This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
By Anna Bell
As a self-published author I’m used to having books copy-edited and, whilst it has always made me think that I’ve got terrible grammar, it has never made me feel that bad. Yet, the two copy edits I’ve had back from my publishers have made me feel really thick. I’m in awe of the copy editor who edited my latest manuscript, Don’t Tell the Boss. The attention to detail was astounding, and I couldn’t help wondering if, as an author, I should know how to correctly use the words that are the tool of my trade.
I received the manuscript back with an accompanying email from the copy editor telling my editor that it had been a heavy copy edit with lots of corrections and restructuring of sentences. I have to admit, I had a little cry, thinking I was the world’s worst author for having so many mistakes in my manuscript. But then my husband reminded me that their job was to find my errors and if authors were perfect then the whole process of copy editing wouldn’t exist.
I opened up the document fearing the worst: that there would be very little of my book left untouched without comment, and that it wouldn’t feel like my novel anymore. But it wasn’t as bad as I imagined. Yes, there were a lot of comments and tweaking that had gone on, but I reassuringly did find paragraphs that hadn’t had any changes to it. It wasn’t the disaster I was expecting it to be, but I still felt stupid.The amazing thing about copy editors is they state the obvious. I had whole lines and jokes that I’d used twice without realising. I’d got well known phrases wrong. For example, I always thought it was ‘never the two shall meet’ and didn’t realise it was ‘never the twain…’. And I’d gone a little bit Yoda, ‘much writing sentences in wrong order I had’. Then there were the typos, grammar and repetition (apparently I have a bit of a penchant for using the words ‘whilst’ and ‘just’).
The previous copy edit I had back from a publishers was on paper, and I spent much of the read through trying to get my head around the symbols that they’d used to signal the changes. This time, on the computer, I got a real sense of what I’d done wrong, and how to get my manuscript in better shape next time.
The copy editor had attached a style sheet, which noted down the spelling and capitalisation of certain words to make sure there was consistency in usage. That is something I would definitely think of doing for the next book. It’s especially helpful for fictional names such as shops and websites, as well as how you’ve spelled something that has different variations.
I like to think that there are famous authors who need just as heavy a copy edit as me. I once read a advanced proof of a novel with the worst editing ever. There were typos galore, characters changing names within the same paragraph and repetitive text that should have been chopped, which gives me hope!
I’d love to know how I compare in the editing stakes with other authors. Are there those that have very little changes? Are there really famous authors who need huge copy edits? Can you ever get a copy edit back without it making you feel dumb?
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