…of copy edits corrected.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There are only (!) 39 chapters, but more words in the last nineteen than in the first twenty.<\/p>\n
I quit after finishing chapter 20, a few minutes ago.\u00a0 Tired.\u00a0 Tired of all the little red marks and having to check every single one.\u00a0 Copy-editing is a tough job for the copy-editor, but the CE’s job is one of marking anything that strikes him or her as off.<\/p>\n
The writer’s job is to look at every mark (and everything between and around the marks) and decide if the CE is right…will the change make that phrase, that sentence, that paragraph, that page, that chapter better?\u00a0 Or worse?\u00a0 Or is the change neutral, in terms of what the writer wants to accomplish.\u00a0\u00a0 One CE may decide that in a fantasy full of royalty, all the titles should be capitalized all the time.\u00a0\u00a0 Another CE may decide that no title should be capitalized.<\/p>\n
This writer has chosen a middle route (chose it back in the first book in the whole story-universe) and is stuck with it for continuity’s sake (I still like most of the choices made then.)\u00a0 But the CE hasn’t read all the books.\u00a0 Only continuity within the book matters to the CE.<\/p>\n
So the writer–this writer, not to be coy about it–must look at every word the CE has touched and fix it if the CE has capitalized or un-capitalized it.\u00a0\u00a0 CEs also vary in their grasp of punctuation within dialogue.\u00a0\u00a0 Some like to mess with it a lot.\u00a0 If they do, the writer is nose-down on the page, checking every single punctuation choice (the CE’s and the writer’s.)<\/p>\n
I accept changes that don’t offend my ear or damage the book.\u00a0\u00a0 I welcome corrections of actual errors (being a not-perfect-yet writer.)\u00a0\u00a0 I tolerate some ho-hums (neutral in effect, from my POV.)\u00a0\u00a0 But I am determined not to let a CE turn tight, suspenseful passages into bland, prosaic, flat passages.<\/p>\n
Even the best of all possible CEs will do something that makes a writer’s nostrils flare and lip curl.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 CEs drag writers back through their stories in detail–it feels like being too close to the TV screen.\u00a0\u00a0 The best of all possible CEs also save writers from their own errors–they catch the “echo,” the character who just died reappearing to deliver lunch, the car that was blue when you got into it and is gray when you get out, and so forth.<\/p>\n
Nineteen chapters to go.\u00a0 Sigh.\u00a0 Huff.\u00a0 Puff.\u00a0 Tomorrow, not tonight.<\/p>\n
I wish i could say that 20 chapters of III were in the file.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
…of copy edits corrected.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There are only (!) 39 chapters, but more words in the last nineteen than in the first twenty. I quit after finishing chapter 20, a few minutes ago.\u00a0 Tired.\u00a0 Tired of all the little red marks and having to check every single one.\u00a0 Copy-editing is a tough job for the copy-editor, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,5],"tags":[62,20,31,107],"class_list":["post-772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editing","category-the-writing-life","tag-craft-of-writing","tag-progress-report","tag-the-book-business","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=772"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":773,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions\/773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}