As you can see, my Disney minifigs are accompanying me on the proofing journey through Lockwood Tower. They’re here for emotional support. Mickey is trying to get a better look since he’s straying from the group.
Even after two drafts – and the second one being extremely more tightened and smoother flowing – I am still finding typos here and there. It is kind of like a game. I’m thankful that I took the time to do this read-through because not only am I catching errors that I don’t want to distract my beta readers, I am also getting a feel for what the book will read like for my audience. It’s as if I’m experiencing most of the book for the first time in true chronological order.
I write most of my scenes out of order, so it is great to see their effect as they build upon each other…or don’t. There are places where some details had to be added or amended to make sense. (Why do my characters love to eat twice in the same point of the book? There’s only one dinner!)
I am 75% of the way through my read-through and will update the last-minute changes shortly. Then it will be down to business and designing a paperback, which I am very excited for.
If you are a writer and considering just throwing your book up onto KDP without a read-through, I highly suggest loading it onto your Kindle or reading device of your choice to give it another pass. Not only did I notice things that I had missed while looking at the blocks of text in Scrivener, but I also got a better feeling of what my overall book will be like to a new reader.
Franklin Kendrick 
That’s a clever way of doing it. As you’ve said, it is how most of your readers will see it. I have to print it out on paper. I can’t pick a grammatical or spelling error worth a damn on screen.
I’ll have to read more of your blog, but do you outline and writing in random bits and pieces, or what is your process. You said that you write them out of order. It’s curious, do you ever get lost (apart from getting them on a fabulous diet of two dinners)?
Good luck!
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Thanks for commenting, Samantha! I do outline at least a paragraph for each chapter before I begin. Sometimes I start writing the first scene in my head before outlining the entire thing, but with this particular book I had been mulling over the story beats for a few months before I officially put the outline on paper. I do find it helpful to print out the entire draft to do edits by hand. I did a lot of that earlier on and the pages were like a war zone. Why did I use the same words so many times?
Where I get hung up with inconsistencies is usually when I’m not at my desk. I type a lot on an iPad, so it can be wherever and whenever I am. Writing out of order keeps my interest as far as scenes go, but if I improvise beyond the outline then I might forget that the characters needed to do something mentioned in an earlier chapter. So, it gets forgotten or repeated. That’s why it’s not a good idea for me to publish anything without giving it a look before it’s done. 🙂 I could live with two dinners myself, though, if they’re like something out of a novel!
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