1
Catch “form” where the sentence requires “from.”
16 Proofreading a Novel Examples
Use these examples to study structure, specificity, tone, and variation. They are demonstrations—not claims about a real person or organization unless the example itself makes that explicit.
Before you copy
What to notice in the examples
Effective novel proofreading protects the already edited story while checking the actual reading artifact: residual words and punctuation, names and continuity visible at proof stage, chapter-opening treatment, scene-break markers, running heads, page numbers, typography, front/back matter, and conversion artifacts. Large story or prose changes are escalated rather than silently folded into proof corrections.
- Text pass for residual typos, dropped/duplicated words, punctuation, accidental spacing, and obvious mechanical errors.
- Fiction-consistency pass for character/place names, chapter numbering/titles, scene-break conventions, italics, messages/letters, and style-sheet decisions.
- Print-proof pass for running heads, folios, chapter openings, widows/orphans, blank pages, hyphenation, line breaks, spacing, and page-level composition.
- Digital-format pass for navigation, chapter links, scene-break visibility, special characters, italics, paragraph indentation, and device-responsive conversion artifacts.
- Correction-verification pass on the final revised files before release.
2
Find a duplicated sentence created during copy-and-paste revision.
3
Correct a chapter heading that uses “Twenty-One” while all others use numerals.
4
Notice two consecutive pages with the same running header after a section break.
5
Fix an em dash followed by an unintended space when the project style uses closed em dashes.
6
Flag a character name misspelled only once near the end of the manuscript.
7
Restore italics that disappeared in one line after file conversion.
8
Remove an accidental blank page created by a manual page break before a chapter.
9
Chapter-opening check: Chapter 18 accidentally retains a running head even though every other chapter-opening page suppresses it.
10
Scene-break check: an ornamental break disappears in the ebook, making two separate scenes run together as one paragraph sequence.
11
Character-name check: the copyedited style sheet establishes “Marisol,” but one late chapter still contains “Marisol.”
12
Dialogue-format check: a text-message exchange loses italics during conversion and now reads like ordinary narration.
13
Print-layout check: a single dialogue line is stranded at the top of the next page after a late correction changes line flow.
14
Front-matter check: the table of contents points to an outdated chapter title after the title was revised during copyediting.
15
Page-furniture check: an even-page running head shows the previous chapter title for one spread after a section change.
16
Cross-format check: a corrected em dash appears properly in the print PDF but converts to a hyphen in one ebook export, requiring a format-specific fix.
Keep the underlying decision or pattern, then replace the subject, evidence, relationship, constraints, and tone with details that belong to your situation. If your final line still works after swapping only one noun, it may be too close to the example.