Karen MacLeod is a Freelance Editor, and Editorial Consultant to Simegen.com
Editing
A few questions I've been asked on occasion:
What kind of
mistakes do you see most often? What I seem to come across in many
manuscripts is sloppy sentence construction. I also notice a lot of poor
punctuation, fragments, or run-ons. Some authors take a long time to
get to their point, rambling, where concise language would improve the
flow of the story.
I also see many sentences constructed with
"then" cobbling action together, rather than letting the action continue
sequentially. "But" and "next" are also other overused words in many
works. Just for fun, how many problems do you find in the snippet
below?
Here's an excerpt from an unedited manuscript, which I
received:
The captain braced himself for the jump into time warp, and
then gave the command to his navigator to activate the opposing
propulsion systems.
The silence of space did not provide any
audible effect, but the huge ship lurched and careened almost
uncontrollably as the time tunnel was traversed. The outside portholes
delivered nothing but total darkness. Not even a single star appeared to
counteract the feeling of dread felt throughout the ship. The hull
seemed to vibrate uncontrollably, as most of the crew felt it would soon
split apart. The vibration intensified, centi-timeframe by
centi-timeframe, and the pressure seemed unbearable.
Then the
motion halted as quickly as it began. Authors should do
extensive research on items with which are unfamiliar that they are using
as part of their plot. If you write about horses, as an example, research
as much as possible about the types of horses you have in your work. Draft
horses are different than saddle horses. The equipment each wears is also
different. Know your terms; ask experts if necessary.
If you sit
down and think about it, you can come up with a list of experts and
resources of your own. A good editor should also have their own source of
experts they can call on if something in a manuscript puzzles them. No
author or editor is an expert in "everything."
I have a number of
experts I can call on for various types of information in my editing work.
Here is a partial list:
- Herbalist
- Chemist
- Orthodox Rabbi
- Biologist
- Geneticist
- Professor of Medieval English
- Private non-commercial pilot
- Horse owners — I also was a horse owner
- Computer experts (Windows, Linux, DOS)
- Website builders, and domain system administrators
- Computer server operators
- Authors of Computer programs (people who write scripts)
- Movie stagehands and prop people
- People who run lights and sound for entertainment productions
- Members of the esoteric and Pagan communities
- Astrologers
- Tarot card experts
- Social worker/nonfiction writer — specialties, addictions treatment
and prevention; mental health
- Auditor/accountant, Federal government employee
- Former Mormon elder
- Golfer
- Medieval re-creationists (SCA members and former members)
- Nurse/nutritionist/health administrator
- Biker/Motorcycle enthusiast
- Homeschooler — either a student which is home schooled, or the
parent who schools them
- MENSA members
- Railroad hobbyist
- Artists
- Candlemaker
- Sign language interpreter
What can writers do to make your editing easier? Authors
should not count on the computer's spell checker and grammar checker. The
built-in files may work well for business letters, but in novel writing,
they are useless.
A writer might want to invest in an excellent
dictionary, and thesaurus. I also suggest they invest in a current bound
copy, or find the website for The Chicago Manual of Style.
Grammar has changed over the years. Here, I'll use compound words as such
an example of change. I've included some website URLs which may be helpful
in your own writing projects.
Twenty-five years ago, the following
words were written thusly; but how are they properly written today?
- droop-shouldered
- well-developed
- sure-footed
- worn-out
- tight-lipped
- platinum-blond
- eleven-year-old girl
- twenty-five
- ill-considered
Further research on my part for compound words
comes up with this: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/cmosfaq.html
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/
http://www.lib.ohio-state.edu/guides/chicagogd.html
The Webster's dictionary web page makes this notation about
The Chicago Manual of Style. The Chicago Manual of
Style contains an extensive section devoted to compounded
modifiers and nouns. That book's table of compounds categorizes compounds
into various types, and helps us discover principles of spelling (and some
really strange exceptions). Styles of compounding words change over the
years, however, and writers might even find different versions in
different dictionaries. The Chicago Manual is
especially helpful because it tries to define the principles by which such
decisions are made.
Compound
words According to the Webster's page, there are three forms of
compound words: 1. The closed form, in which the words are melded
together, such as firefly, secondhand, softball, childlike, crosstown,
redhead, keyboard, makeup, notebook; 2. The hyphenated form, such as
daughter-in-law, master-at-arms, over-the-counter, six-pack, six-year-old,
mass-produced; and 3. The open form, such as post office, real estate,
middle class, full moon, half sister, attorney general.
Writer's
Resource Center: http://www.poewar.com/articles/compound_words.htm
may be worth checking. There is an extensive article on Compound Words:
"Compound Words: A Proofreading Pitfall," by Janis Butler Holm When Are Compound Words
Spelled with Hyphens? How
Do You Know When to Use One?
How do you approach editing with your writers? I read the
piece once without informing the author of anything. I check for
continuity, flow, clarity of thought, vague or odd unconnected ideas. Then
I start a second reading by making suggestions in highlight and color.
What you, the author, decides to do with my comments is strictly up to
you. Spelling and grammatical errors I'll repair without
consultation.
The editor should not change the author's vision
drastically, and NEVER make such changes as if the editor wrote the piece.
The author has a story to tell. It is up to the editor to make that story
as clear as possible WITHOUT changing the essentials of the work.
Here's an example of how I would present my editing ideas. This is
from one of Elizabeth Caldwell's short stories The Tandem Rig which
was used in completed form on the "Read A Good Story, Do A Good Deed" site
on Simegen.com where
authors donate short stories, and artists donate artwork, to raise funds
for charitable causes.
Lola Montez crouched behind a boulder just inside the
entrance of Northern Mine, one fist rammed into her mouth stifling her
screams, the other clutched a small bag of gold she'd taken from the
mine.
Out in the hot California sun, ten filthy men in ragged
mix-matched bits of Cavalry uniforms circled a man tied to a tree. His
back covered in bloody welts where the horsewhip had sliced to the bone.
He'd passed out half way through the whipping.
Over the man's
head dangled the feet of his brother, swinging by a rope around his neck
— very, very dead. How do you know it is the brother? Has she
observed them for days, or is there a family resemblance? A few feet
in front of the bleeding man lay his mistress. Again, how do you know
that? Lola had watched as the men gang raped her — right in front of
her lover and his brother. Same thing. How does Lola know these
relationships? Their screams had drowned the woman's, but now there
was only the sound of the marauders looting the nearby cabin and barn.
Lola could hear the woman whimpering softly.
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