Rantings of a magazine copy editor

czig · Nov 19, 2011

Apologies if this is in the wrong place. I haven't had breakfast yet this morning, I've had the flu all week, it's Saturday, and I'm working.

I just received a batch of magazine articles to copy edit this morning. Among them were such gems as a personal interview with a completely uninteresting nobody, an interview that describes a boring background and then says the subject "overcame the odds" to succeed (what odds? Where?), and the usual hodgepodge of missed punctuation, fractured sentences, mixed tense within articles (if he "says" at the beginning, don't switch it to "said" later), and other non-professional goofs.

I read a book review online this morning that was very poorly written, and makes me think the reviewer, also a writer, isn't very good at whatever it is she writes about. This makes it very unlikely I will ever read (much less purchase) one of her books.

Please, if you are submitting articles for publication, make certain you fit the publication's formatting requirements, your spell checker is on (even I make mistakes, and it's my job to catch yours), your subject matter is interesting even if your subject isn't, and you keep to the appropriate word count. I've had to chop a few hundred words off an article because the writer went on and on about off-topic material and used fancy phrases that were unnecessary. That's a big waste of time, and I'm not getting paid by the hour.

Make your writing tight, clean, professional, and interesting. Consider your audience. Don't try to fancy it up with words, phrases, references, or even jokes most people won't understand. Fluff is just fluff, and nobody wants to read it. It's more like... verbal diarrhea.

Okay, I've said enough. Time to hit the shower. The next half dozen articles can wait.

Caroline · Nov 19, 2011

LOL, I feel your pain. In my day job, I edit a small newspaper, and the submissions I receive make me want to bang my head against the wall on a daily basis. What I'll never understand is why there are so many intelligent, educated people who can't seem to string together a coherent sentence. Oh well...guess if I switched places with them and tried to do math or something for a living, I'd come off as an idiot, too.

czig · Nov 19, 2011

Caroline said:
LOL, I feel your pain. In my day job, I edit a small newspaper, and the submissions I receive make me want to bang my head against the wall on a daily basis. What I'll never understand is why there are so many intelligent, educated people who can't seem to string together a coherent sentence. Oh well...guess if I switched places with them and tried to do math or something for a living, I'd come off as an idiot, too.

Yep! I feel like editors don't get any respect because we work behind the scenes. Writers send out their published clips, but those clips wouldn't have even been published if they hadn't gone through an editor, copy editor and proofreader first. By then the writing has been polished, or at the very least made readable.

Caroline · Nov 19, 2011

Very true! We're an underappreciated bunch

Filigree · Nov 19, 2011

Here's a good one for you. My local newspaper featured a college kid's review of the film 'Happy Feet 2". Most of the piece was reasonably literate.
But near the end, the writer offers the phrase: "...some of the dance moves make STEP UP look like armature hour..."

I stopped, re-read it a few times, and realized he meant 'amateur'. Of course it sailed through the average spellchecker, and this little paper probably can't afford any dedicated proofreaders anymore. Because the writer doesn't know the difference in *meaning*, this slipped into print.

czig · Nov 20, 2011

Filigree said:
Here's a good one for you. My local newspaper featured a college kid's review of the film 'Happy Feet 2". Most of the piece was reasonably literate.
But near the end, the writer offers the phrase: "...some of the dance moves make STEP UP look like armature hour..."

LOL!

One of my favorites--and I've seen this on promotional materials a few times--is the "bachelorette" degree. The first time was a newsletter put out by a local fire department. They were listing the various degrees the firefighters held, something like "2 masters degrees, 3 bachelorette degrees, 1 associates degree".

How can I get a bachelorette degree? Sounds like fun.

SummerSurf57 · Nov 20, 2011

Ha ha, I love it when this sort of thing happens. It really makes you wonder...

Maryn · Nov 20, 2011

Hey, baby, the Erotica forum will help you work toward that Bachelorette degree...

Maryn, with a leer

Scriptissima · Nov 20, 2011

czig said:
Yep! I feel like editors don't get any respect because we work behind the scenes. Writers send out their published clips, but those clips wouldn't have even been published if they hadn't gone through an editor, copy editor and proofreader first. By then the writing has been polished, or at the very least made readable.

Come on, guys, be fair. Yes, there are "writers" out there that can't write a decent sentence to save their lives. But most full-time writers (and, yes, I am a writer, but I was an editor for several years) I've ever come across were indeed excellent writers. They were also very appreciative of good editing. I certainly hold great editors in very high esteem, and I never forget to say "Thank you."

However, some editors really, really suck. Let's face it: For every bad writer out there, there is a bad editor. And this bad editor is giving the writer a bad name. After all, it's the writer's by-line - and if the editor makes matters worse, it's the writer's name that's associated with the poorly edited piece.

So while I do feel your pain as an editor (and, trust me, I've been there, too), just keep in mind that there are some exceptionally great as well as some amazingly terrible people working on both sides of the desk. And while you most certainly turn some royal crap into readable articles, some editors turn readable articles into royal crap, that embarrasses the hell out of the writer mentioned in the by-line.

czig · Nov 21, 2011

Scriptissima said:
So while I do feel your pain as an editor (and, trust me, I've been there, too), just keep in mind that there are some exceptionally great as well as some amazingly terrible people working on both sides of the desk. And while you most certainly turn some royal crap into readable articles, some editors turn readable articles into royal crap, that embarrasses the hell out of the writer mentioned in the by-line.

Oh yes, that's true. One of my first published articles was missing some information the publisher wanted and I couldn't get. My managing editor filled it in at the last minute and edited the article herself. It's the one article I refuse to send out as a clip because it's not "mine" anymore. She changed it so much I hardly recognized it!

Devil Ledbetter · Nov 22, 2011

czig said:
Make your writing tight, clean, professional, and interesting. Consider your audience. Don't try to fancy it up with words, phrases, references, or even jokes most people won't understand. Fluff is just fluff, and nobody wants to read it. It's more like... verbal diarrhea.

Quite.

And if it's a phrase we've all heard a million times before such as "I caught up with [the interviewee]" or "[the interviewee] picked at her salad," please leave it out.

Don't try to make your article sound like every other article you've ever read. Make it sound fresh.

I edit technical articles. Tech writers love to use passive voice. In an engineer's mind, no one ever does anything. Stuff just moves around all of its own accord, apparently. This makes for lifeless articles.

czig · Nov 25, 2011

Devil Ledbetter said:
Quite.

And if it's a phrase we've all heard a million times before such as "I caught up with [the interviewee]" or "[the interviewee] picked at her salad," please leave it out.

Those articles tend to make me feel like doing this: :Hammer:

I edit technical articles. Tech writers love to use passive voice. In an engineer's mind, no one ever does anything. Stuff just moves around all of its own accord, apparently. This makes for lifeless articles.

It's magic!

Silver King · Nov 25, 2011

Scriptissima said:
...And while you most certainly turn some royal crap into readable articles, some editors turn readable articles into royal crap, that embarrasses the hell out of the writer mentioned in the by-line.

I pulled a piece a while back because it had been changed so much that I hardly recognized it anymore. The story was still solid but read as someone else's work, as more than half of it had been rewritten; not just altered a little here and there but totally revised.

I expressed my concerns to the editor and offered a compromise: He could pay me for the piece ($1200) but couldn't use my name in the by-line.

I sensed by his tone that he was a little insulted. "Whose name am I supposed to use?"

"Yours," I said.

Bushrat · Nov 25, 2011

Silver King said:
I pulled a piece a while back because it had been changed so much that I hardly recognized it anymore. The story was still solid but read as someone else's work, as more than half of it had been rewritten; not just altered a little here and there but totally revised.

I expressed my concerns to the editor and offered a compromise: He could pay me for the piece ($1200) but couldn't use my name in the by-line.

I sensed by his tone that he was a little insulted. "Whose name am I supposed to use?"

"Yours," I said.

That's excellent!

LLauren · Dec 3, 2011

We're lucky, I guess, because while we receive queries and pieces that can rival anything of the rolling eyes variety, the writers we choose are fantastic beyond fantastic. My managing editor works with them to make their prose sing, but what we get is generally excellent and needs relatively little work. She's so good at content editing I stick to the copy editing and proofreading. And that's pretty light too.

*goes off to re-count my blessings*

Tomspy77 · Jan 12, 2012

Man, I am just trying to break into more paid work (Got paid a small fee for doing two Amazon reviews and a little less then a hundred bucks and a contributers copy for a book I helped write, but nothing to sing about) after doing quite a bit of free stuff but this thread makes me afraid to submit lol!

Honestly though that is why I joined, I want to get help to see the holes and errors in my writing and try to improve as I know I have probably made some glaring errors and typos at times.

Right now just co-editing this blog, helping out a writer with social network promo stuff and doing a weekly unpaid NBA blog gig to expand my credits out of the litttle world of unpaid writing news and reviews about British TV.

Any clues, links or info on how to avoid such mistakes?

Downloaded a basic grammmer/English e-book and plan to take a basic Emglish class at a community college in the Summer to refresh all I've forgotten, but are there any other resources to help a new freelancer avoid the big mistakes that could blow a oppurtunity and make him look like a fool?

Might be slightly OT, but the replies here make me want to improve or go home! ;-)

Nexus · Jan 20, 2012

I don't know about editors being under-appreciated as a general statement. Although I have no doubt it can happen.

For me, all I can do is make my fiction or non-fiction as accurate, clean, and fun as possible. My work will go absolutely nowhere in this world without the excellent advice and changes from the editors.

I have never felt such an amazing feeling as the one I got when my editor sent her first round of edits for my soon-to-be-published short story. I felt the story come alive and knew it was three times as good as before I made those edits. And I let my editor know the way I felt.

Even if I didn't agree - I'd respect their authority and what they know will make it appropriate for their magazine (or whatever it may be). If any of my stories become popular, I plan to credit my editor/s for their time spent making it good.

MJK · Jan 31, 2012

Having been (and still being) on both sides I would like to offer this semi-humorous/semi-sad story. A very well known writer in my genre told an inexperienced writer not to worry about sentences, grammar, punctuation and that kind of stuff. Just put your thoughts down on paper and the editors will clean it up. I almost dread seeing the inexperienced writer's stuff now as I know I am in for a few hours work. The experienced writer, unfortunately as age is beginning to catch up to him, has taken to a lot of cutting and pasting of previous stuff he has done over the years. While the cut articles were great, the pasting together has resulted in a lot of work for you know who.

Marya · Feb 1, 2012

If publications have enough money, the commissioning editor gets out a detailed and demanding brief to the writer and sends copy back for rewriting if the content isn't up to scratch. The features editor works on the piece and sorts out fact-checking blips, jarring shifts in register, weeds out cliches etc and sends it back to the writer to rework. Then the copy editor works with the revised and checked copy and does more fact-checking, fine-tuning, logic tracking and grammar, grammar, grammar.

But all too often the copy editor does the work of a features editor on poorly briefed copy and because of tight deadlines ends up ghostwriting the piece. As a sometime copy editor, I've had to redo interviews with the subject (just to make sense of the profile) and then rewrite the whole thing.

Pyekett · Feb 1, 2012

Tomspy77 said:
Man, I am just trying to break into more paid work (Got paid a small fee for doing two Amazon reviews ...

Wait--was it clear in the reviews themselves that these were paid for?

Edit: I get that tmes are tight, but this seems a little dicey. Or am I misreading?

BerryWriter · Feb 11, 2012

Tomspy77 said:
Downloaded a basic grammmer/English e-book and plan to take a basic Emglish class at a community college in the Summer to refresh all I've forgotten, but are there any other resources to help a new freelancer avoid the big mistakes that could blow a oppurtunity and make him look like a fool?

Might be slightly OT, but the replies here make me want to improve or go home! ;-)

See highlighted areas above. Even forum posts are worth being proofread.

Sleepyhead · Feb 11, 2012

Many years ago, I queried a high-maintenance author about recasting a particularly egregious mixed metaphor (at this job, we queried for everything). He replied, "Of course, you're right. But I like the way this sounds. Keep it."

I tried to argue my point with my boss. "It's the author's book, Tracy," she chided. "It's the author's book."

"Well then, what the hell am I here for?" I realized as soon as I'd said the words that I might not want her to put a great deal of thought into answering that question.

Jamesaritchie · Feb 14, 2012

czig said:
Apologies if this is in the wrong place. I haven't had breakfast yet this morning, I've had the flu all week, it's Saturday, and I'm working.

I just received a batch of magazine articles to copy edit this morning. Among them were such gems as a personal interview with a completely uninteresting nobody, an interview that describes a boring background and then says the subject "overcame the odds" to succeed (what odds? Where?), and the usual hodgepodge of missed punctuation, fractured sentences, mixed tense within articles (if he "says" at the beginning, don't switch it to "said" later), and other non-professional goofs.

I read a book review online this morning that was very poorly written, and makes me think the reviewer, also a writer, isn't very good at whatever it is she writes about. This makes it very unlikely I will ever read (much less purchase) one of her books.

Please, if you are submitting articles for publication, make certain you fit the publication's formatting requirements, your spell checker is on (even I make mistakes, and it's my job to catch yours), your subject matter is interesting even if your subject isn't, and you keep to the appropriate word count. I've had to chop a few hundred words off an article because the writer went on and on about off-topic material and used fancy phrases that were unnecessary. That's a big waste of time, and I'm not getting paid by the hour.

Make your writing tight, clean, professional, and interesting. Consider your audience. Don't try to fancy it up with words, phrases, references, or even jokes most people won't understand. Fluff is just fluff, and nobody wants to read it. It's more like... verbal diarrhea.

Okay, I've said enough. Time to hit the shower. The next half dozen articles can wait.

Someone must like these articles, or you wouldn't be getting paid at all.

You also wouldn't be getting paid of all the writers did exactly as you ask.

czig · Mar 11, 2012

Tomspy77 said:
Man, I am just trying to break into more paid work (Got paid a small fee for doing two Amazon reviews and a little less then a hundred bucks and a contributers copy for a book I helped write, but nothing to sing about) after doing quite a bit of free stuff but this thread makes me afraid to submit lol!
....

Might be slightly OT, but the replies here make me want to improve or go home! ;-)

Wait-- you can get paid to write Amazon reviews? :Wha:

Dang, I am so out of the loop.

Improve! It's for the best. Then you can go home, put your feet up, and know you did a good job.

czig · Mar 11, 2012

Jamesaritchie said:
Someone must like these articles, or you wouldn't be getting paid at all.

You also wouldn't be getting paid of all the writers did exactly as you ask.

The magazine is distributed for free. The ads are very pretty, of course.

The writers who do write beautifully are kind of boring to edit. Add a comma, fix the single misspelled word, and I'm done. But they do make my job go faster.

Actually, I think I rely on the bad writing for entertainment value if nothing else.

Rantings of a magazine copy editor

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