TAG - A Techno Thriller set in the near future

[simonroyle]

Originally Posted by kacir

You see, I grew up on Unix and Linux (and Vim) related forums, documents and manuals ;-)
Send me a Private Message. We will definitely arrange something.

Just do not count on me as an English Language, Grammar, Writing Style or Spelling specialist. English is my third language (used to be fourth). You don't want see my writing with a spell checker switched off ;-)

Good I'll PM you a bit later on - got a "Day Job" meeting that I have to attend. I'm not worried about the writing style - I know that works :-). Just the typos - even though I've read it hundreds of times. Every time that I have sent it out for review or (in the early days) to Agents I discovered a typo shortly after :-( it's just the nature of the beast methinks.

[simonroyle]

Originally Posted by CaraM

Hello and welcome to MR. Your book sounds great.

www.caramarsi.com
Logan's Redemption
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0040JI3PG

Hi Cara,

Thanks - have a read I'd love to hear what a fellow author thinks.

[simonroyle]

ONLY 12 days left to get through the 132,800 words that is TAG and make money from my mistakes. Every typo earns you a dollar; the one who finds the most typos wins all.

[simonroyle]

I'm hearing numbers of 150 - to over 300 typos - no evidence yet, maybe just people psyching me out ... have you been adding them up? FAT Competition only 11 days left...

[kacir]

Originally Posted by simonroyle

have you been adding them up?

So far I am about 35% into the book and have some 20 screen captures with notes from my reader.
Some of those errors are straight quotes vs. typographical quotes,
words like hetro bar (shouldn't be hetero?). It is invented word anyway ...
Things like using Kilos and Kilometers for distance in the same sentence.
A few missing spaces *possibly* a missing colon or two ...

So far I haven't caught any glaring inconsistencies - that is mistakes in facts, relations to the previously described scenes, scientific impossibilities (*)...
This is what I usually spot in such books that I am writing a critique for. You see, English is my third language (used to be fourth), so I do not consider myself a spelling or grammar expert ;-), at least not in English.


I think, you need somebody that is totally disinterested in your book, so he/she pays attention to spelling and grammar and formatting and facts. Not people like me that find themselves "lost" in a pageturner way too often ;-).
One of the authors here (author of Lethe - a book that I thoroughly recommend) said that she received the best and most detailed error log from somebody that hated her book, so he was looking at it with a very critical eye and was not distracted by the book itself.

(*) apart from the scene on the moonbase where main hero is hypnotized and hypnotizer elaborates how he is going to hide some info in an unused part of his brain. This explanation somehow didn't resonate well with me.

[simonroyle]

Originally Posted by kacir

So far I am about 35% into the book and have some 20 screen captures with notes from my reader.
Some of those errors are straight quotes vs. typographical quotes,
words like hetro bar (shouldn't be hetero?). It is invented word anyway ...
Things like using Kilos and Kilometers for distance in the same sentence.
A few missing spaces *possibly* a missing colon or two ...

So far I haven't caught any glaring inconsistencies - that is mistakes in facts, relations to the previously described scenes, scientific impossibilities (*)...
This is what I usually spot in such books that I am writing a critique for. You see, English is my third language (used to be fourth), so I do not consider myself a spelling or grammar expert ;-), at least not in English.


I think, you need somebody that is totally disinterested in your book, so he/she pays attention to spelling and grammar and formatting and facts. Not people like me that find themselves "lost" in a pageturner way too often ;-).
One of the authors here (author of Lethe - a book that I thoroughly recommend) said that she received the best and most detailed error log from somebody that hated her book, so he was looking at it with a very critical eye and was not distracted by the book itself.

(*) apart from the scene on the moonbase where main hero is hypnotized and hypnotizer elaborates how he is going to hide some info in an unused part of his brain. This explanation somehow didn't resonate well with me.

Wow - that is great Kacir. Thanks. What three languages? I only have two now. English my first and Thai. I used to have a fair grasp of Cantonese, but since I haven't lived there for 21 years it has slipped away.

Hetro is what I intended. Languages evolve and I think "common English" will evolve greatly over the next hundred years. An example of this is SMS or Chat messaging; i.e. I shud b der soon. I have kept these to a minimum because I didn't want to distract the reader too much - having to flip to a glossary every 5 lines is a pain.

I had to invent some new terms such as Devstick. I doubt we'll be using the term "mobile phone" or "notebook" to describe a PC in the future. I doubt we'll be using PC (by then the idea of anything personal related to an online computer will be such an oxymoron as to illicit howls of laughter).

I'll have to work on finding someone who absolutely hates the book, so far no takers on that. But if you are lurking out there please do send me a message.

I may have written the hypnosis scene too simply, but it is possible to hypnotize someone and block information which can be recalled later. I checked this with another writer who is also a Neuroscientist in her spare time. She also debunked the urban myth that we don't use 95% of the brain - which is where I'd first had the information stored.

Thanks for your efforts as always.

[simonroyle]

Only 8 days left n the FAT competition!

[simonroyle]

Some links on Topside and research done for the book at my blog:

http://simon-royle.com/2010/09/05/topside-is-real/

http://simon-royle.com/2010/09/03/keeping-it-real/

And... only 7 days till the FAT contest ends. Get your count in now!

[simonroyle]

Only 5 days left till the BIG typo count.

[simonroyle]

Only 2 days left to get the entries in for the FAT competition.

[kacir]

Email sent.

[dalderton]

Love the book .Bugger the typos
Regards Dennis

[simonroyle]

Originally Posted by dalderton

Love the book .Bugger the typos
Regards Dennis

Just got back from a hard business trip to Singapore (with a 40 minute wait on the tarmac) and an hour and a half in traffic getting home.

Yours was the first message I got logging back on. Such messages make it all worthwhile, thanks.

[simonroyle]

Kacir wins the FAT competition and USD100-00. Yup there were just under a 100 typos in there. Kacir also did some great work with Regular Expressions - weeding out errors in formatting such as double spaces.

Many thanks to all of you who took part.

We will now return to regular programming.

[GeoffC]

Well Done Kacir