-2: Final Editing

There was a time when we did edits the old-fashioned way, by sending a paper copy of the manuscript by post (you remember the postal service, don’t you?), with the edits marked in pencil.

 

 

Individual editors marked their initials beside their notations, and all changes had to be found and made in the corresponding copy housed in the computer, then saved to disk. Some of you may remember that technology.

 

 

Our present system is faster and simpler and I am forever grateful, in spite of the colourful horror show I see when I open up the track changes. The difficulty now is to stop long enough to consider each offering. Do I or don’t I? It is never wise to “accept”  too easily, in editing or in life.

Still, some knotty problems can arise. Sometimes political correctness can be the culprit, as it was in my first book. Do we say “Indian” or “First Nations”? The former is historically correct (the story takes place in 1903) but unacceptable today. In RRR, there were more problems with naming. Is “fisherman” derogatory, from the point of view of gender equality? And can you call a friend “buddy” in Vancouver? I know a lot of Vancouverites who use the term, but are they just weird?

The bottom line is this: I LOVE editors. Editors make books better. From the first, most exciting and substantive pass through the work, when we talk together about themes, through personalities and plotting, all the way through timelines and pacing to sentence structure and grammar, it’s a rollicking ride. And we can’t forget commas. The intensity of the focus as we zoom in always teaches me something new.

Thirty days, 35,000 words, 125 kms on my treadmill desk, 5000 kms on my scooter, more than 8 million sandbags and 77,000 volunteers later, we have a book. So to Barbara and Kathryn, Laura and Susan, the copy-editors and the proofreaders and the many others who have had a hand in making the story of the Red River people ready for public consumption, my admiration, gratitude and thanks. Red River Raging is their story just as much as it is mine.