Simple but Effective Tools for Proofreading and Editing
Melissa Donovan over at Writing Forward:
But if I have to do any editing and proofreading for manuscript-length projects or complex materials destined for print publication, I do like to sit down and go over the text with a red pen.
Me too, totally.
In fact, I have a little rule: write on screen, edit on paper. I have no problem at all writing straight to screen and I’m certainly not one of those writers who pens entire manuscripts by hand. But when it comes to chopping and changing, things are different.
I’ve often tried to work out why that is. I can read perfectly well on screen and there are plenty of tools to help me edit and proofread. But there’s something about having a physical copy that works better. I somehow find it comforting to have a permanent, living record of what went before.
I also think that there is something intrinsically valuable about having hard copies of old revisions. I keep and archive electronic iterations of my writing, but they mean little to me beyond the security of simply knowing that they are there.
And yet I have many, many drafts of my novel in a box in the cellar, all of which would break my heart to lose. They document the development of my novel, but various moments, places and people in my life too. They mean the world to me.
