Wattpad 101: Your guide to the world of Wattpad

Editing 201 - The First Things to Fix

This chapter will repeat things I've already stated before. I'm including it as an easy reference to help editors and self-editors alike. This is simply a list of the twenty most common grammar and edit mistakes I see in writing, my own included. If you're an editor, take a second, use the "find" function, and track down every single one of these mistakes, and I'm betting you'll find yourself half done with editing after tackling these problems.

Rather than doing a "full" edit, from top to bottom, if you're like me and tend to miss things as you read, perhaps you can avoid some of the most obvious and annoying mistakes simply by making a bunch of quick passes looking for these particular problems. Simply use your word's find option to track down every mistake, and once these common ones are all fixed, then do your "real" edit, which is free from obnoxious distractions.

So here's the list in no particular order of importance!

1. They're, Their, and There

You know it would be on the list, so we might as well get it out of the way first. There, their, and they're is probably the most common "mistake". For most people, it's probably not even a mistake, just a result of typing fast and not realizing it until you're done.

So use your find, look for every instance of these three words. You can highlight these words, or just search for every there, then they're, then their, and make sure you used them correctly.

There: Refers to a place. "Look over there!"

Their: A possession. "I have their money."

They're: A contraction of "They are". "They're cool!"

2. You're and your

Not every mistake will be from the "Commonly Misused Words" chapter, but I figured if you mess up they're and their, you probably mess up you're and your for the same reason. If you ever struggle, just automatically read they're and you're as they are, and you are. As a result, when you read it, it'll instantly come out why it doesn't fit in certain cases.

You're: A contraction of "You are". "You're right!"

Your: A possession. "I have your money."

3. Capitalizing a dialogue tag or Not Capitalizing a descriptive beat

"Hey, don't say that," She said. is wrong.

"Hey, don't say that," she said. is correct. 

Use your find function and search for ," and then make sure all your descriptive beats and dialogue tags are properly used. If you're confused about when it should be capitalized and not capitalized, return to my chapter on writing dialogue.

4. On to and onto

"Onto" is to get onto something physically, or to figuratively be on top of an event or issue (handling it).

"I climbed onto the roof."

"On to" has a temporal property to it. You're moving on to something new. 

"I continued on to the village."

5. Past and Present Tense

This one is a real pain in the butt to fix, but if you realize you've accidentally started writing in present or past tense and need to fix everything, there are a few tricks you can take. Obviously, fixing every "is" to "are" would go a long way. Also use your find function to scan for –ed to track down all of your past tense words. If you select suffix in your find options, you can shrink that down to words that end in ed. Here is a list of irregular verbs (that is words that aren't spelled the same in present or past) It is entirely up to you if you feel it'd be worth the time to use "find" on 50 some different words written in past (if you're trying to convert to present) or present (if you're trying to convert to past}. Also remember that words in dialogue might very well be in a different tense. You can also find or build your own "macros" for doing this automatically, but I'll leave it up to you if you want to set that up. Just use google.