'Um... no, I really did mean that..."

holy_shiitake

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So, I'm not entirely sure where to put this. Mods, if you think this would have a better home elsewhere on the forums, then feel free to move it.

So, I wrote a story that primarily features macarons. Macarons, for those who are unfamiliar, are a French candy that look almost like a little spaceship. The word itself will also come up as "not found" on most spellchecks because it is a French word. But whatever, I thought; I sent it in to a lit mag and they accepted it (yay!).

This morning, the issue went live, and lo and behold, to my horror, I found that the editor had changed every instance of me using "macarons" to "macaroons." They're a completely different sweet, first of all, and secondly, I was not informed or asked if I'd just managed to mess up the spelling of the word all ten or fifteen times I used it within the story. Even barring the obviously gargantuan task of emailing me, a simple Google search would have told the editor that I obviously meant "macarons" and not "macaroons." I've emailed the editor asking if it could be changed back, but I'm not hopeful; the best I can hope for is a correction in the next issue, right? Has this happened to anyone else?
 

stormie

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Sorry to hear that happened to you.

Usually editors do email or call the writer and discuss the matter first rather than taking it into their own hands and changing it. (Titles, though, have been changed without my consent, and in one instance it read poorly. I did email the editor on that one, but she stood by her choice. I never submitted to them again anyway.)

So, emailing or calling is the best you can do. Maybe the editor will either remove the piece and reissue it with the correct spelling, or put a note at the bottom of the piece (which won't really help much).

My two cents: do not submit to that magazine again.
 

mhaynes

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Oooh... That's incredibly frustrating. :(

Would you mind PMing me the name of the publication? That's the sort of thing that would make me wary of subbing there, myself.
 

LillyPu

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I have a similar experience (except mine's unpublished). I use the spice culantro in my novel. Every single reader corrected it to cilantro--a similar spice, but different. I finally just made it cilantro. :(

Frustrating, yep. But since your story is already published, there's little you can do. Maybe the readers won't be put off, and the story still works with macaroons... At least the editor must think so.
 

V1c

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I get my name 'corrected' all the time. My name. Like I spelled it wrong on the submissions I send out.

I'd also be interested in the magazine.Especially since I love macarons.
 

alexshvartsman

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This is an online publication, yes? If so, the editor should be able to change it back now and not wait to print some correction in the future.

Of course, it should've been on them not to make the mistake in the first place and to run any such changes by you first.

I had a similarly bad experience with a token-pay market where they went and added a sentence at the end of my story "to make the ending stronger." What they added sounded really lame, and made me look bad. I complained and had the offending edit removed promptly, but I don't think it was OK for them to cavalierly change my story and haven't submitted there since.
 

holy_shiitake

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I get my name 'corrected' all the time. My name. Like I spelled it wrong on the submissions I send out.

I'd also be interested in the magazine.Especially since I love macarons.

Sure, the magazine is Crack the Spine, and my story, "A Pinch of Mortality", is in Issue 17 (the most recent one). You can read it on their website. :) Hope you enjoy!
 

Siri Kirpal

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Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

I have had a journalist (& spellchecker, no doubt) mis-spell my name as Sari Karpal.

And once when I gave the program for an interfaith service to our designer, she changed the word "saz" to "sax." Very different instruments.

Neither of those was the sort of publication you're talking about, but still.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

holy_shiitake

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Ha! Came across this thread by accident but it made me laugh, because there are macarons in the mystery novel I'm writing right now, and I had the same spell-check problem!


Oooh, macarons of mystery! I'm intrigued! :)