Bad Writing - or Bad Editing?

Bad writer or bad editing? Answer: Both.

Ctairo said:

How why does this happen in published books?

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The most dominant answers for "how" are time and money. Time available to write and edit a book, money available to pay the editor. I hate running into errors and bad editing, but I know for a fact that some manuscripts are writtenly so poorly to begin with that even when you (professional editor) have edited all the awful out that you can in the time available, you've really only mitigated the bad, not eliminated it. Proofreading should also catch some of this, but what gets changed in pages again comes down to time and money.

Most people won't complain to the publisher in any number big enough to make an impact. Most errors won't cause a drop in sales or stop people from buying the author's next book. From a business standpoint, your perceived issue of quality does not impact the bottom line. Therefore, you will continue at times to perceive it elsewhere.

As far as how something written that poorly catches an agent's/publisher's eye to begin with, maybe it's a story that can capture the reader and carry them along regardless of the clunkers. Maybe it's a fluke. If I start finding poor grammar, typos, or plot holes when I read for pleasure, I'm never able to fully shut off the internal assessor.

I ask this question all the time. Sometimes I just ask myself. Sometimes I ask strangers, who sidle away. Toward the food tent, or toward any other convenient shelter.

I'm guessing the author is trying to be funny. I've done this once. Not sure how funny it is.

Yikes, Tom said charitably.

I actually lean closer to bad editing. One thing I've learned in trying to tackle a novel is that in writing and re-writing and re-re-writing, you get overly familiar with your own work and some mistakes that are obvious to another person go right past you.

There's some repetitiveness in the quoted selections of the OP and it leads me to believe that some of these sections started one way, got re-written to something else a couple of times and different incarnations merged, but some remnants that were supposed to be disposed of managed to hang around. The writer certainly has a responsibility to be on lookout for such things, but in my experience it just gets difficult to catch it when you're reading it over and over again. The writer knows what he/she is trying to convey and thinks he/she is successful, and sometimes a work needs another person to make the observation that "This doesn't work..."

Jcomp appears to be inhabiting my brain. Again! Luckily, there's plentiful wide-open spaces in there.

He's said what I would have. I know I've certainly made such errors as I revised an early draft (or updated an older work). I'd like to think I've caught and corrected all such errors. I'd also like to think I can pass for forty.

Maryn, fingers in her ears lest she hear differently

Jcomp said:

I actually lean closer to bad editing. One thing I've learned in trying to tackle a novel is that in writing and re-writing and re-re-writing, you get overly familiar with your own work and some mistakes that are obvious to another person go right past you.

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Happens to me all the time, Jcomp. I'm fair-to-middling at critiquing others' works, covering errors like barn paint, while my nose has to be pushed into my glaring gaffs by critique partners.

I suspect some authors don't make good use of beta readers -- and as said, some publishers don't waste time and money editing.

The thing is, editors can't always get authors to change everything. You can point out spots that are clunky, but when it comes right down to it, authors can STET copyediting changes they don't agree with.

In an interview for the Sep/Oct 09 Poets and Writers Magazine, long-time agent, Georges Borchardt, said: "I have several authors who were so disgusted with their editors that they have an editor whom they pay to edit their books before they get sent in to their editor at the publishing house. Nobody ever hears about it, and if they win the Pulitizer Prize or whatever, the official editor is the one who gets the credit."

I think it is both. I find my internal editor runs all the time since I started being a beta. I blame clunky sentences and lousy dialogue on the author. I blame calling a character by another character's name, and changing eye color from one page to the next on the editor. Yes, both of those are things the author did first, but the editor should have caught them. And if an established author, whose work depends on continuing characters, gets a new editor, that new editor should have to go back and read all the previous books. That would help avoid continuity errors. In one series I have read the MC's wife dies in book 4. In book 8 she is still dead, but has a different cause of death. Lack of money means fewer editors, which means more books for each editor to work. No wonder things get missed.

MM

I think that on a writing forum, as interesting and critical as this one, some of the basics can be overlooked in the search for non-existent perfection. Editors are both good and bad and just as fallible as the rest of us. Publishers don’t always succeed in matching an editor with an author, and if they don’t gel, or get on, or even hate each other, the result is the kind of writing complained about, which the publisher won’t even know about.

Basically, if your editor is either unskilled (it does happen), or doesn’t like you, then there’s not much you can do about it. The publisher won’t be on your side if you complain.

(Editors, especially in a recession, don’t get paid very much; that’s why they all become bitter and twisted agents, who earn even less).

MaryMumsy said:

I think it is both. I find my internal editor runs all the time since I started being a beta. I blame clunky sentences and lousy dialogue on the author. I blame calling a character by another character's name, and changing eye color from one page to the next on the editor.

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As a writer, I tend to blame all of that on myself first. Perhaps the editor should have caught them, but I shouldn't have made those mistakes in the first place.

It could be a bit of both. When the author goes over the galleys they should catch most of it but I've had my galley revisions messed up resulting in books being printed with both versions of a paragraph following one another. Fortunately I read the printed book, found the error and it was fixed before the novel went to a second print run. Some of your example reads as if that's what happened. The author tried two different versions, went with one and they were both included, hence two references to the food tent.

“On the CD, the reels ended…”

Don’t reels refer to tape? Or am I misinformed?

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Without more of the context I can't be sure but a reel is also a type of music, specifically one used in royal country Scottish dancing (I believe it's not limited to Scotland only though.)

Random trivia of the day.
Love
'Nise

caromora said:

The thing is, editors can't always get authors to change everything. You can point out spots that are clunky, but when it comes right down to it, authors can STET copyediting changes they don't agree with.

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Exactly. Errors in published novels can't be blamed on one person. The author, the agent, the editor, the copy editor--multiple eyes see a manuscript from the moment it's written to the time it's shipped off to the printer. It's easy to blame an editor, but editors don't actually make the changes for the author--they suggest them. If the author doesn't make a suggested change, it's on the author.

ChaosTitan said:

Exactly. Errors in published novels can't be blamed on one person. The author, the agent, the editor, the copy editor--multiple eyes see a manuscript from the moment it's written to the time it's shipped off to the printer. It's easy to blame an editor, but editors don't actually make the changes for the author--they suggest them. If the author doesn't make a suggested change, it's on the author.

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And some authors have quite the ego. Oy vey.

Birol said:

And some authors have quite the ego. Oy vey.

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Take that back! Now just you take that back this instant, Missy!

A reel is a kind of music. Were they in fact listening to folk dance music?

The food tent one is kind of strange. I'd change it to "by the trash cans" or something like that, which makes a subtle stab at the "trashy" character as well.

"Uncharitably" could be a deliberate attempt at a stylistic repetition...obviously not too successful, but it wouldn't bother me much.

scarletpeaches said:

Take that back! Now just you take that back this instant, Missy!

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Scarlet, I have a feeling that as an editor, I would work with you any day.

But was the story good?

Also depends on the publisher, honestly. I've heard through various sources that some imprints and publishers do not keep copy editors on staff anymore and that is totally the responsibility of the author (Baen comes to mind as an example). The editor in charge isn't in charge of correcting those kinds of mistakes. One friend who publishes there spends her own money to hire an editor to go over the ms before she submits it, but that's expensive and I can see where not every author can afford to do that.

As consumers, we can't know how many stations along the way to publication truly exist within the publisher--but it's almost never one person's mistake when it winds up on the bookshelf.

And, FWIW, I also thought reel was referring to the music playing not an antique reel-to-reel tape.

ChristineR said:

A reel is a kind of music. Were they in fact listening to folk dance music?

The food tent one is kind of strange. I'd change it to "by the trash cans" or something like that, which makes a subtle stab at the "trashy" character as well.

"Uncharitably" could be a deliberate attempt at a stylistic repetition...obviously not too successful, but it wouldn't bother me much.

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Ditto all this. I'm very twitchy about unnecessary repetition, but I see "uncharitably" in particular as a voice-y thing rather than out-and-out carelessness, and I'm sure we could have a whole discussion about why certain character affectations work for some readers and not others. I've kind of given up trying to understand it--I think it's like how some people hate black licorice (insane, I tell you!).

HOWEVER, this is also a really good point:

Jcomp said:

There's some repetitiveness in the quoted selections of the OP and it leads me to believe that some of these sections started one way, got re-written to something else a couple of times and different incarnations merged, but some remnants that were supposed to be disposed of managed to hang around. The writer certainly has a responsibility to be on lookout for such things, but in my experience it just gets difficult to catch it when you're reading it over and over again.

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I'm working on editorial revisions right now, and so much changes so fast that it's hard to keep track of all the little things, especially when so much of the focus is, out of necessity, on larger story elements. Things that were nicely polished before submission get pulled apart into little pieces, which means they have to be reassembled.

Upshot: I've become slightly obsessed with the idea that I'm introducing horrible mistakes and won't catch them before they're committed to print.

Now, I know that the editor is there to make sure nothing catastrophic happens. And she does. And she does an excellent job. But wrangling the changes is like wrangling minnows or something else slippery, and I still live in a kind of neurotic fear no matter how diligent I am, something is going to slip by and then I will be bothered forever, because I'm very twitchy about unnecessary repetition

Okay, I totally just devolved into talking about myself. My main point is really that--yes, even in publishing--sometimes things happen very fast and Jcomp is completely right about various incarnations occasionally merging badly. This is no excuse, but it's a reason.