PUBLISHING DIARY: Awesomely editing awesome awesomeness! (Status: editing chapter 4) This post is going to be a little self-indicting because, as the title suggests, I don’t always like what I find when I’m editing. I am very grateful there is an editing step where I can find such things and correct them – not that I’ll see everything! Now, here’s a quick list of (some of) what I’ll find when going back through a manuscript.
- Awesomely Awesome repeated words of Awesomeness – In particular, repeated adjectives, verbs, or nouns in close sentences or (worse) in the same sentence simply make me cringe! I see them and tell myself, “Yep, weren’t paying attention, were you?” Grrrrr… Not happy. I think one of the panda ninja movies actually made fun of this, and I agree, it is laughable, and I hate when I do it.
- He/She/The Cross-up – the fingers were working just a little slower than the brain and a sentence which should read “Then, she turned off the light” might read “Then, she turned of she light.”
- Comma, comma, comma, comma, chameleon! – Commas, I’ll just tell you, are hard. They are (for many people) very subjective. A place which seems to need a comma in the original writing just sticks out later like an extra six thumbs (wut?!). Dramatic pauses are okay – too many of them, and you’ll need to command a starship in a 60’s sci-fi show. They are important, however, and deserve respect; they keep you from eating grandma. (“Let’s eat, Grandma.” versus “Let’s eat Grandma.”)
- Word Crimes – One of my editors actually showed me this video (Weird Al Yankovic’s “Word Crimes”), and sadly, I will admit that I am guilty as charged on at least one of these items, if not several. Consequently, I almost always watch that video somewhere early in the editing process. I “literally” do… (tempts being smacked in the head with a crowbar by Weird Al.)
- Have you lost an article, Sir? – Do you know those FB memes that show you a bunch of mangled text and promise “only the top 1% of the population will understand this” or “if you can understand this, you’re a genius”? Yeah, not so much. The truth is our brains do a lovely (and sometimes tragic) job of filling in the missing pieces. So, you may read the sentence below and not see anything wrong with it.
- As far as I can tell, his only definitive statements are made using golden, ivory-handled revolver of the finest quality.
Yeah, there is “a” little something missing in that sentence (between “using” and “golden”). This is where the “text-to-speech” editing really helps. The eyes might skip over something like that, but the ears have a real problem with it being missing. Audible speech is like music, and dropped “notes” are noticed.
Okay, enough! Wow, that’s painful. What’s more is when I edited the blog post I found … those very things. Oh, and if you look, I’m sure you’ll find more. Now, you know why I have other people help me edit. It is because I am never going to find everything. Prefection is achievable … not. (wink!)
Take care, and see you in the future,
JTL
