The first time I go over a new piece of my own written work I always start with the obvious, spelling and grammar. After that I read it out loud - it makes it easier to spot awkward sentences that either make no sense or just don't flow with the rest. At the same time I'm trying to spot inconsistencies. Like in chapter 3 when I said Dergan was below deck in his cabin, but then on the next page I mention him on the bow of the ship. Yeah...that's the kind of inconsistencies I'm lookin' to fix.
Grammar wise, one of the most common mistakes I see unpublished authors make is punctuation and capitalization with dialogue.
"I don't understand why you think that hat is cute", the girl said to Felix.
"Just because you're hot doesn't mean you're immortal." He told me.
"Say what?" They said in unison.
"I know for a fact I'm better than you," She said with a flip of her hair.
Those are all examples of the mistakes I see. In the first, the comma goes within the quotes. The second example shows a fragment. "He told me" is an incomplete sentence, so why would you capitalize the "H"? The third one is the same in that "They said in unison" is a fragment, so you wouldn't capitalize "they". And the last one is also the same. I don't care what kind of punctuation you use IN the quotes really, but you don't capitalize the first word in the fragment that comes directly after it! Here's the correct way to say the above examples.
"I don't understand why you think that hat is cute," the girl said to Felix.
"Just because you're hot doesn't mean you're immortal," he told me.
"Say what?" they said in unison.
"I know for a fact I'm better than you," she said with a flip of her hair.
"I haven't wet my bed since I was five." He said it with a false sense of accomplishment.
The last one there is an example of how you can easily change the fragment so it isn't a fragment. It sounds awkward and I kind of hate it, but it's grammatically correct. My best friend goes off on rants about people capitalizing the first word after quotes, so this is for her benefit - that maybe one day we can rid the world of dialogue-uneducated authors! So here's a list of fun links about this same topic.
Be A Better Writer
Writing World
Bownet.org
Glencoe Online Writer's Choice
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