I'm just in the process of going through the copy-editing for my new book, Human Face, which comes out in January. It's always a stressful moment when you look to see what problems have been discovered as an eagle-eyed observer scrutinizes the baby you've spent months trying to deliver.
I have frequently been deeply thankful for that eagle eye which has saved me from myself. In the past, it has pointed out that the car I described as having gone on fire in chapter three was still being driven around in chapter twenty-one, or that I had somehow managed to have eight days in the week instead of seven. On the other hand, there was the time way back in the days when the manuscript came back to you with the copy-edits written on, when the copy-editor had chosen to write her comments in red ink, like my English teacher with my school essays, and included the comment, 'OTT' in the margin. My editor was horrified when she heard, and I don't think that one had much of a future in the copy-editing business.
The meticulous skill and concentration to detail that a good copy-edit needs leaves me, frankly, awed. That goes for proof-reading too; I've always been a very fast and consequently careless reader and things escape me even when I am being as careful as I can. And it can be so important: readers hate finding mistakes of any kind in a book. I even had one – now former – reader who emailed me to say that though she had liked a previous book she wasn't going to read the next one because the word 'separate' was misspelled in the summary on the back. Another, in an Amazon review some time ago, said that though she'd been going to give the book five stars she was going to deduct one for a misprint.
So I'm very grateful to my current proof-reader and copy-editor for saving me from the mistakes I wouldn't spot myself. Fortunately this time I don't seem to have made too many blunders and there have been helpful and constructive suggestions for putting right the ones I've made. Just every so often, though, I dig in my toes – especially when it comes to Scots words!
It's too easy to forget just how much impact the workers in the backroom have on our finished product. I owe a big 'thank-you' to them all.
Hello Aline! I couldn't agree more. I too am a fast and often careless reader and even when I am being careful I miss things. A good copy editor and/or proof reader can see mistakes, misspellings and typos that I am blind to. These people are worth their combined weights in gold. All hail them! I do wonder, though, if some readers are becoming less concerned about such things. Is it possible that we are becoming so used to communicating via texts and/or messenger (and acronyms), where speed is everything at the expense of spelling, syntax and grammar, that we are not jolted at a misspelling. Who knows? Certainly, if I am enjoying reading a novel, one or two misspellings wouldn't bother me. A bunch of them, on the other hand, would make me cross and stop reading.
ReplyDeleteOn occasions when I've noticed a typo in one of my books I am absolutely mortified since I have read it myself so many times and quite failed to spot it until it was actually in print.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty good at spotting typos in my manuscript. Or so I think until my editor spots something I missed. I do find it easier to spot problems if I print out the manuscript and look at it that way. Things jump out on the printed page that don't when I'm staring at the doc on a display.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you so much as to appreciating our copy editors and proof readers. I just finished correcting my newly copy edited manuscript and worry still that I might have missed something. A writer friend's book had gone through the entire process, first readers, editors, copy editors, proofreaders and a mistake remained unseen by all of them. A character who had lost an arm was using it later in the story. A blunder that made it into the published book. Yikes!
ReplyDeleteOh Irene, I do sympathise! When you're so absorbed in something it's hard to get yourself back into the 'reader' frame of mind.
ReplyDeleteWell, I don't hate to find a typo. But I do feel dismayed, if it's a writer I like and trust. :^) And I can easily grab a pencil to correct an egregious error of fact in a library book. Just part of my friendly reader service.
ReplyDeleteAh, It's you, Susan! I always wondered who it was who did that!!!
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