What We're Writing Week: Julia is Copyediting

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I'm occasionally having to pinch myself, because it's been such a long time, but it appears AT MIDNIGHT COMES THE CRY is really, truly happening. I've had meetings about authors who might generously give a blurb, been assigned a publicist, and I recently got the copyedits to work on.

When I started in this business, the copyedits arrived as an actual printed manuscript, the same one I had sent in, with mark-ups in yes, you guessed it, red pencil. The author had to respond in blue pencil, and if you wanted to add anything, like a better turn of phrase or a bit of explanation, you had to handwrite it. Publishing has NEVER been a technology-forward industry (the Gutenberg press exempted.)

I was fine with the old way, but I have to admit, having the designer's and copy editor's notes in comments in Word, and being to make changes without trying to squeeze them in between double-spaced sentences, is a pretty sweet upgrade.

The first thing I did when I got my packet was read the Author Instructions, which carefully lay out how to respond to comments, make changes, etc. There were several places urging me to call or email with questions, leading me to suspect the average publishing company doesn't have a lot of confidence in the ability of writers to follow directions. Fair enough.

Then I read through the notes, to get an idea of how big a job I had in front of me, and what the larger issues needing fixing were. I tackled those first, and afterwards went through page by page,  changing or agreeing or STETting. We don't actually STET anymore, and I have to admit, I did enjoy a large, slashing STET scrawled in the margins, conveying with my penmanship my incredulity that anyone would make this suggestion.

At this point, I've finished all the copy editor and designer's queries, so yay for me! The next task is to insert a few bits and pieces that will better prepare the audience for some events at the end of the book. Finally, I'll do a line edit, looking for places I have an awkward phrase, or use the same word twice in close succession, or just have an unnecessarily over-stuffed sentence. The edits are due back by April 4, and I'm very happy to say I won't have any issue getting them in on time! (That's a first for me...) Then it's on to the next book.

 

And now for something completely different! I'm one of some 250 authors participating in Crime Writers for Trans Rights, an online auction benefiting the Transgender Law Center. You can bid on fun crafts, character names, signed books, audiobook narration, professional research assistance, conference registrations, and in my case, a 30 page manuscript review and an in-person (or in-Zoom) coaching session! I hope you'll check it out and find something fabulous.

What We're Writing: Hank Solves the Case of the Missing Bug

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: 

The House Guest is arriving in February! And she’s almost ready to read. I’m calling it Gaslight meets Thelma and Louise. What do you think about that?   (I hope you are saying "oooh!")

But what I’m writing… is copy edits. It’s one of my favorite parts of the writing process, No, truly it is. Copy editing.

 I had not looked at my book for a month, while the copy editor had it, so looking at it again, after four whole weeks, made me see it in a different way. I love that. 

Of course, there are going to be the obligatory battles about hyphens. Is it face up or faceup or face-up? They insisted on faceup, which I say is NOT a word, so I just cut it altogether. How about pre-nup? They insisted it was prenup, which I say is NOT a word,  no matter what any style manual tries to force me to do, and I stetted.  Thirty-something or thirtysomething? They insisted no hyphen, and I reluctantly relented.

And of course, happily, copy editing brings some hilarious realizations of the words we use, lazily and without thinking. I had used the word “something” 37 times. And it was quite the exercise in specificity as I took them out. Wonderful and book-changing in every way. And I am writing a blog about that which you will see someday.

The other thing you catch, if you’re lucky, are the problems with continuity. Not just that someone has a maroon tie in paragraph one and a navy tie in paragraph 10. Those things are inevitable, and fun to find. Like a treasure hunt. Even that I had spelled my main character's last name two different ways. Fix fix fix.  

But sometimes I find jaw-dropping mistakes. Shocking mistakes.

Here is a cautionary tale.

In the first version of the book, the main character is driving home, and begins to suspect, (and it all makes sense), that someone has put a bug in her car. And that someone is following her, and that the bug is transmitting to that person’s car. So she does some things, which you will have to read about, to find out if that’s true. And it seems to be true. 

Then she goes home, and new "friends" come to dinner, and many things are discussed. But. Not the bug in the car! She never mentions the bug in the car. Not to her mysterious dinner guests, not to her lawyer, not to anyone. Not even to herself.  

The next day, she and the two friends get into the same car and drive to her summer house. She never thinks about the bug. She never does anything about the bug. The bug is never mentioned again. Until the very last chapter, when somebody admits something about it.

But she’s been driving around with the stupid maybe-bug! Talking! Saying things! I sat and stared at my screen, wondering if I had completely lost my mind. How could I have dropped that thread?

And more important, how do I fix it? There was no time for her to have her car checked for a bug, and she has no idea what a bug looks like, and there’s no one to ask, and there’s no time to do anything, and what would she do if she knew, anyway?  I thought and thought and thought. And then the solution appeared! She just…takes her other car! Which could not have a bug in it. Brilliant brilliant brilliant, Hank, I thought, patting myself on the back, you are so smart.  

(If that solution seems obvious to you, good for you. It took me a good fifteen frantic minutes.)

But then, the dominoes started to fall. Earlier in the book, she talks about how her garage is half empty, now that her husband’s car is gone. Oops. Now there has to be room in the garage for the “other” car! Okay, now her garage is "emptier," without her husband's car. 

But, yikes, this "other" car is an SUV. So it doesn’t have a trunk. Okay! I will fix that.

And the “other” car does not have the same stuff in the glove compartment that the first car did. Okay! I will fix that, too.  But here's the thing. This all made me so happy. 

Because as long as it all gets fixed before the book goes to print, that's all part of the process. And I love the process.

So Reds and readers, let's vote on hyphens, okay? Pre-nup or prenup? (Did she have a pre-nup?) Faceup or face up or face-up? (It was face up on the drainboard.)  Thirty-something or thirtysomething? (She was the only thirtysomething in the room.) 

I'm sure there's some sort of rule about this.

And Reds and writers, have you ever found a gasp-worthy continuity problem in a manuscript?

Hallie on editing is bliss... except for the plot knots

 

HALLIE EPHRON: Welcome back to WHAT WE'RE WRITING week. 

First, DRUM ROLL! Here's the cover of CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR, due out in August! What I love most about it is the star. I was a big one for wishing on the first star of the night, never realizing that the first one is usually a planet. 

Which brings us to today's topic: editing.

A week ago I received the copyedited manuscript. What I adore about this stage of writing is cleaning up the nits. Streamlining. Eliminating redundancies. Obsessing over minutiae.

What I don’t like is when the editor picks up something that a) makes no sense, or b) Is contradicted by something else that happened in the book, or c) that character would never do that, or d) screws up the timeline, or e)…. I call them plot knots, and working each one out often means fixes that ripple through the book.

Working out a plot knot often requires an overnight during which I toss and turn, what-iffing like crazy and taking fork after fork until (usually the next morning when I’m half awake and still in bed) I find one that works.

For instance, here’s my next-morning notes for the plot knot: Why didn’t they hear the camera click. Trust me, this is an essential plot twist. The camera in question is an older DSLR with a mechanical shutter, and as the editor rightly points out, the characters WOULD have heard it click. Yet for the story to work, I need them not to.

This required fixes in FIVE places in the manuscript (see my list) which I checked off as I made them, and marked the places in the manuscript so I could go back and read them one after the other.

Here are some of the easy edits the copyeditor made. (I’m leaving out all the commas I misplaced. Seems like where I put them, they get taken out, and vice versa.) See if you can tell what needs fixing. The edited versions are below.

1. She dumped a load into the bag, then crouch-walked further in.
2. She logged onto her computer
3. When they’d gotten back the latest test results back a few weeks ago Frank had seemed relieved.
4. Mrs. Murphy held the picture to her chest for a few moments, then lay it facedown on the piano.
5. When they billed Mrs. Moore a bill for the unbudgeted hours, she refused to pay
6. Frank sniffed his sleeve. “And I really do need a shower.”
7. But she missed and the key dropped onto the concrete floor. Bending over to pick it up, blood rushed to her head.
8. Under the pulsing showerhead, her head cleared.
9. Emily rolled the map back up and slipped it into the tube, anxious to put it back on the shelf where she’d found it.
10. Walter Newell had dark hair and a mustache and beard like this guy, but that was hardly enough to say it was he.

FIXES

1. She dumped a load into the bag, then crouch-walked farther in.
2. She logged on to her computer.
3. When they’d gotten the latest test results back a few weeks ago Frank had seemed relieved.
4. Mrs. Murphy held the picture to her chest for a few moments, then laid it facedown on the piano.
5. When they billed Mrs. Moore for the unbudgeted hours, she refused to pay
6. Frank sniffed his armpit. “And I really do need a shower.”
7. But she missed and the key dropped onto the concrete floor. When she bent to pick it up, blood rushed to her head.
8. Under the pulsing showerhead, her mind cleared
9. Emily rolled the map and slipped it into the tube, anxious to put it back on the shelf where she’d found it.
10. Walter Newell had dark hair and a mustache and beard like this guy, but that was hardly enough to say it was him.

How'd you do? What are the kinds of nits that trip you up, reading or writing?