My Toddler, The Copyeditor

I recently received the copyedited manuscript of my second novel, The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers. A manuscript wearily proceeds to the copyeditor only after it has valiantly survived numerous rounds of edits and revisions at the hands of the editor; the editor and writer strike this metaphor, eliminate that repeated verb, compress this chapter or that paragraph, remove this unnecessary character, clarify that plot point, etc. By the time the writer has finished an umpteenth draft and...