It is difficult, if not impossible, to catch all of your own mistakes in a piece of writing. The large errors are easy to find, but the little things–the typos, omitted words, wrong use of there, their, and they’re–these are much harder to catch. The reason is that our brains are overly helpful. The brain knows what is wrong or missing and helpfully supplies the right word as we read, regardless of what is on the page.

     I know this. I teach this. Every year I tell this to freshmen students, encouraging them to find a peer or relative to read their papers before turning them in. So why do I think I am the exception to this rule?

    Part of the reason is probably that I am reluctant to ask a reader to proof a 100+ page manuscript for tiny errors. It’s one thing to ask someone to read for theme and whether or not the story works, it’s quite another to ask her to make sure I have all of my articles in place. This is not to say my friends aren’t willing–they are. They’ve said so. I just don’t want to ask.

     The second reason is because I teach this. I get paid to find these errors in the papers of students. I should be able to find them in my own work–right? It’s just so hard to believe that they would be so very visible in everyone else’s writing and so very invisible in my own.

     The final reason is time. I am pretty good at estimating when I can get a rewrite done. I even build in a little extra time for those inevitable family emergencies, but I don’t leave a lot of wiggle room. The truth is if I laid the story aside for a few weeks and looked at it fresh, I’d probably find a lot of my little errors. I’ve certainly found them in other drafts I’ve had to leave for a time. I just don’t budget enough time.

    So why is this so important? Because it’s the small stuff that can cost an author. Those little errors give an editor an excuse to pass on a manuscript, and with piles and piles of manuscripts to go through they are looking for excuses to stop reading. Of course, having a grammatically perfect manuscript doesn’t take the place of having a compelling plot or well-rounded characters, but it can give you an edge–and in today’s market, a writer needs all the edges she can get.

     As a result of all this, my manuscript will get to my agent a little later than I promised. I’m not happy about that. I just sat through a conference where the presenters stressed the importance of meeting deadlines. Lucky for me, it won’t be too late due to the efforts of a good friend who is going to give up a free evening to proofread for me. I owe her chocolate.