting are exempt from grammatical raps on the knuckles with a ruler...as is ending a sentence with a preposition.

“This is the sort of English up with which I cannot put.” Winston Churchill

[Naughty Puppy]

When I'm stumped for a character name, I often go here:
http://www.gaminggeeks.org/Resources/KateMonk/

It seems to be intended for use by gamers
to name their role-playing characters, but I've
found it suits my needs just fine when I need
a foreign, period, or just a different name.

[ozzystoy]

I am recently retired. Therefore, I am considered to possess an inordinate amount of free time.
At any rate, I would love to proof read stories. My work demanded proper grammar and my private life required proper sexual references.

Waiting for the chance to help.

Ozzy

[Gallardo]

I am surprised by the number of requests and offers for proofreading. Proper grammar, punctuation, etc are important but that is hardly the purpose of this site. I would pick a bad written (in terms of grammar) story with a very intriguing and sexy plot over a flawless work with a mudane plot. In other words, focus on the actions/plot/story more than technicalities.

[jaeangel]

It's true, the content is more important than how it's written...but there is also the problem that some are so badly written you almost can't find the plot under all the misspellings, typos, grammatical errors, etc. And a good plot can be ruined by bad writing. Also, it's easier to read if there are paragraph breaks, etc.
I'm a member of a fairly large fanfiction site on the net, and the subcategory I write for happens to be one of the largest in its category. When I go to read what others have written, sometimes I find myself sitting there reading aloud, depending on the sound of the word to guide me to what the word actually is. English is one of the hardest languages, and it's mostly because a lot of English words aren't spelled the way they sound. And the juxtaposition of 'they're' and 'their' isn't going to be picked up by a spellchecker. So beta readers are a good thing to have; very good. They can catch the typos, and if they happen to know a little about the topic, so much the better, they can suggest things that wouldn't occur to you, or pick up on continuity flaws. My beta-reader just picked out a major continuity flaw between chapter 3 and chapter 32 of my novel, and if it wasn't for him I would have sent it off to the publisher like that! Beta-readers are a must for anyone who writes, whether it be a novel or a ficlet.

[spike]

Hooray! I’ve found the thread where people talk about accuracy in writing. I am someone who sees every typo, every grammar glitch, every confusion of ‘their’, ‘there’ and ‘they’re’, every ‘flaunt’ that should be ‘flout’, every single ‘to’ that should be ‘too’ as if they were six feet tall in flaming red letters with a huge arrow pointing to them bearing the words ‘Why are you here?’ It’s a handicap, I know.

I make the errors myself. But I fix them all when they aren’t deliberate. (I started a sentence with a conjunction. Deliberately. And I have sentences with no verb. Nothing wrong with that. If you know what you’re doing. ) This is only my third post on this site (not ‘sight’ ) but the first two have had five after-post edits between them.

Those who don’t proofread, or don’t get their work proofread (yes, they are spelt the same but pronounced differently) are torturing the rest of us. Why do I think I am justified in saying this? Because writing is intended to communicate.

Spelling a word roughly correctly does most of the job. Mostly you can read it. In fact get the first and last letters in the right place and most of the other letters there in some order or other and almost every native reader of English can tell what you mean. However, to those who know how something should be spelled (yes, it was ‘spelt’ somewhere above – both are correct) there is a moment when the concentration wavers. We are thinking about the error, not what was intended. The communication has failed slightly.

It is a similar effect on a smaller scale as if you were to say ‘fuck’ to my dear little white-haired old mother. (Yes, really. Most of my hair is white or thereabouts too.) She would hear everything said before the word, but would forget it all immediately and wouldn’t hear the rest of what you said at all. All she would hear would be ‘fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck…’. And she wouldn’t be happy, believe me.

When you typo or misspell or dyslex (No there isn’t such a word. I made it up.) I do carry on reading, but the more you do it, the closer I get to seeing ‘wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong…’.

For those who have a genuine problem, I have every sympathy. But there is a solution. Get a proof-reader. Better still, get what jaeangel calls a beta reader. (Good term. I hadn’t seen it before.) A beta reader will check your work for everything that might be wrong with it and, ideally, send you a marked up version or a set of suggestions for things that might be wrong. Then you can decide whether to fix it or whether, like me, you want to break the rules in this case. (I would guess there are people who would say that I had misused ‘like’ and used the accusative ‘me’ to agree with the nominative ‘you’ in that sentence. I am, however, unable to think of a way to say that that reads right and doesn’t break those rules.)

I am willing to take on either the proof-reader or the beta reader job for anyone here who feels they need it. As to taste, I think simple rules – ‘no kids, no scat, no snuff’ – will do for me. I will even get a copy of Webster to check American spellin’ authoritatively if necessary. Contact me by private message here.


Or on the other hand you might just like to say ‘fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck…’ to me. ‘sokay

Spike

P.S. And sorry for including the footnotes in the text, this is a message board, not a typesetting suite.

[janie]

...bearing in mind of course that pedantry can sometimes be taken just a smidgeon too far at some cost to readability?

"This is the sort of english up with which i cannot put." Winston Churchill

janie