My critique partner and I are working on new novels with the usual thrills and chills! Yesterday I received her gentle rant concerning a problem fraying the nerves of writers world wide. Spellcheck. Here, in part, are her comments:
“I’m literally a walking dictionary. Words that I’m familiar with, or their derivatives, don’t even show up on Spellcheck or are marked as wrong.”
Spellcheck in Word is different in Scrivener in iPage ad infinitum. Some spellchecks are US English, others British English – on and on. So, you may have to spellcheck in several softwares or just go with your gut.
“Thank goodness for my 1978 dog-eared paperback Roget’s Thesaurus, yellowed-pages held together by an old rubber band. It is still the best writing resource I own.”
While pondering this spellcheck mess, I stumbled on a fantastic thesaurus lurking on Scrivener.
Go to thesaurus. com and check it out. Not only does it have more synonyms that the Word thesaurus, but it has sorting options that I’ve never seen before except on clothing and shoe buying sites.
“I would much rather NOT have spellcheck’s screaming red lines pull me away from my initial intent and focus.”
Turn it off. Word, iPage or whatever you are using should have a toggle to toast the offending red lines.
How do you feel about spellcheck? Is it an invasive, dull-witted pain in the butt or the saving grace for your writing?