Beware of Find and Replace!

So here I am, working along reading my thesis, round 3 I call it, and finding all kinds of typos. I think I mentioned before I kind of expected that. Otherwise, it's actually going pretty well. I mean, I am embarrassed that I've sent this to a few people to look at, since it's more than just typos--other word choices and minor points. But I am pleased to find myself now on p. 143 and I haven't found anything that needed serious re-writing, like things that would affect the plot in multiple locations. That's progress I think. And really, p. 143 on day two of round 3 is actually pretty good anyway.

As I read through it though, I can't help but recall some remarks I recently read in an intro to Les Miserables where the editor comments on how wonderful they are for being the only publisher to stay true to Hugo's desires by publishing an unabridged English edition. I haven't actually read too far in the novel yet, but from what I know about it, I can only say that yes, there is value in having the unabridged edition, but I really believe that if Hugo had had a Word Processor, things might have been a little different. Seriously, how did authors ever get by before they couldn't just click "Find" and get to a part of their novel they knew needed a little revision? I mean, if they had decided to change a character or a place's name at some point in their writing, that's pretty serious paper usage to go back and change it. I would guess such changes didn't happen too often.

Writing definitely gives you a new perspective on writers of the past. However, that is not to say there aren't dangers of modern technologies! For example, if I had printed up my thesis after round 2 and handed it to my professor it would not only have been the simple typos that embarrassed me. I mean, I found some things that simply did not make sense. And why did they not make sense? Because I used a Word Processor function called Find and Replace!

See, at one point in my novel, some of the characters are discussing a few different dance halls. One of them I had originally named Plash, and then in round 2, I changed it to Pier One. How? Find and replace. Well, as it so happened, I forgot to narrow the find to "match case" so it would only change it when the P was capitalized. As a result, in a few places where I have the word "splash" such as when a character observes things going on in the swimming pool and when another character ends up in the botany pond, I had things like this, "I held the bars of the surrounding fence for a second to watch as the basketball sPier Oneed back and forth between the water and the people" and "Sam’s large form plopped into the water with a weighty sPier One."

It looks kind of like subliminal advertising, doesn't it? So yeah. Beware of Find and Replace!