Lifescapes

From Manuscript to Book: Part 3, Editing Your Own Work

I'm posting a brief series about editing and copyediting. Here's Part 3--important lessons learned from long experience in editing my own work and the work of others. Go here for Part 1; here for Part 2; here for Part 4

Here are seven things you can do to clean up your manuscript before you send it to a reader (a friend, beta reader, agent, copyeditor, or editor). 

1. Put your darling on the shelf. When your project is finished, go on to something else. Give your work time to cool off and yourself time to put some distance between you and that precious thing you’ve written. When you come back to it, return as a stranger, with analytic eyes.
2. Print and read (or read from your Word file). Seeing your work on paper and hearing it read may clue you to problems, glitches, and stylistic infelicities. Print and read aloud, making pencil changes to your text. Or read aloud from your Word file, making changes as you do. Another option: send your Word document to your Amazon Kindle account, and read it on another device. I sometimes read a Kindle copy on my iPad, marking the changes I want to make.
3. Search and destroy those personal gremlins. Every writer has her own personal gremlins (words like affect/effect, less/fewer, your/you’re). Know what yours are, so you can be on the alert for them.
4. Repetition repetition repetition. Readers notice careless repetitions of words and phrases. You should notice them first (and reject, revise, replace) before you submit your work. My copyeditors use the phrase “close repetition” to remind  me of too many raised eyebrows, frowns, nods, sighs, and so on. I try to catch these before a file leaves my computer.
5. Present a professional appearance. You don't wear shorts to a job interview; you make sure you're appropriately dressed and your hair is combed. (Makeup optional.)  Conforming to “industry standards” makes your work look professional. Here are the basics:

• Send your manuscript as a Word document (.doc or .docx).
• Align the text to the left, ragged (don’t justify).
• Double space in Times New Roman black 12-point font.
• Single space after periods.
• Use page breaks between chapters. Start chapters a third of the way down the page.
• Use #s to indicate scene breaks: insert a space above and below.
• Number the pages. Center bottom is fine.
• Check for chapter breaks. I reduce my file image to about 50% or 60% and click rapidly through the pages. This gives me a quick overview of the file and I’m able to see missing breaks.

6. Run spell check. Yes, I know—Word checks spelling as we type. But another spell check won’t hurt. You might not accept the changes, but you may catch some errors before they get to your editor or reader.
7. Puzzled? If you have a question about usage, grammar, or formatting issues, check with an industry-standard style manual, such as the Chicago Manual of Style. I subscribe to the online edition (currently $35 a year), and I use it when I'm writing. When my copyeditor returns a file, she frequently notes problems by referring to the CMOS. The print edition is also available, but the online edition allows you to make notes, create your own references, and search.

I'm expecting The General's Women back from my copyeditor in the next few weeks. When that arrives, I'll share some thoughts on that process. Watch this space.

Reading note. Editing is the very edge of your knowledge forced to grow--a test you can't cheat on.--S. Kelley Harrell

Pecans Pecans Pecans

The El Nino rains in early 2016 have brought us a bounty of pecans this year. Over the nearly 30 years we've lived here at MeadowKnoll, Bill has grafted some 30+ trees, using wild pecans (planted by the squirrels and other native critters) as the root stock and grafting stock from cultivars like Kiowa, Desirable, and Choctaw. Our orchard isn't planted in neat rows; instead, the trees grow where they have found favorable sites on our 31 acres. Not very "professional," but deeply satisfying. For Bill, each of his trees is like a member of the family, and in October, they get his attention.

Mine, too. Pecan pie is a favorite, but we save it for company. Instead, I use pecans in ordinary meals (coleslaw and salads, sweet potatoes, green beans, panko topping for casseroles) and keep a batch of these Pecan Pie Cupcakes on hand. (To cut calories, I use brown-sugar Splenda and just 1/2 cup butter.) The wooden plate in the photo is one of Bill's turned pieces: he made it from catalpa wood.

Homestead report. The fall potatoes (grown from seed potatoes saved from the spring crop) are up. Forecasters say we'll have a warm winter, so maybe these will make it through. We like to eat our potatoes (mostly) unpeeled, so it's worth the trouble to grow pesticide-free, on soil that's been enriched with toxic-free compost. We have lots of onions (ours are perennial). The kale is up, and the spinach has been planted. The bunnies are taking notes. The garden is fenced but I think they have secret tunnels.

Book report. The General's Women (coming in March 2017) is out for copyedit: I've written about that here and here, and I'll have another post in that series soon. The Last Chance Olive Ranch (China Bayles #25, April 2017) has a beautiful cover--hoping to share that with you next week.

I'm currently working on Queen Anne's Lace, (China's 26th mystery, April 2018)--about 2/3 finished with a draft, but it's a complicated story and I'll have to work through it again before it's done. I've been wanting to write about contraceptive/abortifacient herbs for many years, but couldn't think of the best way to handle that touchy subject. I think I've found it in this book, and I'm pleased.

Politics. Except for my Twitter account, I try to keep politics out of my online sites. But most of you know (from my books, if nothing else) that I'm liberal, progressive, pro-choice, pro-marriage-equality, and a life-long Democrat. I'm disgusted with the GOP's nominee, repulsed by the incredible ugliness of his campaign, and deeply, deeply concerned about the potential scorched-earth aftermath of this election. This is no time to be tentative. I'm with her. I hope you are, too.

Reading note. Do all the good you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.--Hillary Rodham Clinton, Hard Choice 

From Manuscript to Book: The Copyeditor

This is Part 2 of a series. Part 1, The Copyedit, is here. Go here for Part 3; here for Part 4

The Copyeditor

As a traditionally published author, I've worked with many copyeditors, but I never get to know their names, since we only meet via the manuscript. In fact, because they work on contract for the publisher, I rarely get the same copyeditor twice. One of the pleasures of publishing my own work is the privilege of working directly with the people who help me produce the book you'll hold in your hand or read digitally.

For The General's Women (coming March 2017), I have a new copyeditor, Sandra Spicher, who comes with a great deal of experience and a top recommendation from my (now-retired) editor at the University of Texas Press. I thought you might like to meet her.

About herself, Sandra says that she was "one of those kids who drooled over those old ads in the back of comics and magazines: 'Get paid to read books!'" As a freelance writer and copyeditor, she's living the dream. She tries to leave time for her own projects, but a good book can usually tempt her. "If a manuscript sparks my interest," she says, "I can't say no. I work on a mix of fiction and nonfiction, but my heart belongs to fiction. I'm especially drawn to complicated stories that feature female, LGBTQ, and POC protagonists."

As a copyeditor, Sandra is radically eclectic:

Because I'm fluent in Spanish, publishers often treat me to books that are written at least partially in Spanish or have some Latin American affinity. Recent projects I've copyedited or indexed include a translation of a colonial Spanish religious official's investigation into the deaths of priests in Florida, an architect's loving description of colonial churches in Mexico, a view of syncretism in Guatemala, and the relationship between art and literacy in colonial Peru. An offshoot of that has been books set in the Middle East, either historical or contemporary. Besides Latin American and Middle Eastern studies, film and TV, race relations, aviation history, and literary criticism are some of the subjects that crop up in the nonfiction books publishers send me.

But Sandra isn't just a copyeditor. The General's Women won't require an index, but if it did, she's the person I'd turn to. "I also enjoy the process of indexing," she says, and tells us why:

It requires a deep engagement with the text to choose what headings and subheadings will most serve a particular book's varied audiences. I recently indexed a book about the HBO series The Wire that made me want to watch the whole thing again. Books about race in Brazil and post-Katrina New Orleans have left me gasping for breath at their insights. After indexing the revised edition of Philip Naylor's North Africa, I sense that George R. R. Martin might have had a peek at something like it while writing A Song of Ice and Fire. There's certainly some precedent for the Red Wedding.

I've asked Sandra to tell us something about a day in the life of a copyeditor. That's coming in Part 3 of this brief series, so stay tuned.

Reading note: Knowing how to tinker with a broken piece of prose until it hums is a source of contentment known by all who have mastered a worthy craft.― Carol Fisher Saller. The Subversive Copy Editor

From Manuscript to Book: The Copyedit, Part 1

The General's Women, the third in my series of historical/biographical novels, is now in the production queue. I've asked a number of people (historians, a biographer, and other readers) to read it and give me suggestions. The next step is to put together a production team, which includes a copyeditor, a cover designer, and a formatter, in addition to Kerry Sparks, who manages publishing, distribution, and subrights.

I asked an editor, now retired from the University of Texas Press, to recommend someone good--someone who is used to dealing with footnotes. (The epilogue of the novel tells a true story for the first time, so I've documented my sources.) My editor friend recommended Sandra Spicher. Sandra and I got acquainted via email. After this preliminary handshake, I sent her my manuscript (in Word). She returned several sample pages, edited. I was delighted, and asked her to join my production team. (More about that in future posts.)  

You can meet Sandra herself via her website. But since I know that many of you are also writers, I thought you'd like to know what a copyeditor does. (The book publishing industry makes copyeditor one word, Sandra tells me; for journalism, it's two.) As a reader, you may also be interested in the process of book production. After all, you're the final beneficiary of the copyeditor's work. The copyeditor may be invisible, but she (or he) contributes enormously to the physical book you hold in your hand or the ebook you read on your device.

I asked Sandra to send me some of her thoughts, as a copyeditor, about the process of working with an author. Here are her thoughts. (More coming in a later post.)

1. An author usually starts looking for a copyeditor when she has revised the manuscript in response to feedback from her beta readers and/or a developmental editor and feel that it's super clean. It just needs fresh eyes and a final polish.

2. An author needs to be sure she's compatible with her copyeditor, and we want that, too. Ask published authors in your writing groups and on social media for a few recommendations. Out of these, choose two to four prospects who appeal to you, or who have worked on manuscripts similar to yours. Investigate us online, if you like—you'd do that for a person watching your children or pets, right? Your book deserves someone who will treat it with similar tenderness and respect.

3. Approach the copyeditors you've selected one at a time (that is, no multiple submissions) with a query similar to what you might send an agent: include word count, a brief description of the book, and how you heard about them. Suggest a schedule and ask about availability. Be frank about the genre, any explicit sex or violence, religious and political themes, and so on. 

4. Most copyeditors are glad to provide a brief sample edit at no charge. It's the way many of us discover whether we're compatible with an author or manuscript, too, and what our budget should be. It's best to send your entire manuscript in Microsoft Word so that the copyeditor can choose a few pages to work on. Most of us realize that the first few pages are likely to be the cleanest, and we'll pick a section from the last half of the book to sample.

5. When you receive the sample copyedit, read through the corrections to get a feel for the kind of things that are marked. You should sense a willingness to explain rules but not necessarily to insist upon them. When I'm editing, I refer constantly to dictionaries, websites, and style guides—and many of those contradict each other.  From the beginning, English has been expanding to fit our world, to the delight of many copyeditors and the dismay of others. When in doubt, an experienced copyeditor will query or let the author's decision stand. The sample should help you determine which way your copyeditor leans, and whether the two of you are a match.

This is Part 1 of this conversation. Go here for Part 2.

Reading note. Self editing is the path to the dark side. Self editing leads to self delusion, self delusion leads to missed mistakes, missed mistakes lead to bad reviews. Bad reviews are the tools of the dark side.--Eric T. Benoit