World Building

Charity recently posted about world building, and her post inspired this one.  *Waves at Charity*  There have been times when I’ve come across a manuscript where the world building wasn’t quite what it needed to be.

I once received a submission that was actually a pretty interesting and compelling story.  However, the author needed to go back and flesh out the world a bit more.  The story was set in a future U.S. that had already been through a war.  Certain areas had been nuked.  The survivors had primarily banded together into two groups in two different regions.  Think of how the Mason-Dixon Line is supposed to sort of separate the North from the South, and you have a basic idea of what I mean by two different regions.  Well, one of these groups is composed entirely of females.  There are no males allowed, relationships can only occur between two women.  If a couple wants to have a child, they have to be registered and go to the clinic.  All embryos are female and no male DNA is used in their creation.

The other group is composed of male/female pairings, but it’s in the extreme, because the men are completely in charge.  Women do have jobs and things like that, but in the long run, they don’t have much say in matters.

As I mentioned before, the story itself was interesting, but the world had some issues with being believable.  For one thing, why weren’t there any groups of people who didn’t fall into either of the above categories?  Even though there were the female only communities, why weren’t there any similar communities strictly for men?  Why weren’t there any communities who had male/female pairings, but where women and men had equal rights?  Surely, the war didn’t twist everyone into believing the two extremes.  You find out later that there is a resistance, a group who believes that neither of the two societies is right, but why did they have to be a resistance?  Why weren’t they just a third society?  What made people believe that either of the two extremes was right in the first place?  What made people decide they had to split into those two distinct societies?  The entire U.S. wasn’t laid to waste during the war, so it’s not like there were very few inhabitable places left.  Why didn’t those who disagreed with the two extremes go out and form their own societies?  Why did they have to be underground as a resistance?  This author did receive a rejection, but I was very detailed in the issues I noted in the manuscript.  I explained that this world just wasn’t believable, because there wasn’t enough of a background to give the world plausibility.  While the author didn’t need to drown the readers in the backstory of it, they did need to give some plausible reasons for this world to form.

The questionnaire Charity shared during her post is a great place to start.  Sure, it’s detailed, and some of the questions wouldn’t apply to every story, but just reading through the list of questions shows authors the things they need to think about when creating their world.  The author can get away with not explaining some things by having their characters say, “That’s just the way it’s always been.”  However, that will only get you so far.  The author needs to think about whatever’s being questioned in their world and decide if something is insignificant enough to say, “That’s just the way it’s always been”, or if it’s important enough to explore why it’s always been that way.  And if it hasn’t always been the norm, to explore why it became that way.

You need to make your world work, and even if it’s an odd world where social conventions don’t make sense to us, it has to make sense within that world.  Readers have to be able to see the connection.  Even if it’s not something they could ever agree with, they need to be able to see how it was possible for it to become normal for your world and its characters.  The same is true if you have fantasy elements in the modern world.  How does the magic work?  What is the price for using magic?  If there's a prophecy, who made it and why?  Try to look at your world from an outside perspective and make sure things will make sense to your readers.  This is another thing betas are good for catching.

The Editor/Author Relationship

I know some of you have never worked with an editor, and some of you have, but I have a few things to say about the Editor/Author relationship.  Some editors might approach the process as a dictatorship, with the editor being the dictator.  I don’t personally know of any who are this way, unless it’s about certain things, but I’ll get into that in a minute.  My personal approach is something of a partnership.  When I’m editing your work, a little of my own heart and soul becomes entwined with your work.  I come to know and love (or hate if necessary) your characters almost as well and as much as you do.  At the same time, I often see things about your characters or story that you don’t, and I’ve helped authors more fully develop these things or get rid of them if need be.  When I’m editing, I might make suggestions regarding phrasing, but I always let my authors know that while they’re welcome to use my wording exactly, it is only there to serve as an example.  I’ve had authors who rephrased it exactly as I suggested, and I’ve had authors who rephrased it entirely differently, but which still corrected whatever issue I was pointing out.  An editor shouldn’t go in and rewrite your book.  That’s not what we’re for.  While you might say something the same way I would say it, you also might say it differently, so my words are only intended to help you find yours.  I’m not going to change something arbitrarily, or simply because I don’t understand what you mean.  If I’m concerned about it, I’ll leave a comment and ask you about it.

For example, Carol and I had a conversation regarding regionalisms.  There was something she said a certain way (sorry Carol, I can’t remember what this one was specifically) and I was wondering if she was missing a word in the phrasing.  Then I discovered it classified as a regionalism.  This spawned an entire conversation regarding regionalisms and how, when someone asks me if I want a pop, I always think, “No.  I don’t want you to pop me.  What did I do to you?”  Around here, it’s either a soda or a coke.

“Do you want a coke?”

“Sure.”

“What kind?”

“Mountain Dew.”

Once Carol explained the wording, and that it was how she and others around her always said it, it made sense.  I left it in the manuscript because I felt it added authenticity to the scene and “local flavor”.  I’ll even let you get away with using ain’t and git (as in “Git yerself outta here!”) in dialogue, because I’m from the South.  Ain’t is a word here.  However, don’t even think about using it in narration.  Not gonna happen.

For the most part, I work with authors.  If they disagree with me, I expect them to open a dialogue with me and tell me why they disagree.  Sometimes it’s simply misunderstanding the meaning, and an explanation clarifies it, so we’re good to go.  It stays as is.  Sometimes I understand, but it still has to go, so we have to reach a compromise.  And still sometimes it has to go, no matter what.  For example, Carol and I had to reach a compromise regarding “K” as a word.  She wanted Bert to say “K”.  Now, I completely understood her reasoning, (and yes, I have Carol’s permission to share this) but our publisher had a House Style Guideline that absolutely forbade the use of “K” as a word.  They would only allow okay or ’kay (only in dialogue).  For the record, a lot of other publishers have the same guideline.  Carol and I finally compromised on ’kay for Bert’s dialogue, but even if we were in his POV, it had to be okay in narration.

I try to be friendly with my authors and get to know them.  Some aren’t very reciprocal in that regard, but most are.  There are a few that have become friends.  I’ve only had one or two that you could probably describe as prickly, but we still worked together without any major issues.  With other authors, our relationship was strictly limited to edits.

My comments to an author are honest, and I try to use humor, because I know how hard it is to write and then have someone tell you this scene isn’t working, this character is coming across as a doormat, or another character you want readers to like is actually coming across as a huge jerk.  I’ll also tell you if I don’t like a character, even if it’s not yet clear whether or not I’m supposed to dislike them.  One character in a manuscript I’ve recently edited was coming across as a real annoyance.  I wanted to smack her.  Another character in the manuscript was accused of poisoning someone (no, they didn’t), and I told the author I wouldn’t be surprised if the annoying character had actually poisoned the person.  The author got a laugh out of that.

So, if you disagree with your editor about one point or another, open a dialogue.  Keep in mind that their hands might be tied by the publisher’s guidelines, because part of our job is making sure your manuscript adheres to them.  And that (along with grammar) is where most of us will become dictators.  Always remember that we, like you, want your manuscript to be the best it can possibly be, and we want to see it do well.

And for the record, even though Carol said I did, I’ve never told any of my authors they were falling down the stairs like a defunct slinky…at least, not in those exact words.  *grin*

Follow The Guidelines

Follow the Guidelines

I’m sure I’ve told you some things you already know, but maybe I’ve told you something you didn’t, or possibly shed additional light on those things you did.  But I know you’ve heard this.  You’ve probably heard it so many times you’re sick of it, but it’s just as true now as the first time you heard it.

Make sure you follow submission guidelines exactly.  Even if they tell you to send your manuscript in TNR 8, or Jokerman 16, their guidelines exist for a reason.  (And no, I don’t know of anyone who actually has these guidelines! *grin*)  Maybe their email platform does strange things to files, or maybe their software doesn’t play well with certain file types.  Maybe they just like the way the manuscript looks in Jokerman 16.  Or maybe they just want to see if you still remember the number one rule you learned in Kindergarten.

Follow the rules and/or directions.

Even if it seems arbitrary to you, there are usually reasons for the guidelines, so make sure you follow them.  And please don’t ask if you can do something different unless there is a very good reason for the deviation.  For example, if an editor tells you to send your full manuscript in an .rtf, .doc, or .docx file, don’t ask if you can send it as a .pdf.  I had this happen.  The author wanted to send a .pdf because they were concerned the other file types would ruin their formatting.  I explained that if it was accepted, it would have to be reformatted following our guidelines and template anyway, so a .pdf wasn’t necessary.  The author wasn’t obnoxious, but I got the distinct impression the author still wasn’t happy about it.  They agreed to send it, but they were still concerned about their formatting.  This might sound snarky, but I promise it’s not intended that way.  My only thought to this comment from the author was, “What kind of formatting are you using that it would be messed up by not having it in a .pdf file?”  Maybe they were just concerned with the way different programs communicate (or don’t) with each other.  That would be perfectly understandable, but our file had to be a .doc file when our content editors sent the files to the line editors.  I’m not sure what the author's concern was, or if they had tried something special in the .pdf format, something to make it look like a book, but I didn’t see anything wrong with the format when the manuscript was sent as the file type I requested.

So please, please follow the guidelines, no matter how normal or strange they seem.

Mistakes In Submissions Continued -- Research

This week should wrap up my Mistakes in Submissions topic.  Other than one or two posts that were inspired by the posts of other moderators, all of my posts were written out as a single post.  Due to the length, Carol suggested I break it up.  I've enjoyed covering this topic, and I hope you've enjoyed reading it!

At the very least, please do basic research on the elements of your story.  It will save both you and your editor time and possible migraines.  For example, one author I worked with had a scene pertaining to a heart transplant.  A doctor intended to pretend he was going to perform the transplant until the patient was unconscious, and then not do it.  (Don’t ask, it would take a long explanation, and I’m trying to stay away from as many specifics as I can for the sake of anonymity.)  Now, I’m not a transplant surgeon, nor do I play one on TV, but I knew this scene was not right at all.  What the doctor was doing to convince the patient a transplant was about to occur brought me to a halt.  I felt there was a major misconception in the scene, as well as elements that could have proven fatal for a real transplant patient.

 I stopped edits and spent quite some time doing online research, and I called an area hospital with a CCU (Cardiac Care Unit).  If someone there couldn’t help me, my next call was going to a hospital in Atlanta.  Thankfully, I happened to get someone who had assisted in many transplants.  I explained why I was calling and asked if he had a few minutes to spare for a couple of questions, or if there was a better time for me to call.  I’m certain he was a little bemused, but he was kind enough to answer my questions and I thanked him for his time.  Let me go ahead and say this.  When conducting research, it’s always better to try to be as unobtrusive as possible, so if you don’t know someone in the field you need to research, and if you can’t make an appointment for a phone interview, sending an email or letter would probably be best.  I don’t recommend cold-calling like I did, but I was working against a deadline.  Cold-calling could bring you together with someone who’s having a really bad day, or who’s extremely busy when you call.  Neither bodes well for your research.

After the combination of online research and my phone call for verification, I had some very definitive answers for my concerns and I was able to help the author correct the scene.  And yes, I was correct about the things that troubled me the most.

“But wait!” you say.  “If the readers knew the doctor wasn’t going to perform the transplant, why would you even bother with the research?”

That’s a good question with a simple answer.  Remember the patient thought the doctor was going to perform the operation?  Well, the patient was also smart enough that the same things I was concerned about would have alerted them to the fact the doctor didn’t intend to do it at all.  The scene had to look good and be realistic for the patient.  Since the readers would know that this had to look real for the patient, they would be looking at how well the doctor was covering his behind.  You don’t want a reader who just happens to be a member of a transplant team to send you a letter saying, “The doctor would have never done that.  You need to do your research next time!”

Research glitches can happen in many areas, but I often see it in medical, law enforcement, military, forensics, and legal aspects of a manuscript.  I've seen:

Medals pinned on the wrong side of a uniform.

Period pieces where words that didn't exist for a hundred years or more after the story's time period were used.

Legal jargon used improperly.

Wines served in ways they would never be served in a fine restaurant.

Complications from medical procedures and injuries that made no sense whatsoever, or that were completely impossible.

Characters accessing files they shouldn't be able to access, from places they logically shouldn't be able to access them, and which would have gotten an innocent family member fired from their job, given them a hefty fine, and possibly put them in jail.

Do your research.  Don’t give your reader the details unless you absolutely have to because it’s integral to the story.  While it’s possible as much as ninety-nine percent of what you learn will never crawl out of your head or your notes, your scene must still be written with that research in mind.  It helps lend your scene the credibility and accuracy it needs to breathe for the readers.  I'm a stickler for research.  I could go on with other examples where it made the scene, and instances where scenes had to be rewritten because not enough preliminary research was done, but this post is probably too long already.  Just remember, research is important, whether it’s a minor aspect or a major one.

Continuity and Consistency

Continuity and Consistency

Say you have a group of eight characters.  Not all of them are major, but that isn’t important at the moment.  At the end of chapter three they have to escape a city and the only way to safely escape is to break into two groups and later meet up at a predetermined location.  Group one consists of characters A, B, and C, and they have to escape the city by a land route.  They’ll continue to travel by land to the predetermined location.  Group two consists of characters D, E, F, G, and H.  They have to escape through a waterway that flows through the city.  They’ll follow the river to a village where a few of this group’s members have allies that can get a ship for them.  Chapter four follows group one as they escape overland to draw their enemies from the trail of group two.  Of course, group one loses any pursuers, but through narration and dialogue, characters A, B, and C are all present and accounted for.  We get to chapter five and lo and behold, character A, last seen leading group one through the mountains at the end of chapter four, has magically appeared on the ship with group two.  This would be fine if there had been a time lapse, and in many ways there was one.  However, group two has not yet reached the predetermined place and they’re talking about how long they should wait for group one, since group two will almost certainly arrive first.  

Umm…no.

At first, I thought character A was there in name only, a typo because his name had been accidentally inserted in place of another character’s.  Unfortunately, as the scene unfolded I realized that all of group two’s characters were also accounted for and all were interacting with character A.  Not only that, but character A had a major role throughout the chapter.  So guess what happened?

Yep, a major rewrite of the entire chapter.

Not all continuity and consistency issues are that major.  One author referred to a specific set of objects by certain names near the beginning of the manuscript.  They weren’t mentioned again for roughly one hundred pages, but the author called them something else at that point.  He seemed happily surprised I caught this, but readers have a tendency to see stuff like that.  I admit I had to go back to the first mention of these objects to verify that yes, the names were different, but continuity and consistency are very important.

This is true for sequels as well.  Make sure all your characters have the same eye color and hair color as in the previous book, unless there’s a plausible explanation for it to be different.  If you write a scene in the previous book from one character’s POV, and then write that same scene in the next book from the POV of a different character, you want to make sure the scenes echo each other.  If your character only says two or three word sentences a couple of times in the second book, but in the first book he spoke a total of five times—twice in one sentence consisting of three or four words, once in two sentences, and once in a paragraph consisting of six to ten sentences—then you’ve got a problem.  If a character had their hands tied behind their back in the scene in book one, and they’re tied in front of them in book two, you’ve got a problem.  The same can be said for the layout of buildings, a school mascot, the name of a significant other’s ex, basically anything that’s pretty much concrete in your story or in your series.  If you say it’s May on page ten, you can’t have your character tugging her jacket closer and kicking at the orange leaves littering the ground when your reader gets to page twelve, not without a significant time lapse.

So keep in mind you want to look out for the major continuity and consistency issues as well as the small ones that might only be mentioned twice, a hundred pages apart.

Stay True to Your Character's Voice

Stay True to Your Character’s Voice

The voice of your character includes many aspects.  Would your character use contractions, or are they more proper?  Would they say "ain't"?  What about "cain't" instead of "can't"?Do they drop the "g" at the end of "ing" words?  Would they use words like "superfluous" and "salubrious"?  Would they use "heck" and "darn" or "dang", instead of their more frowned upon cousins?  Or would they say things akin to what the symbols in the picture above are supposed to represent?  No matter what the case may be, you want your characters to talk like they would actually talk.  While you don’t want to run your readers off with rampant vulgarity, you also don’t want to lie to them in your fiction.  If a character would actually say, “Oh, poop.” that’s what you should write.  However, if your character would use a word that’s a little more, shall we say…colorful, that’s also what you should write.  (As a matter of fact, Stephen King says the same thing in On Writing.)  We all know people who rarely, if ever, use a vulgar word.  We all know people that have such foul mouths we cringe whenever they start to speak.  And we all know people who are somewhere in the middle.  Your characters are going to be the same way if you tell the truth in your fiction.

And let me say this.  Just because your character’s a little old lady, that does not mean she won’t swear like a sailor.  We’re talking about the character and what they would or would not say.  Not all little old ladies would say “Oh, poop.”  One evening, I was around a group of people.  My husband and I made up one couple, and we were probably in our mid- to late twenties.  One of the couples was of an older generation, around the ages of my grandparents, between the ages of sixty and seventy.  Another couple would have been roughly around the age of my own parents, between the ages of forty and fifty.  The six of us were standing around talking and out of the blue, the woman who was roughly the same age as my granny, maybe a little younger, started talking about personal things.  Things that I know made my face match my hair.  And it wasn’t just the fact that my own granny would have literally died before discussing those things in what she would have viewed as “mixed company”, meaning males and females.  It was the vulgarity of the language she was using.  I was shocked because most of the people I knew who were roughly the same age as my granny talked like my granny.  They did not talk like this woman.  She wasn’t a bad woman, just very frank and vulgar.  True story.  So, get to know your characters.  Don’t take all of your little old ladies at face value, because they might shock you with the things they will talk about and the language they will use.

Don’t water down your character’s language if that wouldn’t be in character for them.  Likewise, don’t ramp up their language if it would be out of character.  You don’t want your readers to say, “They wouldn’t say that!  That’s not how they talk.”  Get to know your characters and stay true to their voices.

And please, please don’t add unnecessary profanity for shock value.  Please.  Just…Don’t.

Repetition

Repetition

We’re not just talking about repetition of words, gender pronouns, dialogue tags (if it’s clear who’s speaking, dialogue tags should be deleted anyway), and names.  We’re talking about two or more sentences that say the same thing in different ways.  This usually happens because the author’s scared they won’t be understood and they’re trying to clarify their meaning.  I once saw an entire paragraph that was pure repetition.  The author was trying to clarify two things and it made a mess of the paragraph.  We were able to streamline it into three, or perhaps it was four, sentences.  Keep an eye open for things like this.

This issue also comes up with character description.  One author kept beating the readers over the head with their character’s eye color.  “Gray eyes”, “stormy gray eyes”, “slate gray eyes”.  This character’s eye color was mentioned at least once in every scene they appeared in (which was a lot.  They played a major role in the entire manuscript.  Not a secondary character at all.), and sometimes it was mentioned more than once in the same scene.  Another author wanted to make certain the readers knew their character possessed “flame-colored tresses”.  Although that one probably qualifies as a pet phrase as well, because almost every time the character’s hair was mentioned, “flame-colored tresses” was the

description.  “She tossed her flame-colored tresses back.”  “Her flame-colored tresses glinted in the sunlight.”  “She ran her hand through her flame-colored tresses.”  After the initial description of a character, mentioning eye color, hair color, etc., a few times over the entire course of the novel as a reminder would be fine.  And I do mean a few times.  Like maybe three times after the initial description, spread out over the entire manuscript.  But that’s it.  (See, I did my own little bit of repetition there, and even bolded it.)

Keep an eye on your descriptions.  Telling us a few times that her eyes are emerald, or that his voice is gravelly is fine.  Telling us at least once every time we see the character is not.

Mistakes in Submissions Continued -- Time Line

This week I'm going to continue discussing the most common mistakes I've seen in submissions.

Time Line

I’ve had to work with authors to fix time line issues numerous times.  If you describe a character doing something that takes place at midnight, and then you have them doing something that might take three hours at the most, you can’t have dawn breaking when they finish.  Especially if it’s in an unbroken scene where there’s no indication of a time lapse.  I once spent hours trying to untangle an author’s time line, because it started out with one, and then split into two sets of characters on different time lines.  At first you didn’t realize they were on different ones because when specific times were mentioned in one line, it wasn’t mentioned in the other one.  There were a few things that seemed a little off in each one, but they were easily corrected and weren’t that noticeable until you started breaking down the time line.  The problem really surfaced when two characters, one from each line, came together and were pretty much together for the rest of the book.  Even though it wasn’t the only big issue, one of the major problems was that dawn had broken for one character, but when she came together with the other character, they were running around in the dark and dawn broke a second time.  Either I had somehow missed an entire day during the reading, or the author didn’t keep track of their time line.  We discovered the issue was the latter.

I usually see this in books with more than one POV.  This is especially true if the author likes to mention specific times.  And yes, a book can follow this character or certain events on one line for a few chapters, and then the book starts following another character through the same time line or sequence of events.  That’s not a problem, and it’s done frequently.  The problem comes when you follow one character through a long stretch of time or sequence of events and then start following another character through that same stretch of time without indicating you’ve gone back to the beginning.  If you do go through a long period of time and then switch to another character, it’s helpful to indicate this at the beginning of the chapter.  Perhaps something like:

Monday

April 1^st

8:45 a.m.

There are other formats an author might choose, but the above is one of the most common examples.  And by “long stretch of time”, I mean if you start with your first character, pretty much begin with the start of their day, and then follow them until suppertime or even bedtime.  If you don’t use some kind of time indicator at the beginning of the chapter, and you just start with your second character having breakfast, people are going to assume it’s the next day.  So when you get to the part that evening where your two characters are on the phone discussing the events of the day, and your readers realize they’re talking about the same day, there’s bound to be a moment of confusion.

However, I’ve also seen this happen in the same time line, which appeared to be pretty linear.  I’ve seen characters arrive at work at 9:00 a.m., do some things that might only keep them occupied until around 1:00 p.m. or 2:00 p.m. at the latest, including accounting for travel and the time spent at each location, and suddenly it’s 7:00 p.m.  Normally, this isn’t a problem when there’s an indicator that there’s been a time lapse and the characters did some stuff “off-screen”.  But this was presented in a linear fashion where we were with the characters every step of the way.  Nope.  That doesn’t work.

Unraveling a convoluted time line takes a lot of time and work.  In some cases, the author can fix it easily with a scene break to indicate the time lapse, giving a chapter a time indicator, eliminating specific time references, etc.  Other times it can cause entire scenes to be rewritten, moved, or eliminated.  So for the sanity of your editor and yourself (Yes, fixing a time line can cause Fried Brain Syndrome.  Consider yourself warned.), please try to keep track of your time line.  You can use a style sheet or create a file to help keep you straight on which events occur when, and where each character is during those events, during specific times, or on specific days.  Just use a format that makes the most sense to you, whether it's a spreadsheet, writing it out on notebook paper, using note cards, using a calendar...the available options and formats are endless.  The only thing that matters is that it works for you.  In some stories, it’s pretty easy to keep track of.  In others…well, it’s easy to create a mess if you aren’t careful.

Watch the video.  It's funny!

Grammatical Errors

It doesn’t cross my eyes any if you have a few instances where you used double quotations when you should have used singles and vice versa, or if you have the occasional homophone confusion.  It happens, and they’re an easy enough fix.  However, if your manuscript is so riddled with errors I’m starting to think you believe:

The exclamation mark is the standard way to punctuate a sentence...

A rose is a flour and flower is what you coat chicken with before you fry it...

That single quotations are the standard for dialogue (unless you’re a British-English author.  I know that’s one of the ways you do it across the pond.)...

That it’s perfectly fine to do this!?!? or this!!!!...

That it’s PERFECTLY FINE TO DO THIS...

And that you seem to have never cracked open a dictionary to check for spelling or meaning...

I’m probably going to reject it.  For example, literally.  While the dictionary does list a figurative meaning for the word now, it originally meant something actually happened.  So if your character says, “My head literally exploded”, you’d better get a mop, because you have a mess to clean up.  Ick.  And if their head literally exploded, how are we even discussing the matter with them?  Unless it’s from the POV of a dead character.  And while that’s been done quite well, it’s a very hard POV to pull off.  The word has been incorrectly used so much in daily language that even the dictionary has been infected.

And yes, I’m guilty of this.  I talk like that.  My head has literally exploded.  My heart has literally stopped.  I’ve literally been scared to death.  So how did I make this post?  I’m literally a ghost speaking to you from beyond the grave, that’s how.  *grin*  The word should actually be figuratively.

My head exploded, figuratively speaking.

But, since the dictionary now gives a figurative definition for literally, I suppose we’re stuck with it and will just have to suck it up and move on.  *sigh*  But there are other words authors misuse because they think the words mean something else.  It’s not uncommon, so I have no problem telling the author I don’t think they want to use that word there.  But when the author uses a lot of words incorrectly, that’s when I wonder if they’ve ever checked the definitions.  It’s easy to read a word in the context of one sentence and get the wrong impression, but you don’t want to consistently identify soup as gruel.  They’re similar, but not the same thing.

It’s easy to overlook a few of these instances, because the mind glosses over things and sees what it wants to, like the difference between reign and rein.  But, if you have a lot of these mistakes throughout the manuscript, you want to clear them up before submitting.  This is even worse if your query and synopsis contain a lot of these errors.

One additional remark about extra punctuation and all caps for emphasis.  Sometimes you do see it in books published by one of the Big Six, and that’s okay.  One, the “rules” of publishing change from time to time.  What was acceptable five years ago might not be acceptable now, and what’s acceptable now might not be acceptable in five years.  Two, it could also come down to the house style guidelines and requirements of the individual publisher.  If you really want to write, “YOOOOUUUUUU!!!!!!”, I’m likely to suggest changing it to “Yoooouuuuuu!” because several houses tell you not to use all caps for emphasis, and not to use multiple punctuation.  You’re better off not doing it.