Four Ways to Survive the Copy Edit Gauntlet
By Guest | February 1, 2014 |
Photo by engineroomblog
Today’s post is by Ariel Lawhon, the author of THE WIFE, THE MAID, AND THE MISTRESS (Doubleday), a reimagining of a scandalous mystery that rocked the nation in 1930—Justice Joseph Crater’s infamous disappearance—as seen through the eyes of the three women who knew him best.
People magazine has this to say:
As rumors swirl about political corruption, an N.Y.C. judge disappears in 1930 without a trace. Caught in the scandal are his wife and showgirl mistress—plus his dutiful maid, whose detective husband is investigating the case. Inspired by a real-life unsolved mystery, this mesmerizing novel features characters that make a lasting impression.
Ariel Lawhon is co-founder of the popular online book club, She Reads, and she’s a novelist, blogger, and life-long reader. She lives in the rolling hills outside Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband and four young sons (aka The Wild Rumpus). Ariel believes that Story is the shortest distance to the human heart.
Follow Ariel on her web site, blog, Facebook, or Twitter.
Four Ways to Survive the Copy Edit Gauntlet
Copy edits were the one part of the editorial process that most caught me by surprise. I knew they were coming. And I knew they would be tedious. But I was not prepared for the amount of work involved. Of my 412-page manuscript only one page remained unmarked. The fact that I write historical fiction exacerbated this problem. Not only was my copy editor looking for typical grammar issues, repetitive phrases, and gaps in consistency, she followed up on every single historical detail. Dates. Times. Events. People. Locations. Among other things I had to verify that in 1930 August 17th fell on a Monday (it didn’t, and I had to change the date for that scene), the Globe Theater in Atlantic City had a drinking fountain (it did), and that over seven hundred buildings in Manhattan were under construction (also true). Everything was double-checked.
[pullquote]Copy edits were the one part of the editorial process that most caught me by surprise. I knew they were coming. And I knew they would be tedious. But I was not prepared for the amount of work involved.[/pullquote]
A good copy editor (mine was brilliant) will pick up on your individual writing tics. By the time my novel made it to this stage in the process I had easily read it ninety times. But I never noticed that all my characters were addicted to leaning against things. They leaned on each other. They leaned on car doors. Walls. Sinks. They leaned out of windows and over counters. My copy editor pointed this out immediately and I was very thankful.
Like me, your copy edits might focus on verifying historical details. Or maybe you’ll get hammered on grammar and semantics. Regardless, here are five ways to survive this part of the editorial process:
Prepare in Advance. Every novelist I know performs research of some kind. It doesn’t matter whether you write historical, medical thrillers, science fiction, psychological dramas, or any other genre. We all research. We scour libraries and Google documents. We pour over maps and blueprints. We interview relatives and eyewitnesses. And the easiest way to save time and sanity once a manuscript gets to the copy edit stage is to have this information accessible. One option is to keep your physical research organized and within reach until your book goes to press. Another is to use the footnote option in Microsoft Word every time you include research in your manuscript. (I prefer this option since it saves a great deal of time and desk space) Your copy editor will follow up on your research, and planning ahead will save hours, if not days, during this stage of the editing process.
Take Small Bites. The amount of time given to complete copy edits varies with each publisher. I had two weeks. And since my edits were quite intense I tackled thirty pages a day. Any more than that and my brain turned to soup. If you divide the edits into smaller, daily chunks the entire process will be easier.
STET Is Your Friend (But Use It with Discretion). According to Julia Armstrong, author of Copyediting and Proofreading, a copy editor’s job is to make the text “clear, correct, concise, comprehensive, and consistent.” Copy editors exist so that we don’t look stupid in print. They make sure that our Hero doesn’t have blue eyes in one chapter and brown eyes in the next. They follow up on the tiniest points of research. Don’t want hate mail from nit-picky readers? Then trust your copy editor on all the technical issues.
That said, a copy editor’s job is not to edit your manuscript. She shouldn’t make suggestions on plot or character development or narrative. We’ve all heard the horror stories of an over-zealous copy editor who rewrites portions of a manuscript or critiques the writing. Your copy editor should not do this. But if it happens to you, feel free to use STET—an editorial notation in the margins that means, “let it stand.”
If you know your research is correct and can back it up, STET. If she changed dialogue that is accurate to the time and setting of your novel, STET. If she runs rough-shod over your manuscript, STET. Don’t be afraid to use this tool, but be selective. Make it count.
Have Fun with It. Keep your sense of humor. Understand that we all have odd grammatical tics that need correction. Drink a lot of coffee. Find a copy-editing soundtrack (I liked the Mumford and Sons station on Pandora) Look for a copy editing guru: I follow Benjamin Dreyer on Twitter (@BCdryer). He’s a copy edit chief at Random House and offers fun, snarky commentary on copy edits. If you use the hashtag #AskCopyChief he’ll even answer your questions.
Have you ever walked the copy edit gauntlet? How was your experience?
Many thanks to today’s guest.
You can read more WU guest posts by visiting this link.
Thanks for this.
I love the idea of footnoting my research. (And hang my academic head in shame that I didn’t think of it.) So far I only do this when there’s a reference I want to follow up.
Another good copy editor to follow is Carol Saller, aka The Subversive Copy Editor (@SubCopyEd). She edits the Chicago Manual On-LIne’s Q & A.
Truth be told, I thought of this AFTER I’d gone through copy edits. It would have been so handy to have all those bits of research noted. Sadly I had to dig through piles of books and paper for each thing my copy editor addressed.
I don’t write historical fiction, I write medical suspense. Since I have thirty-six years’ experience in practice, I naturally bristle when a copy editor (or line editor, as some refer to it) tries to change what I wrote re a medical scenario. Yes, I’ve had that happen, and yes, I did not accept the changes. But it has made me more careful in the initial writing, knowing that someone was figuratively looking over my shoulder.
It is interesting how our writing changes when we know it will be scrutinized.
Thanks for the insight into a unknown country. I hope to visit someday. You’re “travel guide” will make the visit a more joyous one. ;-)
Glad to be a travel guide, albeit a road-weary one! You might love your trip through copy edits. Many writers do (although I question their sanity).
Whoops! Make that *an* unknown country. Dang these too quick fingers. ;-)
Zan, you need not feel too frustrated. Yes, that pesky n has a way of getting skipped over when we need it most.
It happened yesterday to Vaughn Roycroft, in his comment following “Inside Publishing Month at WU,” about midway through his thoughtful commentary on developments in the digital revolution. There it was, “I’ve got to believe this was *a exception*….
And it happened to me when I first made contact with Kansas City Star Books on their contact form. In answer to the question, “how did you hear about us?” I carefully typed, “I have known about Kansas City Star Books since your 1996 publication of C. W. Gusewelle’s AOTHER AUTUMN: The RUFUS Chronicle (carefully typing the title including capital and lowercase letters from my copy of the book). Or so I thought.
I was excited to receive a reply from the publisher 24 hours later. In the email he returned to me, there was my typo in the copy of the form I had submitted. Oops. I shared the form (which had not asked for a description of my project) and the publisher’s response, “Can you tell me what kind of book project you have in mind?”
My husband read (on purpose) aloud, “A Other Autumn,” which didn’t help matters.
So for all of us who know better, it is comforting to know that those who are reading us know we know better and that we know those whose prose we are reading know better when it comes to *a exception,* *a unknown,* “aother* and all the other *a’s* rather than *an’s*yet to come.
ANOTHER AUTUMN: The RUFUS Chronicle is C. W. Gusewelle’s account of Rufus, his beloved Brittany bird dog, from his birth in 1983 through their nearly 13 years together until his companion’s death in 1996.
Thank you for your praise and your editing skills, Barbara. :-)
Wonderful article, Ariel. Wishing you both a happy weekend!
This is so great! I have a question: What should you study in college in order to work in the publishing industry? What are some of the many job categories within a publishing house? How important are internships?
Thanks!
– Brooke :)
Sadly, you are asking the wrong person. I never went to college. And I know very little about the traditional routes into this business. I have a tendency to do things backwards and upside down. But I’ve been on my own since I was 16 and I’ve learned how to figure things out on my own. That said, my best advice is to master the very different skills of Writing and Storytelling (perhaps a post for a different day). And you don’t need an internship for that.
I copy edit as part of my day job, so it’s familiar territory for me. That said, it doesn’t make me less nervous to have my creative work copy edited by someone else! So thanks for these tips.
Also, just a quick note for people who want to follow Benjamin Dreyer or Carol Saller on twitter. They are actually at @BCDreyer and @SubvCopyEd.
Thanks for the Twitter handle corrections. This is where a copy editor would have come in handy!
Both of us screwed up the twitter handles? Dang!
Thanks for the good eye.
Thank you for that correction, Caitlin! Proof that we all need copy editors, even when writing blog posts!
My copy editor saved me from looking like an idiot debut author, which I am. e.g.: There were two minor characters who had the same name (as if there are only five names in the world). I spelled one of the characters’ names Katherine in some chapters and Catherine in others…and on it goes. Thank god for copy editors. And proofreaders, and my executive editor… They are all wonderful and made my work better.
I am embarrassed to admit the ways my copy editor saved me. All I know is that I appreciate her more than words can express.
It seems that everyone I know or write about smiles. My copy editor for book one slashed and dashed and had me groaning. But thank God for her! Isn’t it interesting how well we can see these repetitions in the books we edit, but gloss over them blindly in our own?
I really think it is impossible for us to see our own work. We’re too close to it.
Thank you, Ariel, for covering this subject not often discussed. I am fortunate to have had a wonderful experience with my copy editor on my latest book. Her “hawk eyes” picked up little creatures I could not see. :) It is nice, too, when an author can have a good relationship with his/her copy editor. I always knew she had my best interests at heart and wanted to make my book the best it could be. I don’t know how writers survive without copy editors!
Thanks again for a great post.
My pleasure! This was certainly the part of the editing process I was least familiar with.
Ariel,
I loved reading this post and thank you for laying out the copy editing process, as I’ve heard about it but never from the inside. Very informative. And 90 times? My goodness, that’s inspiring.
:)
Not sure about inspiring. Obsessive might be a more apt description. But still, the mind has blind spots. We never catch it all. Unless we’re reading someone else’s book of course. :-)
Absolutely true, we all need a copy editor. I’ve been a copy editor for over 15 years and I wouldn’t dream of sending my writing out until a copy editor has hit it thoroughly. As an author, there’s no way I can see my mistakes or inconsistencies, and I do spend a lot of time line editing my own work first. And still, I’m amazed at what I’ve missed, even with my highly trained eye on the page. I hire a content editor for my novels and it always pays off in tighter plots and cleaner character development. Then at final I have a copy editor hit it. After those changes are done, I have a proofreader catch every detail. So that ends up being three sets of eyes on it. This is as close as you can get to 100% accuracy for any manuscript.
You’re very smart, Paula. A manuscript gets better with each new pair of eyes.
Paula, I agree: many pairs of eyes. But what I found when I edited for a small traditional publisher was that it took more than one proofreader to catch all the invisible-to-me mistakes, things I and the copy editor had each missed. Amazing. Made me want to slam my head against the desk.
Paula, so true. As a fiction editor who also writes fiction, I know—through trial and mostly error—that editing yourself is like shaving without using a mirror. You probably don’t shave that often, but the metaphor carries the sentiment: you miss a lot of hairy patches. And the full complement of editorial service will get a writer to the closest shave. [Must he belabor the shaving thing?]
Anyway, Ariel, when the dancers have simpatico, there can be a fine, tight tango between the writer and editor, even if there’s an initial shock at the volume of suggestions. I love your editor catching you leaning on so many leanings! One of the last books I edited was mad with ellipses … had to remove … so many …
Thanks!
excellent article. and yes, a good copy editor will point out fun things like, ‘all of your characters talk exactly like each other’ or ‘why so much smiling’ and ‘there sure are a lot of putrid smelling things happening’. i’m always mortified to find out my tics, but then grateful they were pointed out so i can clean up my messes. you cannot write in a vacuum – it sucks.
Another suggestion: Keep a list of your overused words and phrases and run your ms. through them, in 100 page chunks, before submitting. You can really just see actually how often your characters nod, turn, head out, and smile. (And you can see a few of my bad habits!)
Writing historical fiction is not for cowards I guess. Look forward to reading your book. Enjoyed the post.
That was helpful Ariel. Thank you.
……..dhole
As a freelance editor myself, I love seeing posts like this. :) We in the editing world LOVE when a writer is prepared to work with us to improve an MS.
Since I’m freelance (and thus not attached to a publishing house’s legal team) seeing STET, or receiving an e-mail to that effect, is fine by me. If I ever feel strongly about a suggested change to the MS, I’ll usually say so once in my remarks and once more during discussion after the fact, unless I get the sense the writer isn’t willing to budge. And, ultimately, it’s up to the writers to be certain of what they’ve put down on the page.
I have been extremely thankful for every copy editor I have had. They have all been great to work with, wonderful to catch those pesky repetitions that we miss, and willing to do some give and take when I disagreed with a suggested change.
Ariel,
Great post! I published my first book in December, 2013 and was initially stunned by the copy edit process. It’s a relief to hear about others and their process.
I love that you read your manuscript 90 times. My number is pretty close to that.
I have 3 published authors in my writing group and haven’t ever heard of them footnoting their research. That’s BRILLIANT, Ariel. I look forward to the day when this is my problem, too. :)
“Poring,” not “pouring.” And you left out the first “e” in @BCDreyer.
Sincerely,
A copy editor who enjoyed reading this article anyway
Great post, Ariel!
I wish I’d read it before I had someone “copy edit” my eBook. What a mistake! It made me realize what an art copy editing is and how important it is to befriend a good one!
Best of luck and give my regards to Nashville (my childhood home).
This is great advice and I appreciate your sharing it with us. One question— when submitting a few chapters or the complete mss the first time to an agent or editor, would you suggest including the footnotes or endnotes at that stage or wait until it is accepted?
Hi Joan,
Great question! I wouldn’t include the footnotes in what you submit. They are just for your records, to make the editorial process go smoothly. It’s simply a way of tracking your research.
I am unpublished & 3 yrs. into the throes of re-re-redraft. I have worked with 2 freelance developmental editors. While I take their suggestions to heart, some are problematical. E.g., where answers to story questions they raise seem more to satisfy idle curiosity rather than further plot, character, or theme. The writer is burdened with the assumption that the editor speaks for “everyman,” as well as ascertaining what is reasonable inference, what needs more elucidation, and what is too damned much explaining (or showing!) I mostly give the benifit of the doubt to the editor and for sure they have made my writing stronger but at the expense of many a sound night’s sleep.
Lanny
I laughed over the leaning against things. My first novel has everyone drinking a lot of cofefe. But hey, they’re Norwegians. Really a great post and makes me appreciate the copy editor I have. Never heard of STET, so I’ll use that from now one. I call that defending my work, but I do look up or peruse my notes to make sure I’m right. Or not.
Waiting on the last of the edits on my proof copy. I’ll try to not to scream.