Any suggestions to help with punctuation and spelling?

Grammarly was the best thing I have found, it's an online grammar checker. It won't check everything but it will help you reorder those annoying jumbled up sentences. You get three months free with it, or you did when i joined up.

Then, when you are editing, always read out loud and slowly, use something to put under the line you are reading because otherwise you will jump ahead and guess whats coming next. If you want to make doubly sure read your sentences backwards so that you can look at the words.

I also use software that will read back to me so that i can hear my writing without associating it with my voice. (be weary though, this won't pick up wrong word forms ie: There, their)

Then change the font and re-read, again out loud, paying attention to how it flows. if you can afford to, print it out too and read again with a pen in hand.

I have huge respect for anybody who is dyslexic and has a passion for writing. you have to work three times harder to get the same results as somebody to whom spelling comes naturally. Grammar can be a saviour, if you invest your time in making your work grammatically correct then the spelling's become a little easier to bare. paying attention to your grammar can help you reorder what you are writing so that others can easily follow it.

A good practice to get into is to write without editing, then go back and do a restructure to make sure that your paragraphs are in good order and your structure is correct, then look at grammar and then look at spelling. Don't try and edit more than a thousand words at a time because your eyes get lazy.

Finally, and this is really important to remember. when you put your work up for crit, don't be disheartened by people telling you that you have a huge amount of improvements to make. Look for the things you will find helpful. Somebody may decide that it is a good idea to slate you for 'sloppy spellings,' after you have done five edits and gone through three beta readers ect, but as long as they tell you the spellings that you have slipped up on the negative bits can be forgotten.

Good luck and have fun!

S

I invested in Penguin books on Grammar, Punctuation and Plain English. You can buy cheap[ second hand copies on Amazon.

I hope that helps.

Good luck.