Editng "Cheat Sheet" Part Two: The Gory Details



This could get ugly.

This evening I have far less atmospheric company with me as I rough out my late Friday blog.

Eames and Goren from “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” the dynamic, crime-fighting duo, are busy keeping the streets of New York safe from serial killers and the like while I type. (SIDE NOTE: I love the recurring Nicole Wallace character, said to be Irene Adler to Goren’s Sherlock Holmes. That, of course, has no pertinent value here, but does hold a matter of “cool” I simply can’t resist. Color me crazy, on this one.)

Back to business…

Ticker from Madness for today’s editing/buffing/polishing of my novel Writhe due in just over a week’s time stands at…

                            4,000 words (for a total of 34K ready to head to the publisher)

I have as of yet to reach the panic stage on Writhe. It’s coming, I’m sure. Hopefully, I’ll be ready when it barrels down on me. *fingers crossed*

Proudly, I announce that I finished going through Dreamspinner Press’ first edits for my short story “Ravenscar.” I did not puke, hyperventilate or hide under a single piece of furniture.  Bravo, me!

Since, I got a lot of blog traffic from this morning’s “Editing Cheat Sheet for a Few Dollars More,” I’d like to expand on that now. Hopefully, this will help somebody out there.

Below is a list of all the corrections my copy editor made to the story. I’m not repeating the passive voice, Ethan vs. the doctor and ellipses markups. You’ll find all those gory details in this morning’s blog. (Please, someone tell me this isn’t too terribly boring. Please. *lol*)

Here we go. I’ll only give you the correct versions along with the editor’s explanation for it if provided. The changes made are in italics…

 

-“Twenty-nine-year-old Ethan” (this is always hyphenated before a noun)

-“peacoat” (one word, not hyphenated)

-“overindulgence” (one word, not hyphenated)

-“nondescript” (one word, not hyphenated)

-“premed” (one word, not hyphenated)

-“twenty-five” (numbers up to one hundred are spelled out)

-four sentences in a row began with the same letter, the editor revised changing one of them so not so repetitive

-“British intelligence” (the agency, not the state of England’s minds, is lower-cased surprisingly)

-“however” (several of these throughout the story were marked as “not needed”)

-“Ethan just people watched” (not hyphenated if not before a noun)

-“euros” (lowercase)

-“postcoital” (one word… even though my spellchecker does not agree, lol)

-“makeup” (one word)

-“pissed off” (two words, instead of one hyphenated)

-“The seventeenth” (if not paired with a month, the date is written out)

-“All right” (instead of “Alright”)

-“Ayers’s” (instead of the possessive being “Ayers’”)

 

Please remember, copy editors are not machines. They have their own opinions on how to read grammatical rules. The above might work for my copy editor, it may not necessarily work for all.

I hope this gives you an idea of what to expect from a copy editor and what to look out for while you’re polishing things up.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe