Post B5fbALss9v4vxSGAa0 by owent@mastodon.social
 (DIR) More posts by owent@mastodon.social
 (DIR) Post #B5fbAKcAsW7y1NRJui by cstross@wandering.shop
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       #WritersCoffeeClub Apr 24 Share a silly mistake you've made while writing.Character name changes. If for some reason you change the name of a character you *really* need to double-check that it's changed *everywhere*. Hint: regular expressions and global *conditional* search/replace are your tools. Also how to manage word stemming with regexps. Then triple-check *everything*. Otherwise—guaranteed—you'll flip a character's name in one paragraph and the internet will never let you forget it!
       
 (DIR) Post #B5fbAL5F8RNbTX2XDs by davidtheeviloverlord@mastodon.social
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       @cstross I once changed a character's name from Allan to Ben, and later changed it back.Reading through the manuscript, I found I had thus invented the Allanch seat.
       
 (DIR) Post #B5fbALMy4XYeMVKgqm by nullcolaship@mastodon.nz
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       @davidtheeviloverlord @cstross Ah, a true clbuttic!
       
 (DIR) Post #B5fbALdH5ubNB4xiGe by alicemcalicepants@ohai.social
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       @nullcolaship @davidtheeviloverlord @cstross I once got some copy back from a (lovely, brilliant) academic who'd been promoted to Professor, so she'd find-and-replaced every instance of 'Dr' in the document, inventing the word 'professoriven' in the process 😁
       
 (DIR) Post #B5fbALss9v4vxSGAa0 by owent@mastodon.social
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       @alicemcalicepants @nullcolaship @davidtheeviloverlord @cstross
       
 (DIR) Post #B5fbAP7s6brK0qIgsK by cstross@wandering.shop
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       #WritersCoffeeClubPS to "silly mistakes": a common misconception is that copy editors will spot your silly mistakes. They might ... but then again, they might think the mistake was the authorial intention and let it pass. CEs vary wildly in their approach (never say competence) and your trad publisher's commissioning editor is busy managing workflow (editing gets done on the side, in their own time).So don't rely on the editors cleaning up your messes.