Catching Mistakes

I'm pretty sure it's the "English teacher's daughter" in me, but I love catching errors in books. Not grammatical errors, but plot errors- little things like a mistaken order of events, recounted; the wrong character labeled with the wrong action or characteristic; or the re-description of a room with something in the wrong place. It's a rare occurrence, something I usually don't catch until a second read-through, or a later novel in a series (like the Bride Quartet Series I recently blogged about). But when I do catch them, I feel a little spike of pleasure. I think about how many read-throughs the author, his/her editor, and other publishing house workers went through without catching the mistake. I know from experience how hard it is to edit one's own work, and how often I miss things in final read-throughs. But that's why I have other people read my work. I hope that if I ever publish anything, I'll have a team of people who will watch my back to make sure that no little smart-ass reader like me can catch mistakes.


Short post tonight, because I'm on vacation this week. Lots of books to read, so stay tuned for more posts later in the week!