Writing without revising is the literary equivalent of waltzing gaily out of the house in your underwear. — Patricia Fuller
By PJ Parrish
Copy editors, bless ‘em. Good ones are hard to find and hard ones are even better to find.
Over the course of thirteen books, numerous short stories, magazine articles, and a 25-year stint in newspapers, I’ve had my share of copy editors — good, bad and indifferent. I was even one myself for a brief time, until I realized I was better at seeing the forest instead of the trees, so gave that up for becoming a dance critic. But I have a deep and abiding respect for great copy editors. They have saved my bacon on more than one occasion.
When we signed with Thomas and Mercer for our most recent book, I was wary. Was the quality of editing for this Amazon imprint going to be as a good as we were used to from the “traditional” New York houses? Turns out it was better…four, count ’em four…different copy editors went over our manuscript and each brought a special talent to the project and improved our book. One fellow had lived most his life in San Francisco so he was able to double-check all our locations and landmarks there. Another woman had once been a dancer so she honed in on every detail of our heroine’s arts background.
Working with them made me remember one of my first copy editors, who was so good that I still remember with fondness — Wendy the Word Wonk. Her name really was Wendy. I tacked on the rest out of deepest respect for her talents because I really love folks who really love words.
But before I tell you about Wendy, let’s back up a moment. Here is one major truism I have learned about publishing: When you write a book, you have only five chances to not end up looking like the world’s biggest fool:
- Write the best book you can.
- Rewrite that book how ever many times it takes to cleanse it of all the cretinous prose, dumb mistakes and smelly cheese.
- Have a great line editor who makes you go back and de-cheese it some more. Even if you have to hire one yourself. Especially if you have to hire one yourself.
- Luck into getting a great copy editor, who has your back. Or again, hire one.
- And finally, read your galleys carefully. And if you are self-publishing, I’d even go so far as to print out your final manuscript justified and formatted to look like a real book, then treat it like a galley and find your mistakes. There is something about looking at your book in this final form that makes the sly mistakes and typos jump out in high relief.
Obviously, no. 1 is most important. For all practical purposes, your only real last best chance is No. 4. The copy editor. She is the last gas station on Highway 95 between Las Vegas and Searchlight. He is the last butt in the car ashtray after you’ve just gotten off a four-hour flight. She is the one who tells you your skirt is caught in your pantyhose when you walk out of the bathroom. He is the one who tells you when to zip your fly or button your mouth.
When you get to the galley stage, it is too late. The copy editor is all that stands between you and the abyss of hackdom and reviewers on Amazon who cackle that you don’t know the difference between “its” and “it’s.”
So, back to Wendy the Word Wonk and her unheralded ilk (I think that’s the right word…where’s Wendy when I need her?)
Wendy corrected our lays and lies without being smug. Because she is a fellow Michigander, she knew the difference between Mackinaw and Mackinac. She respected our idiomatic dialogue. She double-checked our use of foreign languages without being snide. (When I was writing romance, I had a British editor who scribbled in the margin of my manuscript: “Considering this author’s lack of command in English, I don’t think we should trust her French.”)
Not only did Wendy help us keep our dates, ages and eye colors straight, she raised a couple plot questions we hadn’t thought much about, which technically wasn’t her job, but that of the line editor. Once we did think about her polite but pointed questions, we went back in for a final critical rewrite that made the plot stronger.
But copy editors being the eccentric souls they are, Wendy did bring up some questions that we — or any other writers in their wildest dreams — would never expect to encounter. Like…
Is underwear plural or singular?
Here is the paragraph from our book as we wrote it:
Last night, she had washed out her underwear in her room and put them on the heating unit to dry, but they had fallen off during the night and were still wet.
This was her suggested version:
Last night, she had washed out her underwear in her room and put it on the heating unit to dry, but it had fallen off during the night and was still wet.
This set us thinking…
In almost every Thesaurus reference to underwear, there is an ‘S’ added to the word — shorts, long johns, panties, drawers, bikinis, undies, woolies, bloomers, flannels, thermals, skivvies, boxers. Despite the fact the clothing in question is, indeed, a single piece of fabric.
Is it because panties have two holes for two extremities that we perceive it to be plural?
“She picked up her panties and put them on.”
“He took off his boxers and tossed them to the bed.”
This sounds right to us because this is how people think. But that leads us to an even more perplexing question: How come a bra, another single-piece item, which also holds two separate body parts, becomes an IT when we think of it in every day usage? Or what about a jock strap, which is similar but, technically speaking, holds three body parts?
“She took her bra off and laid them on the bed.”
“He took off his jockstrap and flung them into the corner.”
Whoa, what kind of image does that put in a reader’s head?
Now our particular problem maybe have come from Wendy’s perception that our character had washed both pieces of her underwear, not just her panties. And referring to a set as IT may have been more appropriate, even though we still prefer THEM.
In the end, that’s what we opted for and Wendy let us win that battle. But here at the Kill Zone, we are here to serve your writing needs. And since we writers do love our rules, we leave you with this:
The Crime Writer’s Rules About Underwear
- Clothing with two sleeves or arm holes are an It.
- Clothing meant to hold two pieces of the anatomy are an It.
- Clothing designed for three (or more appendages) are an It.
- Clothing with two legs or leg holes are a Them.
Except, of course, for a girdle, which is an It. We think. But that’s only a problem for you historical writers out there, thank goodness.
Yes, it would stop me cold in the reading if I read about “it” underwear instead of “them” underwear. And ironically my thought would be, “didn’t they bother to get an editor?” 😎
I actually have been very confused about exactly what the role of the copyeditor is. There are so many types of editors. But I was recently reading in more detail about what they do so that was an Aha moment. I wonder how long it takes the typical copyeditor to go through a 90,000 word novel? Seems like it would take forever.
Morning BK:
Well, here’s my take on editors’ roles (traditional pubbing):
First comes the acquisition editor: This person is the one who reads all submissions (after being screened and passed on by first-readers) and decides to buy or reject your manuscript. Their role usually ends there.
Second comes the line editor. This person is responsible for shaping your novel and working with you on the big picture…ie character development, plot holes, consistency, tone. They usually spearhead approval of covers, titles, and get marketing/promotion going. They are the cheerleader of your book as it works its way through the publishing pipeline. Like when the editorial board has its meeting(s) to decide whether your book will be a “lead title” that month (which means it gets promotional attention) or whether it will be among the many secondary titles published. Your line editor (or acquisition editor) is the person who will push for your book to get attention. Very important person to have on your side.
Increasingly, acquisitions and line editing has been merged into one job, which has put tremendous pressure on editors’ time and energies.
Third come the copy editor(s). After the line editor (and you) have signed off on the final shape of the book and you have done rewrites, your book is sent to the copy editor. If you are lucky, you get more than one. This is good because each copy editor brings special skills and experience. The copy editor will go over your book for every little detail from grammar, syntax, spelling, foreign words, etc. They are also responsible for consistency and continuity, meaning they will look for places where you have screwed up geography or dates. They make sure you didn’t change a character’s eye color or name mid-story. They send you back a long list of every character’s name that you used and every proper noun (ie: Whole Foods, U-Haul). They make sure you spelled brand names. I had a copy editor catch a bone-headed mistake — I wrote in Men’s Warehouse and she changed it to Men’s Wearhouse. That sort of thing.
How much can they change? Well, that’s a give and take between you and the editors. A good line editor will challenge you mightily and you need to listen to them. But a good line editor will also understand it is your story and will never try to change your special voice. A good copy editor will likewise challenge you at every turn (and for every serial comma!) but if you are doing some odd for a good reason (ie you want a character purposely to use bad grammar) a good copy editor will bend to your desires. You can overrule them or take to the supreme court (your line editor).
I have had copy editors edit in errors and had to correct them. One tried to correct my ballet terms and I had to change everything back.
Some copy editors are real bull dogs and try to fight you to the mat on every semi-colon. But most are really good folks devoted to making your book the best it can be.
How long does a copy editor take? The good ones are fast and get your book back to you within a week or so. Because publishing is on a tight deadline established months out from pub date, they have to be fast. Almost all these days are free lancers because publishing houses no longer maintain in-house staffs.
Hope this helps! Note that every publisher is somewhat different and smaller publishers condense the editing roles even more. But this has been my experience with two large New York publishers and with Thomas and Mercer. Others here might weight in on their experiences.
I guess from my inexperienced standpoint I read these descriptions thinking–why aren’t the the line and copy editors merged? They both have to have more than a straight-laced, black and white skill. They both have to be looking at the whole picture of the story.
But then I’m not usually viewing through the lens of traditional publishing, either.
I think in some houses, esp smaller publishers, copy and line editors ARE merged. But they are, imho, different skills. A skilled line editor can see where your story is going off course or can suggest ways to flesh out character development and arcs. A copy editor’s main job is to make sure all the myriad smaller points adhere to style, grammar, and consistency. I truly think they are different skill sets, even maybe brain tilts. I am a really bad copy editor, as anyone who reads my posts here knows. I can read the same material over and over and still not catch typos and such. My husband is really good at copy editing, which is why he always reads my galleys after I am done.
But yeah, you have a point about non-traditional publishing. One of the potential problems self-publishers face is having to wear all the various editing hats. I say you can’t do it. Even when I have self-published my back list titles (which already went thru the traditional editing machine) I hired a copy editor to find typos. But I still get emails from readers kindly showing me where the typos and formatting problems still lurk. 🙂
Thanks for the visuals. My coffee is now coming out my nose.
PJ, Thanks for sharing that rule. I think I’ll avoid writing anything about underwear–no matter how many holes–in future novels. But I enjoyed the post (and agree with you about the worth of editing and editors).
I have always been amazed at how little editing input I have received, either developmental or copy-edit level. I credit that to the fact that I have eagle-eyed writing group reviewers, who scour anything I write before it’s released into the wild… ?
Great post on an essential component. We joke about copy editing being a job for the criminally nit-picky but I’ve always been thankful for a good copy edit and editor. I’ve only twice (in 60+ books) had really bad ones, and my upset at those is far, far outweighed by my gratitude for all the times a CE has saved me from embarrassment!
Amen Justine. They are a breed unto themselves. One of my fellow MWA Florida chapter friends is a retired high school teacher who then did professional copy editing and I have hired her a couple times and never regretted it. But she is, in every good sense of the phrase, an odd bird.
Great thread. As an Indie author publisher I did it my self three times then got a pro. They are not cheap. Jodie Renner had retired.
Now, did I miss something? You had went through the it’s, and them’s, however the “jockstrap” scenerio was totally overlooked, or is it then an ouch? @WriteTonight
I think you’re spot on about the need to print out your manuscript and double-check it before you publish your book (that is if you’re self publishing on Amazon).
I don’t know why it so difficult to spot mistakes when you’re reading a word document, but I always find plenty whenever I print out my stories. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve gone over “the finished product” on my laptop. I don’t know why that is, maybe I’m more relaxed when I’m sitting down on the couch with the printed documents in my hands?
It’s a monumental task to write a book, but it’s not over until you’ve spent an equal amount of time editing and revising it.
Hey there Harvey,
I feel the same about Word docs. Don’t know why, but I don’t catch any typos reading on a screen. But by printing out the manuscript, sometimes in single space so it more closely resembles a formatted book I catch so many more problems. And I have catch many typos by going into the Amazon machine and reading my Kindle-ized version. As you know, if you are self-pubbing on Amazon, you can go in and read your book and immediately fix formatting problems, typos and such. Can’t do that with traditionally published tree books.
Could not “underwear” refer to more than one article of clothing, e.g., bra and panties? T-shirt and skivvies? That’s what I assumed you meant in your example of washing them out in her room.
Yup. I think that is what my editor meant.