Common Errors #21 - Thinking the Editor is Your Enemy: Copy Editing

Once the final draft of the manuscript is approved, it goes for copy-editing. There would be little point copy-editing the initial draft, as whole sections are likely to disappear and entirely new sections appear during developmental edits, so no one is going to pay $60 an hour to keep re-copy editing the same manuscript. Copy editors catch typos, spelling and grammar errors, inconsistencies, and so on.  It is a highly technical skill, takes a certain personality, and is often underrated. A typical example: I used 'global change' to change a character in one of my stories, but unknowingly had Word set to "changes from here down" rather than "all document" so that a minor character was one name in the first scene, and a different name four scenes later. Which, understandably, caused some confusion until caught by the copy editor.

The need for copy-editing is obvious; less obvious is that copyediting is not a substitute for development editing. Beginning authors who arrange to have their manuscripts 'edited' before submitting to a publisher, or self-publishing, need to be clear on whether they are hiring a copy editor or a development/structural editor.  Freelance development editors (often marketing themselves as "writing coaches") can often be very helpful in identifying problem areas; over-coming writer's block; pushing authors to go deeper, to up their game; and turning initial drafts into submission-ready drafts. Copy editors can help authors avoid embarrassing typos and inconsistencies, but it is not their job to tamper with the manuscript's content.

Knowing which service one is contracting for is therefore crucial. When I was an acquisition editor at a small press, I several times had authors telling me they had paid thousands to have their manuscript edited before submission, but when I looked at it, the manuscript made no sense. Of course, the "editor" they had hired was a copy editor, who therefore hadn't pointed out that giant ants, say, are a non-starter, but simply tidied up whatever they had been handed. Heartbreaking, but it happens a lot. To educate yourself on the different types of editors and what each does, read the Editor's Canada definitions of professional skills here: https://www.editors.ca/hire/definitions-editorial-skills

Trends

Finally, there are a couple of trends in publishing that should be noted here. First, publishers at all levels are doing a lot less editing than they used to. Most of the major players let go between 30-40% of their remaining editorial staff during the 2008 recession, and there is no reason to expect any of them to rehire to the same levels in the future. The heavy concentration of publishing into a very few houses has created a situation where there are so many authors submitting to the same six surviving SF imprints, for example, that the majors can simply take the top 1% that need almost no development and reject the rest. Indeed, very few publishers these days have the patience to develop new talent, and simply do not accept unsolicited manuscripts. Instead, the slush pile has largely been outsourced to agents, who perforce have taken on the role of development editor. That even makes a kind of sense, given that most of the new agents on the market (and therefore the ones willing to accept new clients) are the very editors laid off from the major publishing houses. Same people doing the same job, the difference being that now their salaries are being paid by the writers, rather than by the publishers....

Second, copy-editing and proofreading have been partially eliminated as steps in the process by the change from hot lead typesetting to digital. Certainly, many small presses (and almost all self-publishers) simply take the author's digital submission and run it through a software package to turn it into the printed book. Given the expectation that authors will have already run spell and grammar checks on the document, the need to pay someone $60 an hour to go through checking for minor glitches is now sometimes seen as redundant. This is a wrong idea, of course, as is obvious whenever one runs across a book that hasn't benefitted from the attention of a good copy editor.

This column originally appeared in Writer-in-Residence: Common Sense Guidance for Writers by Writers, curated by Krista D. Ball http://writer-in-residence.blogspot.com/2011/03/editor-is-not-your-enemy-part-2.html

Why I Am Not a (Total) Prescriptivist

From Ryan Starkley of Starkley comics:

If you love language, be a descriptivist, not a prescriptivist!

Remember:

• Just because a word isn’t in your dictionary, doesn’t mean it isn’t a word.
• Just because a dialect is different from the standard language, doesn’t mean it isn’t valid.
• Just because someone uses a word in a way you aren’t familiar with, doesn’t mean they are wrong.
• And, however you feel about it, language evolution is inevitable, so you might as well enjoy it!

The Singular "They"

As mentioned previously in this blog, various official style guides now accept the use of "they" as a singular pronoun, as one way to avoid sexist constructions using "he" when it could be either gender. For example, "they" is singular in the following sentence: "When an author finishes a first draft, they know they still have to do a second draft." Within this context, I give you the American Copy Editors Society's winning Limerick of it's 2019 Annual Grammar Day Tweeted Limerick Contest:

The all-purpose he is passé,
And he or she gets in the way.
Ip, ey, co, and heesh
Make readers say "Sheesh!"
Which leaves us the singular they.

            —Claire Valgardson (@CMValgardson, http://effective-editing.com/)

New Editorial Standards

 

Editors Canada, the professional association of Canadian Editors, has released updated definitions of types of editing: Editing Skills. It's important that anyone seeking an editor understands that "editing" can mean a number of different things and therefore to make sure that the "editor" they hire understands which type of editing the client is looking for.

As an acquisition editor, I frequently had to tell authors that their manuscripts were not quite to publishable standards and suggest that they work with an editor before trying the next publisher, only to be told they had already paid thousands for editing. Of course, what they paid for was copyediting or proofreading, when really what they needed was structural editing (sometimes called substantive editing) or stylistic editing (also called line editing), or etc. Their manuscripts would be spelled correctly and not have a comma out of place, but that none of that matters if the surprise ending of one's mystery novel is that the butler did it. If one takes a manuscript that has plot or character flaws to a copyeditor, they won't necessarily comment on these structural flaws. They will assume that you're happy with the manuscript as is, and just want copyediting. Copyeditors are given all sorts of rubbish to edit by clients who are not looking for the editor's opinion, just that they do their job and fix the grammar. It therefore behooves the client to know what they are asking for.

And what they actually need. Clients often present us with copyediting, when really, copyediting would be premature. One should always start with a structural edit as there is no point copyediting a scene that may be revised or deleted. Some authors think their first or second draft is good enough to go ahead, but "good enough" really isn't in today's competitive market. EssentialEdits.ca always starts with a sample edit so we can tell the writer whether (1) the manuscript is ready for professional editing, or if it needs a few more preliminary drafts (that is, go back to free writers' circles, beta readers, etc.), or (2) the client needs structural or stylistic editing. Some clients who come for copyediting do not appreciate being told their content still needs work, or worse, think we're just trying to upsell them to an extra iteration or more expensive kind of editing. We're open to just copyediting if that's what the client wants--there are occasions when that even makes sense--but we always start with an appraisal of a writing sample & synopsis/outline so we can tell the author what's needed and they see a sample of our editing before committing to an expensive contract.

If you are interested in a more detailed breakdown of editing standards for each type of editing, Editors Canada's Professional Editing Standards 2016 outline what you may expect in each category.