Answer Key

Here is the answer key to the editing exercise:

1. No one used it any more – should be “anymore” (“anymore” means any longer, “any more” means even the slightest bit more
2. a insane archmage – should be “an”
3. what I’ve did – should be “what I’ve done”
4. Plains of Havok – should be “Havoc”
5. The atmosphere changed subtlety – should be “subtly”
6. scared the land – should be “scarred”
7. The Pains is a bad place… – should be “Plains”
8. His voice cuts off abruptly – should be “cut” (past tense)
9. I needed more then that – should be “more than”
10. It was to far to close the distance – should be “too far”
11. …the minotaurs body – should be minotaur’s
12. …every corpse buried there raised again – should be “rose”. For “raised” to be the correct word, there must be an external object being raised.
13. A hoard of undead – should be “horde”
14. The ghouls didn’t even slow their visages still locked in hideous grins – should be a comma after “slow”.
15. Tight, clumped together packs – Should be “clumped-together packs”. While not everyone does this, you typically want to hyphenate compound adjectives, except for adverbs ending in “ly”. E.g. “brand-new car”, but “finely tuned watch”.
16. At three, he stumbled, dropping his sword. – In the previous paragraph, the orc was described as holding a two-handed battle-axe, not a sword.
17. I bend to check his corpse – should be “bent”
18. If he had swooped in and used its claws – pronoun inconsistency. The dragon was referred to as “it” in all other cases, but in this sentence “he” is used. This is a common mistake when talking about non-human characters
19. The dragon didn’t seem unconcerned. – double negative that changes the intended meaning – should be “seemed unconcerned” or “didn’t seem concerned”.
20. I could see the ruin of its left eye – the arrow was previously described as hitting above the dragon’s right eye.
21. …there would be no farther attacks – should be further (farther is used for physical distance, further is used for metaphorical distance)
22. I heard, and than felt – should be “and then”
23. “Need some help their?” – should be “there”
24. He knocked another arrow – should be “nocked”
25. “Goodbye, Death Walker.” He said, a vicious delight in his voice. – should be a comma at the end of the dialogue, and “he” should be lowercase. See here for more details on punctuating dialogue, a fairly common mistake for new authors: http://theeditorsblog.net/2010/12/08/punctuation-in-dialogue/
26. The the invisibility ring – delete “the”
27. …I had obtained – period is missing at end of sentence