Fact-checking and proofreading seem to have taken a vacation lately.  I’ve seen so-called professional news sites and even books with goofs that made my mouth hang open so long, a wren could have built a nest in it.

A few judicious checks can help you avoid making a big fat mistake in your posts, reports, and other documents.  You can’t afford not to.  Here are some ways to make sure you’re not posting what amounts to a first draft.

Spell Check

This handy gadget in your word processing program (Microsoft Word and Open Office’s text document feature have it) will automatically check your document for spelling and grammar errors, if you have that feature turned on.  It underlines misspellings in red.

If you launch the checker under Review in Word, it will go through and recheck everything.  You then have the option to correct.  Make sure you’re picking the right word!

Spell Check is a first line of defense.  The feature won’t catch everything.  If I typed “Proofreding Your Wok,” it marks Proofreding but not Wok.  The last one is a real word.

A typo I make frequently is form instead of from.  I actually have to search for that one in manuscripts to make sure I didn’t do it.

When you go through your document on the first pass, try to remember what errors you make on a regular basis.  It helps to make a list and keep it handy.  You can also use the Find feature in Word to search for your most common goofs.

Look at it in hard copy

Anne Mini is a stickler for proper formatting.  As she points out repeatedly, the best way to find mistakes is to read your manuscript, OUT LOUD, from a hard copy before you even think about sending it to anyone.

The eye gets tired reading off a computer screen.  It’s much easier to miss errors than when reading a page.  E-readers are a hit because their interface resembles a real page in a book, and it doesn’t give you eyestrain like your laptop.

I recommend printing your copy out, putting it down and walking away from it for a while, the longer the better.  I can’t stay away from a manuscript for more than a week myself.  If you’re on a deadline, try to aim for at least thirty minutes.  Then come back and read it, blue pencil at the ready.

Have someone else look at it

This is especially good for novels.   Once you’ve spent six months with your nose in a manuscript, you don’t see individual words anymore.  You know it too well.  It’s like ceasing to notice that freckle on your lover’s hip.

Make sure you pick someone who can get it done fairly quickly, and is adept at giving feedback rather than criticism.

Watch for unintentionally silly turns of phrase, too.  I saw this sign at the grocery store today:

Juvenile of me to giggle throughout my shopping trip, but it really was funny.

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Now that you’ve checked your text, you’ll have to make sure your facts / names / etc.  are correct.

Google it

Ever notice that when you enter something in Google’s search bar it corrects your spelling?  When I typed “evylin woug” it automatically pulled up English writer Evelyn Waugh’s Wikipedia page first thing.  That’s pretty damn good.

Of course, sometimes it gets it wrong.  Try Chrome’s Google page.  If you click the little microphone, you can use your voice to look up stuff.  Your laptop will probably have a mike.   Mumble a bit; the results are hysterical.

Look it up in the dictionary

 Most references are online now, at pages like Merriam-Webster.com, Thesaurus.com, and more.  However, maybe someone gave you a dictionary to use in college.  You may still have it.  Keep it around for when the modem goes out or you just want to feel scholarly.

Use the library

 If you can’t find something online, you can try the library.   There’s bound to be a book or periodical about your subject.  University libraries are often open to residents of the town, or if you’re an alumnus, you may have library privileges.

Haven’t been in the library since grade school?  Did you use the Dewey Decimal system on index cards as a kid?  Never fear, little boomer.  The nice people at the information desk are there to help you.

Check and recheck your work.  You’ll be glad you made it a habit.  It will help you appear more professional, and your readers will struggle less.

Show vs. tell is one of the toughest things for beginning writers to grasp.   You’d think that exposition would be easy.  It is, when you’re explaining something.  But you can’t do that through a whole book, or your reader will get tired.

To show readers something takes more time and more words, but it brings your prose to life.  Would you rather see a movie, or have your friend tell you about it like “And then the Brad Pitt guy took this thing, and he shot this other guy with it, and then the villain—I can’t remember his name, but you would know him—blew up the bridge and they flew through the air—“ et al.

A while ago, I wrote a post trying to explain the difference between show and tell in writing.  Well, I was reading back through some old entries and realized my examples were WRONG WRONG WRONG.

I think I finally get it (let’s hope so).  After doing rewrites of certain bits of my book Rose’s Hostage and forcing myself to take time to read more, I was able to see the concept more clearly.

Telling is just like it says, telling.

Buffy and Xander were terrified of the Powder Demon and its deadly spray, which rendered its victims immobile before their skin dissolved from their flesh.

Yeah, okay, but it’s dull.   Try this instead:

Buffy’s chest tightened, a fist squeezing her throat shut.  Her legs wobbled and she halted.  The Powder Demon hadn’t seen them yet.  She glanced at Xander and saw his eyes roll back in his head, and caught him as he fainted.  Her skin itched as she thought of the poor cop, dissolving like a piece of soap coated with the Demon’s spray.

Nowhere in here do I tell you Buffy and Xander are scared, but you figure it out from the way they are acting.

Please don’t do it with Hollywood dialogue, like this example where Joker tells Batman the incredibly obvious:

“Why, look, it’s the Batman,” Joker whispered, his foul breath drifting into the captured hero’s face.  “You thought you could keep your secret identity a secret, didn’t you? But then you crashed your Batcycle on the slippery oil I poured on the roadway.  And then your wallet fell out of your cape!  Sloppy, sloppy.  I’ve got you now, Bruce Wayne!”

Urp!

Skipping a scene entirely and telling about it later also works for transitions when:

• Your character is doing something tedious that you don’t want to waste time on before the next scene. Your scenes should advance the plot, not describe someone’s bathroom routine, unless you’re establishing character.
• You’re starting a new book or new episode and want to review (re Harry at the Dursleys house in each subsequent Harry Potter book).

In Rose’s Hostage,  I originally had the bank robber musing about his lost money like this:

Joshua had been surprised and shocked when he showed up at Stefano Barbieri’s dry cleaners, one of the front businesses for the money laundering operation and his preferred pickup point, and Stefano told him it was gone.  He and Stefano had gone out back and had a little argument about not checking with him first.  In fact, his knuckles were still scraped raw. 

Dull, boring and blah.

In revision, that ended up as a really fun scene by itself.  I was able to establish a motive for Barbieri to later ID the bank robber and tie up a loose end from an earlier cut.

Heh heh.  Revision is fun.

The best cinematic example I know of show vs. tell is George Lucas’ 1971 science fiction film TXH 1138, starring Robert Duvall and Donald Pleasance.  A dystopian society is revealed to us not through voice-over narration, but through the daily activities of the title character, everyday-type dialogue (no exposition) and setting.  Gradually we come to realize how these people are living.

Showing is easy in film but not so much with prose.  Practice with some of your own work.  Look for examples where you’ve told your readers what you want them to know, and see if you can’t expand a little and show them instead.