Hi, didn't find a better place where to post this.
I'm not English mothertongue, thus I often have troubles with the use of proper verb tenses (amongst other influences from my mother language). I have many stories, but I am fairly sure that they would be rejected because of that. So I'm looking for someone who would be so kind to proofread those I'd like to publish.
As far as now, I'm not going to try and publish the longer ones, in fact the short one I wish to publish is just around 15500 words (22 pages in MSWord).
I don't know if you have people helping with proofreading here, just hope so.
Thank you in advance.
Marco
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Looking for a proofreader
Chasing Dragons
Hi Marco. Welcome to storiesspace. 
First of all, do you know of Grammerly? It is an app which you can download to help with your writing. The free version will help with the major problems but there is also a paid subscription which will cover everything else, Give it a try.
Now, 15,500 words is not a particularly short story on this site. I would recommend that you split it into three, four or five 'Chapters' and submit them separately but don't submit them all together. Wait until each has been verified before posting the next.
Take a look at some other stories on this site to get a feel of how we are here. The important thing is, though, have fun. That is the name of the game.
I look forwards to seeing your stories here.
First of all, do you know of Grammerly? It is an app which you can download to help with your writing. The free version will help with the major problems but there is also a paid subscription which will cover everything else, Give it a try.
Now, 15,500 words is not a particularly short story on this site. I would recommend that you split it into three, four or five 'Chapters' and submit them separately but don't submit them all together. Wait until each has been verified before posting the next.
Take a look at some other stories on this site to get a feel of how we are here. The important thing is, though, have fun. That is the name of the game.
I look forwards to seeing your stories here.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana
Thank you for the answer AnnaMayZing.
I know I have to split it... I think 5 or more parts. I published a couple stories on another site.
I know grammarly, but never tried it. My concern though is verb tenses. they aren't wrong, technically, but I tend to fall in the passive form, that MSWord already marks. Just... well, my knowledge in English is limited, as I mostly learned it by myself, reading books.
I wrote tenth of stories, and periodically re-read them and correct some parts. I revised most for years. Many, I keep adding parts every time... Just... well, I guess I would need a course on verb tenses in English :P
Well... please just tell me if I can hope in a proofreader here. Otherwise, I could try to submit the first part of the story, see it likely rejected (I know it would be my fault), and give up :/
I know I have to split it... I think 5 or more parts. I published a couple stories on another site.
I know grammarly, but never tried it. My concern though is verb tenses. they aren't wrong, technically, but I tend to fall in the passive form, that MSWord already marks. Just... well, my knowledge in English is limited, as I mostly learned it by myself, reading books.
I wrote tenth of stories, and periodically re-read them and correct some parts. I revised most for years. Many, I keep adding parts every time... Just... well, I guess I would need a course on verb tenses in English :P
Well... please just tell me if I can hope in a proofreader here. Otherwise, I could try to submit the first part of the story, see it likely rejected (I know it would be my fault), and give up :/
Primus Omnium
To be honest I doubt you would find anyone here on our site who would spend so much time and energy proofreading and editing "stories" with so many words. Normally a novelette is from 7,500 to 17,500 wors, a novella is about 17,500 to 40.000 words, and a novel is from 40,000 words and up. That is work. It is the kind of work that is normally paid. I don't think you are looking to hire an editor. I may be wrong.
I would be willing to proofread a true short story of about 3,500 words. But not often.
If you wish to attempt writing short fiction here and want me to look at a story I would do so.
I would be willing to proofread a true short story of about 3,500 words. But not often.
If you wish to attempt writing short fiction here and want me to look at a story I would do so.
Thanks Survivor, I understand.
I am sorry for that, because I genuinely love both to read and write. Most sites allow publishing with just a check if the story meet the rules, if any. I know here and the red site value proper English so I was looking forward to be able to publish here and see how my mistakes can be corrected. I understand that it can be considered a job, and I'm not looking to hire an editor. I write a lot because I can leave my fantasy free. I mostly write for my own pleasure, but hoped I could share some of the stories here.
I'll try to find someone somewhere else who can be willing to proofread, otherwise I'll keep writing for myself. Even if 'sloppy' sites I could probably publish the stories, I'm just not comfortable enough with publishing something that may not be written properly.
Regards.
I am sorry for that, because I genuinely love both to read and write. Most sites allow publishing with just a check if the story meet the rules, if any. I know here and the red site value proper English so I was looking forward to be able to publish here and see how my mistakes can be corrected. I understand that it can be considered a job, and I'm not looking to hire an editor. I write a lot because I can leave my fantasy free. I mostly write for my own pleasure, but hoped I could share some of the stories here.
I'll try to find someone somewhere else who can be willing to proofread, otherwise I'll keep writing for myself. Even if 'sloppy' sites I could probably publish the stories, I'm just not comfortable enough with publishing something that may not be written properly.
Regards.
Quote by Marco
Thanks Survivor, I understand.
I am sorry for that, because I genuinely love both to read and write. Most sites allow publishing with just a check if the story meet the rules, if any. I know here and the red site value proper English so I was looking forward to be able to publish here and see how my mistakes can be corrected. I understand that it can be considered a job, and I'm not looking to hire an editor. I write a lot because I can leave my fantasy free. I mostly write for my own pleasure, but hoped I could share some of the stories here.
I'll try to find someone somewhere else who can be willing to proofread, otherwise I'll keep writing for myself. Even if 'sloppy' sites I could probably publish the stories, I'm just not comfortable enough with publishing something that may not be written properly.
Regards.
How many "words" are you talking about?
Chasing Dragons
Quote by Marco
Thank you for the answer AnnaMayZing.
I know I have to split it... I think 5 or more parts. I published a couple stories on another site.
I know grammarly, but never tried it. My concern though is verb tenses. they aren't wrong, technically, but I tend to fall in the passive form, that MSWord already marks. Just... well, my knowledge in English is limited, as I mostly learned it by myself, reading books.
I wrote tenth of stories, and periodically re-read them and correct some parts. I revised most for years. Many, I keep adding parts every time... Just... well, I guess I would need a course on verb tenses in English :P
Well... please just tell me if I can hope in a proofreader here. Otherwise, I could try to submit the first part of the story, see it likely rejected (I know it would be my fault), and give up :/
For a time I was a moderator here (don't ask), and I always tried to help 'fix' errors' when I verified and, if there were too many, I would reject them with a note on how to correct the errors.
Sadly, at the moment, I am struggling to find the time for my own work which I am serialising here otherwise I would be glad to help you.
I suggest that you try submitting a story here. I am sure that those who moderate will at least point you in the right direction.
Please don't give up after your first attempt. Wars are not won by giving up after the first defeat.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana
Quote by AnnaMayZing
For a time I was a moderator here (don't ask), and I always tried to help 'fix' errors' when I verified and, if there were too many, I would reject them with a note on how to correct the errors.
Sadly, at the moment, I am struggling to find the time for my own work which I am serialising here otherwise I would be glad to help you.
I suggest that you at least try submitting a story here. I am sure that those who moderate will at least point you in the right direction.
Please don't give up after your first attempt. Wars are not won by giving up after the first defeat.
I think the "direction" I really need is a course focused on English verb tenses
Chasing Dragons
Quote by Marco
I think the "direction" I really need is a course focused on English verb tenses
Have you tried Duolingo?
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana
Chasing Dragons
Quote by Marco
Never heard of that :O
Will take a look.
It's an online language course.
www.duolingo.com
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana
Active Ink Slinger
Quote by Marco
Hi, didn't find a better place where to post this.
I'm not English mothertongue, thus I often have troubles with the use of proper verb tenses (amongst other influences from my mother language). I have many stories, but I am fairly sure that they would be rejected because of that. So I'm looking for someone who would be so kind to proofread those I'd like to publish.
As far as now, I'm not going to try and publish the longer ones, in fact the short one I wish to publish is just around 15500 words (22 pages in MSWord).
I don't know if you have people helping with proofreading here, just hope so.
Thank you in advance.
Marco
Marco,
I have published articles and a book in more than one language. In most cases I am familiar with, nearly all European languages, come from Indo-European sources. The all have Mood and Tense structures that can be moved from one language to another, with minor adjustments.
If you are speaking of moving from Russian to English for example, it can be done, even though the Slavic languages do not use the verb "to be" in most cases.
So, if you are moving from a Romance to a Germanic language, you can now use "Google Translate" to do what you want to.
The real complications come with Mood and Tense structure, when one of the languages, does NOT, use them in their VERBS such as Mandarin Chinese often does not. So, for example, if you want say, "Hello! How are you?" Transliterated you just say, "Nin hao?" That says in English, "You well?" But it implies is opposite too. So, it really says, "You well or not well?" Notice there are no words for a verb.
But if I ask, "Have you had something to eat?" There you have asked in English, "You eat/not eat?" The time (which is in our verbs), is given by the person being asked in Mandarin: "I eat this morning," or, corrected in English, "I have eaten this morning."
So, in Mandarin, it is not a simple matter to move from English to Mandarin, or Mandarin to English partly because of the different ways, TIME is indicated [among many other things].
So, if your problem is like that, then Google Translate will not be perfect. There are a few languages that will take that system, many years to develop.
But unless you are dealing with a language like Mandarin, if you use Google Translate, ot translate your stories for you, and Grammarly, to refine your English. Google Translate will do 5,000 words at a time.
I believe I have answered your need.
If I have not addressed your question, please tell us here, and explain what I have missed.
Quote by TigerQuote by Marco
Hi, didn't find a better place where to post this.
I'm not English mothertongue, thus I often have troubles with the use of proper verb tenses (amongst other influences from my mother language). I have many stories, but I am fairly sure that they would be rejected because of that. So I'm looking for someone who would be so kind to proofread those I'd like to publish.
As far as now, I'm not going to try and publish the longer ones, in fact the short one I wish to publish is just around 15500 words (22 pages in MSWord).
I don't know if you have people helping with proofreading here, just hope so.
Thank you in advance.
Marco
Marco,
I have published articles and a book in more than one language. In most cases I am familiar with, nearly all European languages, come from Indo-European sources. The all have Mood and Tense structures that can be moved from one language to another, with minor adjustments.
If you are speaking of moving from Russian to English for example, it can be done, even though the Slavic languages do not use the verb "to be" in most cases.
So, if you are moving from a Romance to a Germanic language, you can now use "Google Translate" to do what you want to.
The real complications come with Mood and Tense structure, when one of the languages, does NOT, use them in their VERBS such as Mandarin Chinese often does not. So, for example, if you want say, "Hello! How are you?" Transliterated you just say, "Nin hao?" That says in English, "You well?" But it implies is opposite too. So, it really says, "You well or not well?" Notice there are no words for a verb.
But if I ask, "Have you had something to eat?" There you have asked in English, "You eat/not eat?" The time (which is in our verbs), is given by the person being asked in Mandarin: "I eat this morning," or, corrected in English, "I have eaten this morning."
So, in Mandarin, it is not a simple matter to move from English to Mandarin, or Mandarin to English partly because of the different ways, TIME is indicated [among many other things].
So, if your problem is like that, then Google Translate will not be perfect. There are a few languages that will take that system, many years to develop.
But unless you are dealing with a language like Mandarin, if you use Google Translate, ot translate your stories for you, and Grammarly, to refine your English. Google Translate will do 5,000 words at a time.
I believe I have answered your need.
If I have not addressed your question, please tell us here, and explain what I have missed.
Sorry for not answering earlier.
I want to clear some things... I do not need a total translation, and honestly, when I read Google Translate translations, it gives me creeps... I am familiar with some languages (studied Chinese and Japanese at University, even if i don't remember almost anything now, got some notions of German, Spanish and French), and my own language is Italian. It isn't easy to translate the many Italian peculiarities in English, even if it has some much simpler points (like the gender, which we put in most words, while in English is mainly only on the subject). Anyway, I can read most of English narrative books without problems, and write it isn't as difficult. But as said I think I just lack of some knowledge, which came from extensive use of a language (still, I know some people who after fifty years still can't speak properly our language, so I am not confident I would improve much at my age). After reading, re-reading and reading again, I'm submitting the story. Very kind moderators are correcting publishing it, and I see my verbs are mostly correct. Save for some typing errors which I failed to see - it happens after reading tenths of times the same thing - most of my mistakes are due to the different way we say things in Italian. That includes commas... we structure them in quite a different way. I use the MS Word spellchecking for English UK, and I think that may be the cause of some mistakes. Or maybe not. Doesn't matter, I need to learn from them anyway :P
Well, I'll check here every now and then to try not to miss any eventual answer.
Quote by Marco
Sorry for not answering earlier.
I want to clear some things... I do not need a total translation, and honestly, when I read Google Translate translations, it gives me creeps... I am familiar with some languages (studied Chinese and Japanese at University, even if i don't remember almost anything now, got some notions of German, Spanish and French), and my own language is Italian. It isn't easy to translate the many Italian peculiarities in English, even if it has some much simpler points (like the gender, which we put in most words, while in English is mainly only on the subject). Anyway, I can read most of English narrative books without problems, and write it isn't as difficult. But as said I think I just lack of some knowledge, which came from extensive use of a language (still, I know some people who after fifty years still can't speak properly our language, so I am not confident I would improve much at my age). After reading, re-reading and reading again, I'm submitting the story. Very kind moderators are correcting publishing it, and I see my verbs are mostly correct. Save for some typing errors which I failed to see - it happens after reading tenths of times the same thing - most of my mistakes are due to the different way we say things in Italian. That includes commas... we structure them in quite a different way. I use the MS Word spellchecking for English UK, and I think that may be the cause of some mistakes. Or maybe not. Doesn't matter, I need to learn from them anyway :P
Well, I'll check here every now and then to try not to miss any eventual answer.
Hello Marco, I didn't reply to your first request because I didn't realise you would like help with proofreading what you have already written in English. It seems that is what you are asking for, right?
I am willing to take a look at what you have written and try correcting the the text. My mother tongue is English, I am fluent in French and competent in reading Italian; I just don't read enough of it any longer. Let me know if you want some assistance.
Cordially,
Gypsy
Quote by gypsyQuote by Marco
Sorry for not answering earlier.
I want to clear some things... I do not need a total translation, and honestly, when I read Google Translate translations, it gives me creeps... I am familiar with some languages (studied Chinese and Japanese at University, even if i don't remember almost anything now, got some notions of German, Spanish and French), and my own language is Italian. It isn't easy to translate the many Italian peculiarities in English, even if it has some much simpler points (like the gender, which we put in most words, while in English is mainly only on the subject). Anyway, I can read most of English narrative books without problems, and write it isn't as difficult. But as said I think I just lack of some knowledge, which came from extensive use of a language (still, I know some people who after fifty years still can't speak properly our language, so I am not confident I would improve much at my age). After reading, re-reading and reading again, I'm submitting the story. Very kind moderators are correcting publishing it, and I see my verbs are mostly correct. Save for some typing errors which I failed to see - it happens after reading tenths of times the same thing - most of my mistakes are due to the different way we say things in Italian. That includes commas... we structure them in quite a different way. I use the MS Word spellchecking for English UK, and I think that may be the cause of some mistakes. Or maybe not. Doesn't matter, I need to learn from them anyway :P
Well, I'll check here every now and then to try not to miss any eventual answer.
Hello Marco, I didn't reply to your first request because I didn't realise you would like help with proofreading what you have already written in English. It seems that is what you are asking for, right?
I am willing to take a look at what you have written and try correcting the the text. My mother tongue is English, I am fluent in French and competent in reading Italian; I just don't read enough of it any longer. Let me know if you want some assistance.
Cordially,
Gypsy
Yes, I already write in English, but I am aware that I'm not experienced enough, thus I tend to make mistakes... I think what I write is readable, but I'm not confident about it being a good enough English. Some of my doubts have been solved, others grew.
I'd love to get some help and some tips on how to avoid some of my most frequent errors, by having someone proofreading the stories I wish to publish
I read stories in many websites, but I chose this and it's other version because they value a proper English. Most websites allow the publishing of stories that sometimes are worse than Google Translate... here I am positive that if I get the story accepted, it's written properly.
Another big "difficulty" is that my stories are quite long, so if the proofreader doesn't like my style or the stories, it can become quite a burden. I wouldn't blame anyone for telling me "I've had enough". :)
Feel free to contact me privately if you want to discuss the matter further.
