Editing Confessions
Ever since Divertir decided to publish Kindar's Cure, I've imagined what it would be like to work with a professional editor. Stressed over it would be a better description. What kind of changes would an editor demand? I worried about renaming characters, cutting scenes or whole chapters, a word count goal to meet, and gaping plot holes to close. Large scale sacrifices. So far none of that has happened.
Instead the work has been focused on smaller things, such as word choice and single versus double quotes. Big sigh of relief. My lovely and dedicated editor did set me a task: paragraph merging. Seems my idea of when to start a new paragraph and the rules of paragraphs don't exactly coincide.
Funny, how all the things you imagine about something come nowhere near the actual. I never gave a thought to paragraphs when I dreamed of working with an editor. Paragraphs flew well under my radar. It's not a subject that my critique partners and I ever discuss or point out to each other. Paragraphs are just there, much like periods and spaces. Part of the picture, but not a critical part. Oops. Time to rethink that.
And as I was looking for places where paragraphs should be merged, I was also looking for other editing goofs. And boy did I find them. A couple of verbs with the wrong tense. Two spots with character names spelled wrong that my eye must have missed at least a dozen times. A word I changed using 'Find and Replace', but didn't search for that word when it had a punctuation mark after it so all those got skipped. Yikes!
Then there are the words that always trip me up. The certain words that my critique partners find and point out to me time and again. Words that I now know to do a search for because they'll be wrong, wrong, wrong. For me, those words are cheek,conscience, wield, steel, and wince. A blush rose in her check. He welded the sword. She winched. The sort of mistakes that would be embarrassing to miss. I'm sure there are many more goofs to find. Fingers crossed my editor can pick out the rest.
So how about you? Got any confessions to make? Are there certain words that trip you every time? Does paragraphing fly under your radar? Confession is good for the soul so please share in the comments. Now I have to steel away. Wink.
Instead the work has been focused on smaller things, such as word choice and single versus double quotes. Big sigh of relief. My lovely and dedicated editor did set me a task: paragraph merging. Seems my idea of when to start a new paragraph and the rules of paragraphs don't exactly coincide.
Funny, how all the things you imagine about something come nowhere near the actual. I never gave a thought to paragraphs when I dreamed of working with an editor. Paragraphs flew well under my radar. It's not a subject that my critique partners and I ever discuss or point out to each other. Paragraphs are just there, much like periods and spaces. Part of the picture, but not a critical part. Oops. Time to rethink that.
And as I was looking for places where paragraphs should be merged, I was also looking for other editing goofs. And boy did I find them. A couple of verbs with the wrong tense. Two spots with character names spelled wrong that my eye must have missed at least a dozen times. A word I changed using 'Find and Replace', but didn't search for that word when it had a punctuation mark after it so all those got skipped. Yikes!
Then there are the words that always trip me up. The certain words that my critique partners find and point out to me time and again. Words that I now know to do a search for because they'll be wrong, wrong, wrong. For me, those words are cheek,conscience, wield, steel, and wince. A blush rose in her check. He welded the sword. She winched. The sort of mistakes that would be embarrassing to miss. I'm sure there are many more goofs to find. Fingers crossed my editor can pick out the rest.
So how about you? Got any confessions to make? Are there certain words that trip you every time? Does paragraphing fly under your radar? Confession is good for the soul so please share in the comments. Now I have to steel away. Wink.
No comments have been added yet.
