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  • Taking the Plunge: Running an Editing Business

    Taking the Plunge: Running an Editing Business

    Last Wednesday I said my goodbyes as senior editor at Recorded Books and embarked on a new life running an editing business.

    Even after fourteen years with a company I love . . .

    Even after forming personal and professional relationships I hope will continue indefinitely . . .

    Even after spending nearly a third of my life as a Recorded Books employee . . .

    Even after all that, those first steps into my new endeavor felt . . .

    EXHILARATING!

    Me earlier this summer, jumping right in

    What I Accomplished

    I’m happy with my time at Recorded Books and happy to have left on my terms, with no regrets. The company sells mostly to libraries, and I’ve always felt that my late grandmother, a fixture in her local library, would have been proud of me for serving that market.

    The sun has set on my time at Recorded Books

    Of all the projects I tackled while working for the world’s premier audiobook company, these are a few of my favorites:

    • Shepherding large-print books from art acquisition to typesetting to cover creation to proofreading and printing.
    • Editing the guidebooks that accompanied the Modern Scholar series of university lectures.
    • Proofing A Prairie Home Companion Pretty Good Joke Book.
    • Writing jacket copy for hundreds and hundreds of audiobook covers.
    • Crafting catalog copy (the ability to write in small spaces is a useful tool!).
    • Creating text for marketing materials, press releases, and web pages.
    • Writing and editing materials for children’s reading programs.

    Then there was the day I picked up the phone and found film producer Robert Evans (Rosemary’s Baby, The Godfather, Chinatown) on the other end. We were publishing his autobiography (The Kid Stays in the Picture) and he wanted extra copies of the large-print edition.

    So that’s how I found myself having a nice chat with one of Hollywood’s most legendary figures.

    Pretty cool.

    Running a Business v. Freelancing Full-Time

    Notice above that I said “running an editing business” rather than “freelancing full-time,” a thought voiced just this past weekend by respected editor Dick Margulis (of Dick Margulis Creative Services) at Communication Central’s Be a Better Freelancer conference.

    Despite freelancer being in the name of the conference, the thought is that freelancer evokes someone dabbling in the work, perhaps on weekends, while a person running a business is fully invested and wholly dedicated to the craft.

    The terminology sends a message to clients, and, perhaps equally as important, it sends a message to the business owners themselves and sets the tone for how they project themselves to the world.

    And, yes, I left my in-office gig on Wednesday, traveled Thursday, and attended the conference on Friday and Saturday. The conference came at an opportune time, to be sure!

    The conference was everything I hoped it would be: packed with helpful new tricks for marketing yourself, mastering Word, editing proposals, writing contracts, and assembling epubs. I would highly recommend it, and Ruth E. “I can write about anything!” Thaler-Carter did a hell of a job organizing the event.

    Bonus: I also stopped by Niagara Falls before heading home to begin my new life. Spectacular.

    Three Reasons I Started My Own Business

    Lists of reasons to go it on your own (or not) are everywhere, but here are my big three:

    My Work
    I can’t complain about the experience I gained in the office, and I enjoyed working on such a wide variety of projects, but at some point I felt the need to go after my own work. I love to edit, and I love horror fiction, and more than anything I hunger to pore over horror and dark fiction manuscripts. I also enjoy literary fiction, other genres, and even corporate work, but horror has been my jam since I first encountered Stephen King and Clive Barker thirty-some years ago.

    My Schedule
    For personal reasons, I’m going to be splitting time between Maryland and Dallas, not an easy thing when you need to be in the office five days a week. I also crave the thrill of waking up every day and thinking, “What do I need to do?” Balancing the work itself with marketing and accounting and all other aspects of the business can be overwhelming, but what a charge!

    My Life
    Running my own business has always been a dream, and I’m going for it, aiming to accomplish my editing goals, my writing goals, my life goals. At twenty, my son is now older than my sister was when she died. At forty-six, I’m now older than my mother was when she died. So I’m not convinced there’s a safe path through this life. Risks abound, but so do the rewards.

    Three Lessons I’ve Learned from the Experience

    As much information is out there on starting your business as there are reasons for doing so, but these are three lessons I found especially helpful:

    Lay the Groundwork
    I’ve done freelance work with my company for quite a while, so that was a tremendous help when making the jump. But with a full-time gig, not to mention two children, the time for that work was limited. Still, getting comfortable carrying out freelance work greases the skids, as does having at least a few clients who can help pay the bills while you establish yourself.

    Being as involved as possible in the greater editing community is also reassuring. A host of good editors are available to follow on social media, and joining the American Copy Editors Society (ACES) and the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA), as well as attending ACES and other conventions, helps place you in that community.

    Exit Gracefully
    This was an easy one. People often cite office politics as one of the main reasons for going it on their own, but I genuinely liked and respected my coworkers. Those politics did exist on some level, but I was able to form cherished, lasting relationships. So no burned bridges, and as paths continue to cross, my former office mates and I can continue to help each other in any number of ways.

    Manage Expectations
    We all want to take the world by storm, but this rarely happens overnight. Running my own business is likely to put me in feast-and-famine cycles. I hope there’s always plenty of work to keep my business humming, but if not, there are a million things I can do to market myself, learn new skills, or interact with and help colleagues.

    Parting Thought

    Before I left the office for the last time, the director of the publications department (a great friend) gave me this card, along with a touching message inside. I think this says it all.

  • Book Rec: ‘Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch’ by Constance Hale

    Book Rec: ‘Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch’ by Constance Hale

    Wired Style and Sin and Syntax author Constance Hale inspires an infectious appreciation for verbs in Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch: Let Verbs Power Your Writing. While the book dropped in 2012, its not-so-hot-off-the-presses status doesn’t diminish its readability, power, or utility for writers and editors.

    Deep into the book, Hale relates that, while serving as an editor at Wired and Health, she would circle the verbs in the first two or three paragraphs of clips writers sent in. If the verbs struck her as dynamic and made the sentences jump, the writers got a call.

    If not, not.

    How’s that for scaring you into checking your verbs?

    (Now that’s a phone you could slam to end a call!)

    GREAT ADVICE: Circle your verbs to see if your sentences crackle.

    On opening sentences with “there are” or “it is” constructions, Hale calls out the “phantom subject” (as termed by Patricia O’Conner in Woe Is I) as a bad idea, a “false start,” before also deriding throat-clearing constructions such as “I think” and “It seems like.”

    Evenhanded throughout, Hale also writes that the authors of A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language and usage expert Bryan Garner defend the “existential there” in certain contexts, specifically those pushing the emphasis to the end of a sentence (hard to argue with her example from Shakespeare: “There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats”).

    The best of books like Hale’s enrich our understanding of language and provide readers with tools for making writing and editing decisions.

    Hale succeeds on all counts.

    The Structure

    As the author says early on, the book dips into “a little evolution, a little history, a lot of grammar, a little usage.” To explore these areas, Hale divides each chapter into four sections:

    • Vex, in which Hale explores confusing aspects of language, syntax, and verbs
    • Hex, in which the author tackles persistent myths about writing
    • Smash, in which Hale showcases poor usage and demonstrates how to avoid it
    • Smooch, in which Hale showcases good writing (and gets just a tad mischievous)

    I read the book cover to cover, but as Hale herself asserts in the introduction, Vex, Hex works equally well, and perhaps better, when one picks and chooses sections to explore.

    The book is designed in a way that facilitates this grab-bag approach, with the early chapters focused on linguistics and cultural history, the middle chapters on the grammar of verbs, and the late chapters on usage and style.

    Wherever you enter the work, though, you’re bound to find something well worth your time.

    Collective Soul

    While I enjoyed the book, I do have a minor disagreement with the author over the treatment of collective nouns. Hale wrote that she always treats singular collective nouns as singular for verb agreement, whereas I prefer the strategy of treating the noun as singular when the members of the group are acting as a group and plural when the members of the group are acting as individuals.

    Hale’s strategy is simpler and cleaner for editors, as no decisions need be made. In Garner’s Modern English Usage, we read that there is “little ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ on the subject,” but that one should be consistent and not flip-flop between singular and plural verbs in a piece.

    These gray areas should excite editors, should glint with a bit of magic. I like having the leeway to make those decisions. Everything can’t be one thing or the other, and I’m thankful for areas of language that require flexible thinking (though these areas do come with the knowledge that no matter what you do, someone will inevitably think you’re wrong).

    The Wait Is Over!

    I have to admit, this week I’m all about Chicago. I just got back from Dallas (where I saw both Dawn of the Dead and Hot Fuzz at the Alamo!) and upon my return I found a little something on my doorstep.

    Hello, Seventeen!

  • The Five Stages of CMOS 16 Grief

    The Five Stages of CMOS 16 Grief

    The seventeenth edition of the Chicago Manual of Style will soon be in the hands of editors everywhere. The sixteenth edition was released way back in 2010, so you can’t blame Ol’ Sixteen for thinking its reign would last forever.

    Let’s check in on how it’s handling the transition (and you can click here for a history of the manual).

    Denial

    “I’m built to last, baby!”

    As Constance Hale wrote in Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch, “Vocabulary is not all that changes in the linguistic melting pot. Punctuation changes. Spelling changes. Meaning changes. Even grammar changes.”

    Over the coming weeks, editors will be poring over Seventeen to see just what these changes entail. We were given some early teases: internet is being lowercased, email is losing the hyphen, hyphenation guidance in general is supposedly being relaxed a tad. We’re all eager to see what else is in store!

    [UPDATE: Click here for a more detailed look at the changes in the new edition.]

    Anger

    “Back off, man! I’m serious!”

    We can hardly blame Sixteen for being a little miffed. No one likes to be replaced, especially when you were held in such esteem, and it’s entirely natural to have a little resentment toward the new kid on the block.

    Editors also have to learn to deal with change, and this is helped tremendously by understanding that style is style, not an immutable set of laws, and all “rules” are subject to change.

    Bargaining

    “C’mon, I can change. I can lowercase internet!”

    It’s a done deal, Sixteen. You served us all well, but Seventeen is happening.

    I’m looking forward to the print copy. The online version of Chicago is really handy, but there’s nothing like having a big, thick, beautiful reference at your fingertips. That turning of pages, mixed with the anticipation of discovery, activates pleasure centers in the brain that no online search can replicate.

    Or maybe I’m just getting old!

    Depression

    “E-mail, email, whatever. Nothing matters anyway.”

    The fourteenth edition (1993) of the manual was my first, and somewhere along the way my copy’s book jacket went missing. I now look at the battered old thing with fondness and just a tinge of sadness. A lot has changed in my life since 1993. I’ve gained much and lost much as well. Life moves inexorably forward.

    Acceptance

    “It was bound to happen eventually. Good luck, Seventeen.”

    Someday Seventeen too will be replaced, and what a glorious thing it is to watch the marvelous march of language.

    Personally, professionally, I’m embracing change all over the place, and I’ll say this: it’s invigorating!

     

     

     

  • Toward (Towards?) a Better Tomorrow

    Big changes lie ahead for me personally and professionally. I’ve made some life-altering decisions, and I feel good about those decisions. There’s uncertainty, sure, but I feel good about that too.

    I’ve lost a lot in life. My mother and sister died when I was 17. Not long thereafter I spent a summer watching my grandmother die of lung cancer. I’ve lost too many friends too soon. In many ways I lost my father, who died just before the new year, long ago.

    But I’ve also been given a lot in life. Two wonderful children. Friends who mean everything to me. A partner who is as beautiful as she is supportive.

    We can’t change anything that’s come before. We make decisions and move forward.

    And we hope we make decisions for the right reasons.

    In Puerto Rico, contemplating the future (7/26/17)

    As an editor, I make any number of decisions every day. These decisions often come down to whether I should change something or let it stand. Compared to major life decisions, some of these decisions might seem minor, but I’m not sure anything ever is, and our underlying approach to decision-making is consistent, no matter the scale.

    Over the past week, I’ve followed discussions about the spelling of toward and of how U.S. editors spend a lot of time changing towards to toward, the thought being that toward is more common in American English.

    Changing towards is almost a reflex.

    I must have first come across this guidance at least two decades ago, and I’ve changed towards to toward more times than I can count.

    There’s support for doing so.

    In Garner’s Modern English Usage, Brian A. Garner writes that toward “has been the predominant and editorially preferred form” in American English since about 1900.

    Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage puts toward as “at least twice as frequent” in American English.

    The American Heritage Dictionary and Merriam-Webster online list toward as the primary spelling, with towards as the variant.

    The eleventh edition of The Gregg Reference Manual specifies that “both forms are correct, but toward is more common in U.S. usage.”

    I’m as rebellious as the next guy, and I don’t believe you always have to bow to the “authorities,” but I have a great deal of respect for each of the above-mentioned resources, and I’m going to take their guidance into serious consideration. Others do as well, so I know I’m making decisions based on reference points that other editors also hold in high esteem.

    If a client has a preference for towards, that’s the client’s choice, but unless otherwise specified, I’ll make the change. It seems like a clear-cut decision.

    But nothing in life ever is.

    Counterpoint

    As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, this is apparently my Year of the Big Decision (more on the nature of these decisions in a future post). So maybe I’m especially prone to contemplation about choices in every aspect of my life.

    Whatever the case, it bothers me that I’ve always so readily accepted “more common in American English” as a reason to kill towards without giving it more thought.

    Linguist, editor, writer, and book designer Jonathon Owen (of Arrant Pedantry) contended in a piece for the Visual Thesaurus that authors use toward and towards in “roughly equal numbers,” and that it’s the copy editors, rather than the authors, who enforce the distinction.  

    “In a nutshell, towards is seemingly rare in American English because copy editors make it rare,” wrote Owen.

    If this is the case, then that’s a bit of an eye-opener, and it’s certainly something to consider when pondering language change. I suppose it shouldn’t be too surprising that copy editors enforce and thereby drive certain usages, but I always imagined that these decisions ultimately reflected actual word use among authors and that the copyediting, in a sense, followed.

    Maybe that was a tad naive. 

    Copy editors, like authors, should have the needs of the audience in mind, but how does the conception of audience for a copy editor differ from that of the writer? And if copy editors and writers vary in background, interests, and worldview, then who should shoulder the greater weight for shaping language?

    Toward/towards also came up in a recent discussion thread, with one editor maintaining that she left towards whenever possible because she didn’t want to contribute to the corpus supporting this “preference” among American authors.

    Corpora like the Google Ngram Viewer have made this kind of information more and more accessible, and this ready access will undoubtedly also shape language change, as well as our awareness of our own roles in that change.

    Authors, editors, readers: we’re all connected, perhaps affecting each other in ways we didn’t previously understand (or fully understand, at any rate).

    As an editor, this knowledge makes me want to always question the edits I make, to place these edits in context, and to move forward and make better, more informed decisions.

    Why Are We Often So Eager to Follow a “Rule”?

    I always try to embrace the philosophy that in editing there are no rules, only guidelines. But I also have to admit that there’s a part of all of us inclined toward following rules and experiencing the pleasure (misguided or not) of applying them.

    I don’t think editors can separate their approach to work from their approach to life (and their approach toward others). An editor who edits to help his client and ultimately the reader likely takes a much different approach to life than the one whose chief joy is “correcting” the author. As an editor, I hope I’m the former.

    In this Year of the Big Decision, in this year of exploring my decision-making, I’ll suggest a few reasons why we as editors might so readily embrace “rules” such as automatically changing towards to toward.   

    1. Consistency. When there are multiple spellings of a word in a document, it can confuse or slow the reader unnecessarily. Consistency is usually a good thing. Some argue that context changes whether toward or towards sounds better in a particular sentence. While I’m open to this idea, I still believe the distraction of flip-flopping spellings might outweigh any benefits from the sound of the word in each sentence.  
    2. Being right. We want to be right, damn it! People love to point out other people’s “mistakes,” and there might be no place this happens more often than in the realm of language. I hope I resist this urge more often than not. Helping, not correcting, is the nobler approach.
    3. Blindly following. At some level, most of us appreciate guidelines. If we’re provided one, we may grasp on to it and apply it blindly, perhaps even wielding it for years without giving it a second thought. The Year of the Big Decision might be the perfect time to take inventory of all those decisions I make without thinking. Whether or not I change those decisions, I would undoubtedly benefit from considering them in more depth.
    4. Showing our work. We all want to show our clients that we are dedicated, thorough editors, and the low-hanging fruit of instances like towards is one quick, easy way to do that. Authors may even switch back and forth between spellings without being aware of it, and they may thank you for pointing this out, even if they choose something other than what you’ve recommended.
    5. Adhering to author’s/client’s/audience’s preference. In the end, it’s the client’s work. We suggest what we feel is the best choice, but ultimately the client has the final say.

    Toward (and Towards) the Future

    Copy editors have feelings about their work. Feelings and theories and attitudes and passion.

    We learn as much as possible, fight off petty motivations, and make the best decisions we can. Then we reevaluate those decisions and move forward.

    Always forward.

    Life can be cut short at any moment. My sister wanted to be a translator, but she never had the chance. We might even have worked together. I like to think that we would have, but maybe in some ways we still do.

    I think of the years she lost and the years I’ve been granted and I keep her in mind. And when I make decisions, big and small, in editing and in life, I want those decisions to help the reader, to help the author, to help the people I care about, and even to help myself.

  • A Walk-Through of the Editing Process at Castle Walls

    The following is a walk-through of the editing process at Castle Walls Editing.

    First, as eager as you are to get your book out into the world, it’s important that you are ready to have your manuscript edited and that you know what kind of editing you need, whether that be developmental editing, line editing, copyediting, or proofreading.

    You don’t want to hire someone to proofread your manuscript, for example, if you still think it needs major restructuring. You can read more about the level of editing you need by clicking here.

    Getting Started

    Let’s say you’re interested in copyediting. To get started, email Castle Walls Editing at James@castlewallsediting.com or use the CONTACT US form on the site.

    The more information I know about your manuscript, the better, so this is where it’s helpful to provide a good description of your manuscript and what you would like to have done.

    I will respond to your email as soon as possible and request any other pertinent information. At this point, I will also ask for a chapter or section of your work so that I can provide an estimate for the project.

    To give you a better idea of the work involved, editors generally edit between six and ten pages an hour, and this number fluctuates based on the kind of editing required and the state of the manuscript.

    The Estimate

    Your most pressing question is probably (and understandably) about the cost of editing.

    Click here for a breakdown of what you are paying for when you hire me to edit your book.

    Page count is important, but page count can vary widely because of font, font size, and line spacing, so I will ask for your word count. I will then divide this number by 250 (the number of words on a standard manuscript page).

    If your manuscript is 75,000 words long, I will base my estimate on 300 pages (75,000 divided by 250).

    In addition to page count, however, the time it takes to edit a manuscript depends on formatting requirements, the state of the manuscript (a manuscript with numerous edits on each page will take longer to edit than one that requires fewer edits), the level of technical detail, and the presence of text features such as footnotes, reference lists, and tables.

    Manuscripts have unique needs, and the best way to determine the time it will take to edit your work is to view a sample of the work before providing an estimate.

    The fee for editing will also cover the creation of a style sheet (click here for more information about style sheets).

    The Deposit and Contract

    If we’ve agreed on the terms of work, then we’re ready to go! I require a third of the payment up front and will email you a contract specifying the exact nature of the work.

    The deposit can be paid by check or through PayPal.

    Submitting Your Manuscript

    Now for the easy part. Email me your manuscript and let me work my magic!

    This is the point at which you want to be absolutely sure you’re ready to have your manuscript edited. Once the file is sent, that’s the file I will work through to completion. It’s extremely difficult for editors to do their job when the author is reworking portions of the manuscript during the process, and the goal for all of us is to end up with the best possible version of your manuscript.

    Editing Your Manuscript

    Unless otherwise specified, I will edit in accordance with the Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition) and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th edition).

    If editing in Microsoft Word, I will turn on Track Changes so you can review the edits. I will specify any invisible edits (edits made with Track Changes off). These include edits made to eliminate extra spaces and spaces around returns.

    I also use the editing suite available from the Editorium as well as PerfectIt software. These programs help me to clean up the document and identify a wide range of consistency issues. As any editor will tell you, the more electronic aids an editor can use, the more that editor is free to concentrate on sentence structure, word usage, readability, and other such matters.

    Macros are another tool I employ while editing. Macros are little programs that run within Word to carry out a variety of functions. One such macro, ProperNounAlyse, pulls all the proper nouns from the manuscript so that you can see, for example, if names are spelled inconsistently. Macros enhance the editing process in innumerable ways.

    When copyediting, I do two passes on the manuscript:

    In the first pass, I pore over the document and address all copyediting concerns for spelling, punctuation, grammar, style, and consistency. My goal is always to maintain the author’s voice while serving both the author and the reader.

    I use Word’s ReadAloud feature for my second pass, which is a cleanup pass of the document. During this pass I look for anything I might have missed, and I fix any issues that may have been inadvertently introduced when making edits.

    (Listening to the manuscript is a fantastic way to catch missing words, transposed words, and wrong words. I highly recommend it as a great way to combat familiarity with the manuscript, which can cause you to see what you think should be there rather than what is actually on the page.)

    Returning the Job

    When I’ve completed work, I will supply you with your manuscript with Track Changes showing (and a separate version with changes accepted, if requested). I also provide the style sheet and an editorial summary with an overview of the edits.

    Billing

    Once you’ve received the completed work, I will invoice you for the remainder of the fee (payable by check or through PayPal).

    Keeping in Touch

    I wish all authors all the success their hard work deserves, so I always look forward to hearing about your manuscript’s journey into the world!

  • When I Pay an Editor, What Am I Paying For?

    When I Pay an Editor, What Am I Paying For?

    Paying a professional to edit a manuscript is often pricier than writers might imagine, and the cost can be all the more difficult because authors often have to work the expense into a budget (or a family budget) with no guarantee of a monetary return on their investment.

    If you’re here, then you are probably already convinced that editing is an important, even essential, part of producing a manuscript for your audience. But before deciding to make that investment, it’s also important to understand (and be able to explain to loved ones) just what you’re paying for.

    The Time It Takes to Edit

    For authors, the real eye-opener about editing might be the sheer number of hours that the editor will spend working on their manuscript.

    Many authors might even think that all editing is, in essence, proofreading. But from developmental editing down to proofreading, the time requirements and the amount of work required per page varies for all the different levels of editing.

    At the proofreading stage, for example, the manuscript has (presumably) already been through the copyediting stage, and the proofreader is only looking for typos, wayward design elements, and anything missed (or introduced) during previous stages. So a proofreader would be able to look at more pages per hour than, say, the copyeditor.

    For copyediting, during which an editor checks for spelling, grammar, punctuation, style, continuity, and consistency, an editor generally edits at a rate of six to ten pages per hour.

    So if you have a 400-page manuscript, that’s at least forty hours of work, and that only accounts for one pass through the document, albeit the pass that accounts for most of the expense.

    I like to do an initial read-only pass to familiarize myself with the work, then the copyediting pass, and then a final pass to catch anything I might have missed or any errors I might have introduced while inputting edits.

    More Than Spell-Check

    Writers also might not realize just how much an editor delivers. It’s easy to imagine that the editor will do a simple read-through, mark a few spelling issues or misplaced commas, and then be on his or her way. But the benefits to the manuscript go far beyond.

    In addition to checks for grammar, spelling, usage, and consistency, a copyeditor provides (or should provide) a style sheet noting character names and all word uses that vary from Merriam-Webster or the Chicago Manual of Style or whatever other dictionary and style guide the editor is following.

    With my style guide, I also include a timeline and breakdown of character and location details on the style sheet (so you don’t have a character with blue eyes on page ten and green eyes two hundred pages later). You can also learn more about style sheets here.

    Authors are generally surprised by all the help provided during a copyedit—and they are generally very appreciative as well. The author’s job is to tell a great story, and if an editor can help put that story before an audience in its best possible light, then all the better for the author, the reader, and the work itself.

    The Five E’s

    With a good editor, you get an invisible partner dedicated to your success and to the success of your work. You get someone to pore over your beloved manuscript word by word and help push it to its best possible form.

    An editor lets readers dissolve into your story without any technical details breaking the spell. You never want to give your reader an excuse to stop reading, and an editor helps ensure that doesn’t happen.

    The following are five e’s that an editor provides:

    • Expertise
    • Experience
    • Equipment & Resources
    • Effort
    • Élan

     

    Expertise

    Quite simply, editors should know things that authors don’t about word usage and about formatting a manuscript and about the editing process. That’s part of why you’re paying them! Editors should also display expertise with the tools at their disposal. The author’s job is to tell a great story, and the editor can help by having expert knowledge of Word and macros and wild-card searches and editing software.

    Editors should also have expert knowledge of the various style and usage guides, and editors should keep abreast of language trends and shifting styles. Editors should also display a level of expertise that empowers them to know when and when not to break style (it doesn’t help your manuscript to have an editor who inflexibly applies a “rule” no matter the context).

    Experience

    I’ve been editing for more than twenty years and have learned a lot over that time—including that I didn’t know as much as I thought I did twenty years ago!

    When you pay for an editor, one of the things you’re paying for is the benefit of that editor’s experience, whether it’s two years or twenty years or forty years. Part of the magic of editing is that editors are always learning, and editors take great joy in passing these lessons on to their clients.

    Equipment & Resources

    Editors have to maintain equipment and software. I like to use a multi-monitor setup, which I find increases productivity and allows me to have the page I’m editing displayed at a good size in portrait view on a revolving monitor, while my style sheet is open on a second monitor (I also have my Chromebook open for additional resources).

    I edit primarily in Word and use the software packages and macros from PerfectIt and the Editorium to increase productivity and help with formatting and consistency issues. These tools save time and allow me to focus more on the sentence structure and word usage and the real mind work of editing.

    The less time I spend on tasks that can be automated with a macro or piece of software, the more efficient I am and the more bang you get for your buck.

    Writers should also expect editors to have a library of resources and to be familiar with them. Editors should have an expert working knowledge of and access to style manuals such as the Chicago Manual of Style and the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, the major dictionaries, and such language resources as Garner’s Modern English Usage and Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage.

    Effort

    Editing requires long periods of concentration as editors pore over a work page by page, paragraph by paragraph, word by word, and letter by letter. This is the real work of editing, and it can’t be rushed. It’s not that someone can’t deliver a well-edited manuscript for a dollar a page, but when you look at the time it takes to edit something properly and the hourly rate that this equates to, you have to wonder if an editor editing at an extremely low pay rate isn’t rushing through the work.

    There is nothing that editors value more than good clients they want to work with again and again. My goal is to deliver the best possible job to my clients so that they want to use me again and refer me to their associates. There are no shortcuts for making this happen. It’s all about hard work.  

    Élan

    This is a bit harder to quantify, and I suppose an editor could have a poor attitude toward his work and still do a good job, but it seems far-fetched. Passion and enthusiasm for editing is what keeps an editor from rushing through the work, and this passion adds unlimited value in any number of different ways.

    Editors get paid for their work, but the rewards of editing also lie in helping authors produce manuscripts that are sent out into the world and are enjoyed by readers, whether that entails the countless readers for a bestseller or a handful of readers for a passion project with a more limited release.

     

    Let’s Get Started

    For more information about how Castle Walls Editing can help you with your manuscript, contact us here.

  • 5 Signs an Editor Has Been at Work

    Sometimes I’ll be reading happily along and find myself tipping my cap to another editor for the care taken with a particular usage. For just a moment, that editor is there, ghostlike, almost visible through the page.

    You don’t need an EMF meter or full-spectrum camera to spot an editor, nor do you have to worry about ectoplasm on your favorite book. The following are five signs an editor has been at work.

    1. En dashes

    Most people don’t know an en dash from a haberdashery. The mark is most often used in number ranges (1971–2017) and when connecting an open compound to another modifier (Pulitzer Prize–winning author). Many would like to exorcise them from use, but I have a real fondness for en dashes.

    2. Capping aunt and uncle

    People understand writing “I love Aunt Janice and Uncle Bill” but often look askance when seeing something like “I love my aunt Janice and my uncle Bill.” Most likely a copy editor took down the a and u. (Capping of mother and father also causes confusion, though not quite as much.)

    3. Apostrophes with abbreviated words

    Love ’em or leave ’em. When letters are left out at the beginning of a word, the letters are replaced with an apostrophe, not an opening single quote. Some simply don’t know this, and some don’t take the time to fix it. I’ve seen the wrong quote there so often I have to smile when I see the apostrophe.

    4. Plural possessives

    Speaking of apostrophes, there’s probably nothing that trips up your average citizen more than possessives, especially plural ones, especially when they involve names. If I had a nickel for every time I saw something like “the Smith’s house” when referring to a family of Smiths—and not to that one Smith everyone knows as such . . .

    5. Comprise

    Traditionally, the whole comprises the parts and “is comprised of” has been considered poor usage. Whether or not you care about this usage anymore, an editor has likely laid his cold, spectral hand on the text if it’s used in the “correct” way.

  • What Level of Editing Do You Need?

    You’ve completed your manuscript and are eager to send it out into the world, but for your sake (and for the sake of your work) it’s important to determine the level of editing you require.

    The following are the four basic types of editing. (Definitions of the different kinds of editing can vary among publishers and editors, so it’s always important for you to clarify these terms and the kind of work an editor will do.)

    • Developmental (or Substantive) Editing
    • Line Editing
    • Copyediting
    • Proofreading

    Ideally, a manuscript would pass through all four levels of editing, but authors also have to consider their budget and make hard decisions about where to dedicate their resources. Asking the following questions is a good place to start.

    Have you walked away from your work?
    Setting your manuscript aside for a few weeks or even a month allows you to see it with new eyes. Let it breathe. You don’t want to submit it for editing and then find yourself wishing you could take it back for rewrites.

    Does it require a Big Picture look?
    If you need someone to address such issues as plot, character development, and pacing, then you’re looking for developmental editing. This isn’t the time to worry about typos. After all, you wouldn’t start painting your living room if you were thinking about knocking out a wall first.

    Are you ready to tackle it paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence?
    If you need someone to focus on clarity, flow, rhythm, voice, style, and readability, then you’re looking for line editing.

    Are you ready to get down to the nitty-gritty?
    If your manuscript is far along in the process and you need someone to address matters of spelling, punctuation, grammar, usage, and consistency, then you’re ready for copyediting.

    Does your manuscript need a last look?
    If you’re perfectly happy with your manuscript and need one last look to catch any typos, formatting issues, or anything else that was missed in previous steps, then you’re ready for proofreading.

    Determining your level of editing is the best thing for your manuscript and the best thing for your wallet.

    Let’s be honest, editing isn’t free, and you don’t want to waste money on proofreading if you’re going to do significant rewriting.

    If you’re still unsure about which level of editing you require, simply contact us and we’ll be glad to help you determine what’s best for your work.

  • 5 Reasons Authors Need Style Sheets

    At Castle Walls Editing, I supply style sheets when returning edited manuscripts to authors. But, you might ask, what the heck is a style sheet?

    The style sheet is a separate document (or documents) used to ensure consistency in a manuscript or across a series.

    While editors usually work in accordance with specific style guides, such as the Chicago Manual of Style, style sheets cover instances not covered by the guide or instances that conflict with the guide.

    Style sheets usually address the following areas:

    • Spelling and Styles
      Editors will specify the dictionary they follow (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, for example), but there are still any number of spelling decisions an editor has to make. The style sheet tracks the spellings of made-up words and words with alternate spellings. The style sheet also helps the editor, author, and proofreader use consistent styles for formatting and punctuation of quotation marks, ellipses, and other features of the manuscript.
    • Characters
      Consistent spelling of character names is obviously important (you don’t want Sara on page five and Sarah one hundred pages later—and family names can get even more complicated). Style sheets also track character traits and histories, so you don’t end up with characters switching eye color midway through the manuscript or performing an action that conflicts with a previous action.
    • Locations
      The style sheet tracks the spelling of place names and indicates characteristics of those places. This is important so that characters don’t head east out of a door that earlier faced west, or any number of other logical inconsistencies that can occur. The style sheet also helps track the physical layout and features of rooms, buildings, and locales for consistent presentation in the work.
    • Timeline/Plot
      It can be surprisingly easy for the author and editor to miss time gaffes and plot holes while focusing on the micro-level action in the manuscript. A timeline by day (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3) or whatever time division works best for the manuscript helps keep time elements straight while noting basic plot points.

     

    Benefits for the Author

    No author or editor can remember everything or keep track of all the information involved in a novel without some sort of handy reference. The style sheet is therefore a necessary tool that helps editors do their job while providing a multitude of benefits to the author.

    And now for the promised five reasons authors need style sheets.

    Style sheets supply the author with the following:

    1. An explanation of edits. When authors review the edits an editor has made in a document, the style sheet shows why the edits were made, thereby preventing authors from sending unnecessary queries to the editor. This reassures the author and saves the author time and money.
    2. An invaluable resource. After editing, authors may still rework their novel or they may move on to sequels or additional books in a series. The style sheet provides a helpful tool for keeping track of names and styles, especially useful for SF, fantasy, and other genre work with unusual naming conventions.
    3. Insight into their own work. The style sheet provides authors with another tool for viewing their work. Some authors create story maps or chart out their novels on index cards. The style sheet acts as another lens through which authors can view their work, and seeing their story from another angle often helps writers identify flaws and improve their novels.
    4. Lessons on style. After reviewing a style sheet, it’s not uncommon for an author to have an “Oh, I didn’t know that” reaction. Some authors may be talented storytellers but fall short on the technical aspects of writing. Style sheets help in this area, and authors are usually more than happy to learn something new.
    5. A peek inside the editor’s mind. In many ways, the style sheet maps the editor’s process and demonstrates his or her competence. The style sheet is, therefore, a useful tool for helping an author grade an editor and decide whether or not to use that editor again.

     

    A writer might take a manuscript to a copyeditor with no idea of what a style sheet is or that one will be provided with the edited manuscript. Once writers start enjoying the benefits of style sheets, however, they usually find that the sheets are something they don’t want to do without.

    For more information about style sheets or the services that Castle Walls Editing provides, select Contact from the menu to your left.

  • Sentences That Pack a Wallop

    “Tell all the truth but tell it slant.”—Emily Dickinson

    If you haven’t read Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones, you should fix that at the very first opportunity (see glowing reviews from Paul Tremblay, Benjamin Percy, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and a host of others).

    While the following doesn’t contain spoilers, I do quote lines from the book, and these lines would be best experienced in their original context. So if you haven’t read Mongrels, I’d jump ship and do that first. If that means you never get back to this post, so be it.

    Mongrels opens with a boy living with his grandfather, aunt, and uncle, all of whom, unlike the boy, are werewolves (or so the boy tells us). Of Grandpa, we hear this:

    “The moon was always full in his stories, and right behind him like a spotlight.”

    What a sentence. The rhythm is a bit unusual, and the moon-as-spotlight imagery speaks volumes about Grandpa.

    A little later we have this:

    “He twisted the cap off his wine cooler, snapped it perfectly across the living room, out the slit in the screen door that was always birthing flies and wasps.”

    On first read-through of this sentence I didn’t (and why would I?) catch the sexual tinge to the word slit. But even as I hit the period I had to jump back and reread. This imagery, like so many other well-connected portions of the novel, appears again later, and this next line gives us a clue as to what the author is doing.

    “Just a story that keeps changing, like it’s twisting back on itself, biting its own stomach to chew the poison out.”

    This is a book about storytelling and of how we make sense of our lives. Tell it slant, indeed.

    “And none of Grandpa’s stories were ever lies. I know that now. They were just true in a different way.”

    And still later:

    “Darren was just like Grandpa, telling one story, meaning another.”

    And then this, infused with sadness:

    “That’s how it is with werewolves. You have something, then you just have the story of it.”

    Stephen Graham Jones is a hell of a writer. His pages reward the careful reader, and writers in particular would do well to pay close attention. Think of it as a master class.

    Refresher on Types of Sentences

    Sentences seem like simple enough beasts. You have a capital letter, one or more words, and a period (or possibly a question mark or exclamation point or ellipsis). You usually have a subject and predicate (noun and verb).

    There are four basic types of sentences:

    • Declarative (statement)
    • Imperative (command)
    • Interrogative (question)
    • Exclamatory (statement of emotion or excitement)

    Sentences can also be described as

    • Simple (one clause)
    • Compound (two or more independent clauses)
    • Complex (one or more independent clauses plus one or more dependent clauses)

    Those are the basics, but between that capital letter and concluding punctuation mark lie infinite possibilities, and in fact sentences can stretch to infinity by connecting a never-ending series of independent clauses with conjunctions. Sentences can be punchy, or elaborate, or confusing, or hard to parse, or downright unsettling.

    Sentences can foreshadow something to come or make you question something you’ve already read. Sentences can turn back on themselves or open themselves up to shocking possibilities. Sentences can be ho-hum, but when reading ones laid down by craftsmen operating at the top of their form, they can reshape your world.