And there’s more…

Repetitious words.  Overuse of exclamation points.

Now another problem needed to be solved—and here is why time spent in planning before writing can be invaluable:

I found that the last line of one of my chapters said something to the effect that “Snow began to fall.” However, it was raining in the next chapter. Big trouble. I had to do a lot of rewriting to those two chapters to make sure the weather was identical.

This will be the same for your writing. If it is snowing in chapter four, then it had better be snowing in the following chapter (that is, of course, if your next chapter follows the first one, consecutively).

If your character is wearing a T-shirt and shorts, then the next paragraph cannot have him shrugging off his coat.

You can save yourself a lot of work if you will plan these things out– down to the minutest detail before you write because it’s not as easy to fix as you might think.

It won’t be just a matter of substituting one word (rain) for the other (snow). No, what about the characters’ physical and emotional reactions to the weather (He shivered…) or the fact that they probably wouldn’t be playing tennis in the snow?

I found it to be, quite literally, a house of cards. Maybe Dominoes resting on each other would be a more accurate description. Just one tiny push—one small mistake—and it all comes tumbling down…

While we are ever-so-briefly touching on planning, I suggest that you keep a chart of some kind with the character’s name, followed by their physical description, age, eye color, etc. Nothing is more disconcerting to a reader than to find the character’s eye and hair color are constantly changing.

I guess what I am saying is that, as writers, we need to be at the top of our game. It is embarrassing to look at a proof and see gigantic mistakes staring right back at you. (I literally hit my forehead with the heel of my hand and said, “Duh!)

If you have to slow down and miss a deadline, then so be it. Better to be late than produce a book riddled with mistakes.

You may think, “I’ll just leave these things to my editor to sort out and clean up for me.”

That would be a big—and foolish mistake. I had my book edited twice and I still found mistakes on the twelfth read through!

That’s right. I had competent editors, about eight months apart, go through my manuscript. Still, content mistakes were found as I read through them later.  Part of the reason, I think, is that they don’t—and will never—know the story like I do. Or, maybe they just get caught up in the story. I’m really not sure.

But, the point is this: Ultimately, it is your book. The buck stops with you.

So, be diligent. Be a perfectionist. Make it the best it can be.

Even if, like me, you end up being fashionably late.