On I toil with revisions to Justice in Big-G City. A draft suitable for submission to my editor/publisher is so close I can taste it! Full disclosure: it tastes like paper and ink. As part of this final push, I have employed a nifty editing tool called Search and Replace.

 

What does it do?

 

You give it a word, or string of words, to find in the document that you want to replace, and also the word or string of words you want to replace it with.

 

Huh?

 

Here’s an example, 9. If you’re writing a story about a dog but you want to change the dog to a cat, you could start by ordering a search for “dog” and the instruction to replace it with “cat.” The tool will search your document and substitute all appearances of “dog” with “cat.”

 

 

 

However, there can be unintended consequences.

 

How? It sounds like a simple process.

 

Yes, it does, Lily. In a way, perhaps it’s too simple. Let’s say you did the dog/cat search and replace. When you think you’ve finally got the story nailed, you read the whole thing through. This is when you discover the truly bizarre word “catma.” If you started your story about a cat but decided to change the cat to a dog, you might end up with “dogegory.”

 

I don’t get it?

 

It’s easy, 9. Just substitute dog for cat, and vice-versa.

 

So- -oh, okay! Dogma and category?

 

Well done, 9!

 

In Justice, Beta reader and friend Julie Weston (who writes an historical fiction detective series https://julieweston.com/), pointed out that three characters who appeared in scenes together had very similar names. This is considered a fiction no-no, as names that are so much alike can be confusing to readers. Point taken. One of the characters, Saul Crispin, has appeared in earlier books in the series so I couldn’t change his name. Instead, with the help of the Character Naming Sourcebook, I changed Chrysostom (a smarmy prosecuting attorney) to Mikolas, and Charis (executive assistant to the defense attorney) to Theora.

 

 

 

Do a search and replace and I’m done, right?

 

Gosh, for some reason I suspect this isn’t the end of the story.

 

Kudos on the sarcasm, Lily. A couple of very strange proper nouns appeared in the next draft, the one I printed out and read out loud.

 

For days and days.

 

True. I had to take the 85,000 words in small bites in order to preserve my voice (and my sanity). One day I stumbled over the word “Theorasma.” At first I panicked- -had Microsoft Word gone mad? When I calmed down and looked at the word in context, I realized Search and Replace had edited the word “charisma.”

 

When I discovered “Miktened” (having substituted “Mik” for “Chris,” the short version of Chrysostom’s name), I just laughed.

 

So wait! Let me think a couple of seconds. . .christened?

 

Exactly, 9!

 

Search and Replace. One more lesson in the fine art of learning, and laughing at my mistakes along the way.