Comments on: Another moment of clarity: copyeditor edition

By: sylvia_rachel

sylvia_rachel — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:50:02 +0000

And this is exactly why I do not, and do not aspire to, copy-edit fiction. It’s hard.

By comparison, scholarly journals are easy: you get a style sheet, and you follow it. The text has to be correct and clear. There are rules. By and large, if authors hate you, it’s because they were sloppy and you called them on it, not because you played havoc with their narrative voice.

As a writer, much as I look forward to someday selling my work and seeing it with covers on, I rather dread the copy-editing encounter, because I can imagine the kinds of pointed questions I’ll have to answer .

By: mb

mb — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:58:08 +0000

Well, that’s interesting. Sloppy grammar and bad sentence structure in books is a pet peeve of mine, but I do make a distinction between character voice and omniscient narrator. I only recently discovered your books, Justine, but I have been impressed with your sentence structure and easy flow. I find the grammar glitches minimal and appropriate to the character voices. Which maybe means you and your copy editor end up being a great team?

By: PixelFish

PixelFish — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:21:26 +0000

I suppose it’s a good thing we can stet the manuscripts while not actually in front of the copy editor. I’m sure my spine would give way under their stern gaze and I’d be left wibbling and going, “Oh, I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again.”

By: cuileann

cuileann — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:34:12 +0000

:One of the reasons I love the English language so much is on account of how crazy flexible it is. I can bend and twist it. Sometimes make it go SNAP and BANG and BROKEN. But it always bounces back good and nice.:

This bit is so great.

By: Justine

Justine — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:25:01 +0000

Amber: But that photo proves that all writers are insane! (And also I am with you on never doing that conjunction thing.)

By: Amber

Amber — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:13:44 +0000

Here’s the word/ pic that makes me laugh on stet:

http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/archives/2008/01/25/like_cures_like.html

I am a fan of the ‘stet _please_’ here. Because I am both nice and good. And I never start a sentence with a subordinating conjunction.

By: El

El — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 06:00:29 +0000

Boy howdy did you have fun writing that!

As a copyeditor (no, not one of yours) I got dizzy. But I’m actually totally with you on this–I’m a firm believer that you write first to an *audience*. (Of course, who exactly the audience is can get confusing….)

By: Ju

Ju — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 04:41:39 +0000

As a reader and almost never someone who Writes, this is my preferred reading style. I’m never going to be someone who appreciates perfectly grammatical text – I want to be immersed and drawn in and I want to leave the real world behind. Bring it on and then some baby.