Never trust automated editing software. Spell and grammar check are great tools, but a professional writer can not depend on them. Proofing every word is part of the craft and should be done as if Spell Check did not exist. I recommend printing and reading the copy far away from the computer. Ignore this advice and this may happen to you.
Back when I was an undergrad at Wayne State University in Detroit, I wrote my first play, "Winter Sunrise," and entered it into the writing contest help each year by the English Department. It is the heartbreaking story of the struggle between a father and a son that has their family in tatters. The father desperately wants to give family farm to his son, but the son wants to be an artist and hates the father for trying to keep him down.
I wrote the play, proofed it and sent it to many, many places. I went over and over the script on the computer making sure there were no mistakes. I relied on Spell Check for spelling and Grammar Check for wrong word usage.
The play won the very prestigious award from the English Department at Wayne State, and they invited me to come and do a reading. I picked the pages and prepared it for the reading. When I arrived at the ceremony, everyone was surprised I was a woman. My first name is Cynthia. They assumed I was a man because I wrote very well about tractors, they explained. A guy named Cynthia?
The play won the very prestigious award from the English Department at Wayne State, and they invited me to come and do a reading. I picked the pages and prepared it for the reading. When I arrived at the ceremony, everyone was surprised I was a woman. My first name is Cynthia. They assumed I was a man because I wrote very well about tractors, they explained. A guy named Cynthia?
Plays function by concretizing emotions and translating them into actions. In the play, the son is famous in his hometown for doing intricate carving. When the son was ten, for his father’s birthday he made a carved bowl with the scene of a winter sunrise over their farm because the Dad loved to watch the sunrise. The son was proud of it and certain he finally did something his Dad would love and subsequently would love him. The father, a man of taciturn disposition, said nothing about the bowl. He glanced at it, set it down and said, “Let’s have cake.” It was never seen again. The son believed his Dad threw it out. It was the start of the rift between them. In the penultimate scene between father and son, the father reveals he still has the bowl and has treasured it through the years.
Needless to say, the bowl plays a significant part in the story.
At the ceremony, I'm at the podium and begin reading one of the bowl scenes. Glaring at me from the page like vibrating neon mountains is the word bowel over and over and over again:
At the ceremony, I'm at the podium and begin reading one of the bowl scenes. Glaring at me from the page like vibrating neon mountains is the word bowel over and over and over again:
"What did he do with my bowel?"
"I worked hard on that bowel."
"It took me months to carve that bowel."
“Carving a sunrise on a bowel….”
It goes on. Needless to say, I froze and my face reddened. I made it through the ordeal by verbally correcting the word and fighting the urge to laugh at what I was actually reading; a discussion of an intricately carved bowel. The mental images alone were enough to have you on floor howling. I also fought the urge to cry because all the English professors in the room read about the bowel.
Unable to enjoy my accolades at the wine reception thinking of all the artistic directors out there reading about the intricately carved bowel; as soon as possible, I raced home and checked the rest of the script. I hoped against hope that it was only in one scene. No. Every single occurrence was spelled bowel; my only comfort being I was consistent.
Wait--will they think I really meant bowel!
Wait--will they think I really meant bowel!
The word bowel is not spelled wrong, so spell check didn't catch it. Grammar check didn't catch it because bowl and bowel are both nouns. I used bowel correctly in every sentence. A story about a son who intricately carves a winter sunrise on a bowl for his father is one thing; a story about a son who does the same thing on a bowel is a different story completly. It leads to all sorts of questions. What kind of bowel was it? How was it obtained? How was it preserved? Can you carve on a bowel?
I will never know which play they read.
I will never know which play they read.
Ever since, I always print my scripts, let them set for a day and take them to another location and read them with a blue pencil in hand. I will never trust an automated editor.
The Bottom Line
You have to know your grammar. You have to know your punctuation. If you are not good at these, find out what you have to do to make yourself good and make that part of your process.
The next, "Getting it Write," post, will cover techniques for tackling this issue.
Please leave comments below or discuss the topic on g+
