hey scribes, I just did a spelling and grammar search for my first two scenes I just wrote, and I had to do about thirty "adds" as in, words I added to my dictionary. Most were character names, but some others were words that are real, but don't appear in my dictionary, like "fleecer". I just wondered (because I'm not the most computer savvy person on the planet), so...those "added" words make the squiggles disappear on my computer, but when a friend opens the document, they'll show up on their one, right?
So, my question is whether they bother you.
When you read a document for crit, does it at all hinder your reading of or enjoyment of a story to have squiggles all over? I notice when I'm reading a manuscript that uses the English spelling of words (vs. American), but I only notice because of the words themselves, not the squiggles. I've gone squiggle blind because i write fantasy, I guess. I was just wondering whether you folks thought it was a distraction, or whether it hurts your reader experience at all.
I can honestly say I don't mind the squiggles themselves, as I don't even notice them, but the red ones seem in my mind less worrisome than the green ones. While I certainly write sentence fragments and passive voice (rarely), I've noticed in other people's manuscripts that when I open them, they're like a wall of green, which I think becomes distracting, not because of the colored squiggles, but because they are symptomatic of a style that might be harder to read?
Do you guys have any feelings on this stuff? I just wondered whether it benefits me at all to try to do away with as many squiggles as possible, to benefit beta readers, but then I figured I could only add words to my own dictionary, so maybe it would be more useful for me to leave the squiggles alone, so I'm seeing what my betas will see, and then I can be aware of how the pages look to them? Or maybe no body even cares about the squiggles at all. Like me.
So, my question is whether they bother you.
When you read a document for crit, does it at all hinder your reading of or enjoyment of a story to have squiggles all over? I notice when I'm reading a manuscript that uses the English spelling of words (vs. American), but I only notice because of the words themselves, not the squiggles. I've gone squiggle blind because i write fantasy, I guess. I was just wondering whether you folks thought it was a distraction, or whether it hurts your reader experience at all.
I can honestly say I don't mind the squiggles themselves, as I don't even notice them, but the red ones seem in my mind less worrisome than the green ones. While I certainly write sentence fragments and passive voice (rarely), I've noticed in other people's manuscripts that when I open them, they're like a wall of green, which I think becomes distracting, not because of the colored squiggles, but because they are symptomatic of a style that might be harder to read?
Do you guys have any feelings on this stuff? I just wondered whether it benefits me at all to try to do away with as many squiggles as possible, to benefit beta readers, but then I figured I could only add words to my own dictionary, so maybe it would be more useful for me to leave the squiggles alone, so I'm seeing what my betas will see, and then I can be aware of how the pages look to them? Or maybe no body even cares about the squiggles at all. Like me.