Oh God I'm too stupid for copyedits

Shady Lane · Oct 27, 2008

Okay so. My editor sent my hard copy manuscript all marked up with places to add spaces and commas so my ms would be, ya know, gramatically correct. Like any kind with no idea what she's doing, I made the changes in my e-copy and emailed it back to her. This morning I got this email:

I need you to mail back the copyedited manuscript (the original, marked-up copy that I sent you) with any changes you have written directly on there. Most of those red marks are directions that the copyeditor wrote on there for the typesetter--it's very important that you mail that version back to me and incorporate your changes there. Please send it via overnight mail (fed ex or DHL). Sorry for the confusion!

Hokay so. Issue number one is finding all the scattered manuscript pages throughout my house, but I don't think you guys can help me with that. Issue two is that I don't know exactly what "changes" I'm expected to be making. I agree with everything the copyeditor wrote; I assume she knows grammar better than I do and that if she checked the Mattel website then she knows how Play-Doh should be spelled and capitlized and hyphenated, etc. etc. So do I just leave these edits alone, and the typesetter will assume I'm good with them unless I write STET? Or do I have to initial next to everything I agree with? Or do I have to somehow rewrite all my elipsises with an extra space between each dot....?

Help please, 'cause clearly she wants this quickly...you all are beautiful and amazing.

shady

dawinsor · Oct 27, 2008

It's been a while since I had a copy edit to do but let me see what I remember. First, were there directions with the cover letter that came with manuscript? That may answer your questions. You could ask the editor if there was a cover letter and if there was ask her to email you a copy.

Assuming there's not such a letter or you can't find it, then indeed you can ignore marks you agree with. Were there queries, ie sticky notes, attached in some places? Those you have to answer, right on the note if you can, and then fold them in.

Shady Lane · Oct 27, 2008

There are a few sticky notes--no note at the beginning. The sticky notes are all "did you really mean to use this word?" and I think on all of them the answer was "uh, no..."

Thanks

Very helpful.

IceCreamEmpress · Oct 27, 2008

The usual thing is to go through and indicate the changes that you think are OK with a little check-mark, and indicate the things you should stay just as you wrote them with a big STET.

I've been on both sides of this desk, as a copyeditor and as a writer, and people often have strong feelings about things. They'll pry my serial comma out of my cold, dead hands, for instance.

Shady Lane · Oct 27, 2008

haha, I'm really quite chill--I don't think anyone reading the book will judge me for an unhyphenated word or so.

Thank you!

Toothpaste · Oct 27, 2008

Also if you yourself discover any grammatical errors that the copyeditor didn't, you can make a change there too.

Basically there are three things you can do:

1) agree with the copyeditor by making a little check mark next to her edit
2) disagree with the copyeditor and ask them to change it back to the way you initially wrote it by writing "STET" next to the change.
3) add your own correction that the editor missed

Shady Lane · Oct 27, 2008

thaaaank you. the little check marks were the bit I didn't get. You all are lovely.

mrockwell · Oct 27, 2008

Don't feel too bad. My (then) two-year-old got a hold of my copy-edited ms and colored all over it, so I couldn't send it back. But turns out they didn't want it anyway -- we were on such a tight schedule, I just made my changes directly to their master file and emailed it back.

-- Marcy

Mumut · Oct 27, 2008

My editor emailed me with her suggestions. I had asked if I should change the Australian single quotation marks to the American double. The publisher said no but the editor said yes. But more than that, she tried to change them using 'find/replace'. I have spent three days of all my spare time correcting don"t and such like.

Anyway, best of luck.

JJ Cooper · Oct 28, 2008

All good advice above.

I did my copy-edits via the 'track-changes' option. Got a detailed couple of pages worth of instructions in case I hadn't used it before. It was very simply and all I had to do was accept changes made by the editor or leave a comment if I wanted clarification of a point. After I did the line by line edit, I saved a copy and then used the new version to work on the structural report. Everything inserted or deleted was captured and again I used the comment box to give reasoning or seek clarification for the next round.

I thought this would be the norm now. Seemed a good way to do it.

I got caught out with my elipses too. And wrong font. And I had double quotation marks instead of single. At least we can bust the myth that manuscripts won't be considered for these reasons.

JJ

Shady Lane · Oct 28, 2008

I never even thought about the elipses before, then I saw I was supposed to put a space between all of them, had a brief "wtf" moment followed by a "let's try it just to see how ridiculous this looks" moment, followed by a "ohhhhhh hey that does look right."

Thanks

illiterwrite · Oct 28, 2008

I did all mine electronically in both cases as well.

In addition to what others have said, I'll also say that if you want to change anything else (e.g., if you want to rewrite any passages or move things around), it's best to do it now.

ChaosTitan · Oct 28, 2008

*bookmarks this thread for future reference*

Shady Lane · Oct 28, 2008

Update: My editor emailed me back and clarified. She said no marks for necessary for the copyedits I'm okaying. But I'm sure small check marks wouldn't have been a problem. Thanks for your help, everybody!

L M Ashton · Oct 28, 2008

IceCreamEmpress said:
I've been on both sides of this desk, as a copyeditor and as a writer, and people often have strong feelings about things. They'll pry my serial comma out of my cold, dead hands, for instance.

My respect for you just increased ten thousand fold.

Charlie Horse · Oct 28, 2008

Shady, I'd give anything for the opportunity to write a big fat "STET" back to some copy editor trying to make sense of my goofy grammar.

Oh God I'm too stupid for copyedits

Shady Lane

my name is hannah

dawinsor

Dorothy A. Winsor

Shady Lane

my name is hannah

IceCreamEmpress

Hapless Virago

Shady Lane

my name is hannah

Toothpaste

THE RECKLESS RESCUE is out now!

Shady Lane

my name is hannah

mrockwell

Just another genre hack

Mumut

Well begun is half done...

JJ Cooper

.

Shady Lane

my name is hannah

illiterwrite

ChaosTitan

Around

Shady Lane

my name is hannah

L M Ashton

crazy spec fic writer

Charlie Horse

Speaking in metaphors