A spellchecker answers one question: is this word in my list. That works well for English and it fails completely for the vocabulary you invented, in a way that repays close attention, because the obvious fix makes it worse rather than better.
The sequence that traps authors
- You write a fantasy novel with invented names.
- The spellchecker flags every one of them, hundreds of times.
- You add them to the custom dictionary, because the noise is unusable.
- The flags stop.
- You later misspell one of them, twice.
- You add that spelling to the dictionary too, without noticing, because the prompt appeared while you were writing.
- Both spellings are now correct as far as the checker is concerned, for ever.
Step six is the trap. Adding a word to a custom dictionary is a single click made in the middle of writing, and it permanently blesses whatever was on screen at that moment.
What the two approaches see
| Situation | Dictionary check | Comparison within the book |
|---|---|---|
| An invented name spelled one way | Flags it as unknown | Lists it with a count |
| The same name spelled two ways | Flags both, or neither | Shows both, with counts |
| A name in the custom dictionary | Accepts every added spelling | Unaffected; still shows both |
| A typo of a common word | Catches it | Does not report it |
| A rare real word | May flag it | Lists it as unusual |
The two approaches are complementary rather than competing. A dictionary check is the right tool for ordinary English and the wrong one for invented vocabulary; comparison within the book is the reverse.
The comparison approach
The Novel Kit works by comparison rather than by dictionary lookup: it lists every unusual term the manuscript contains with its count, so two spellings of one name appear as two entries with different frequencies. No dictionary entry is needed for either, which is precisely why it works on words you invented last Tuesday.
It does not check ordinary spelling, so a spellchecker remains necessary for the rest of the book.
A practical next step
Open your word processor's custom dictionary and read it. Most of them contain at least one misspelling of a name the author uses.
Sources checked
- Why spellcheck misses invented names
- Why spellcheck is not a consistency check
- How term extraction works
Frequently asked questions
What does a spellchecker actually do?
Compares each word against a list of known words and flags the ones that are absent. That is the whole mechanism.
Why does that fail on fiction?
Because your invented words are absent from the list, so they are all flagged, and adding them makes every spelling of them acceptable.
What works instead?
Comparing the words in your book against each other, which finds two spellings of one name without needing either to be in a dictionary.