WD Revision Lesson #5

A popular post from April 2008

By Josi S. Kilpack

The fifth lesson in revision as per Jordan Rosenfeld's article, Revision for the Faint of Heart, is to purge those non-necessities. The steps leading to this place have gotten you very familiar with your weaknesses, have allowed you to look at your manuscript as a whole and not it's time to, as Stephen King says, "Kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler's heard, kill your darlings."

Darlings are not characters--though they could be--but in my mind I picture a dour old woman of eccentric means petting a horrible dog in her lap that bites everyone but her. And as you pull your hand back from yet another attempt to get into the monster's good graces, she pets it again and says in a tone lighter and kinder than she ever uses in addressing another human "Oh, darling , are you alright?" And you know in an instant she's not talking about you or your punctured flesh, she's asking if somehow her precious canine has hurt itself in it's attack upon you. Do not be that woman! Do not cherish a flea-infested nightmare simply because you've grown attached to it. Consider the other people that will come across it and how they will feel when they're walking into the ER for their rabies shot.

Here are some examples:
*Adverbs, similes, cliches--or in other words, lazy words. Rather than using 'sadly' show us a drooping shoulder, a stifled tear, a quick turning away in dispair. Rather than using cliches like "a turtle coming out of it's shell" show her pulling herself to her full height and breaking into a smile that draws attention from every person in that room because they've never seen her with so much confidence. This goes along with showing rather than telling, and it doesn't work in every instance and ever scene, but look for those times they can be fixed, lazy words replaced with energetic ones

*Overt explanations and back story. I call this spoonfeeding, where you are just scooping up information and plopping it on their tongue. It sounds like "You see, when she was a child everyone thought she was fat and ugly, and now as an adult she can't see herself as anything different." You could tell that in such a different way and give it life-- "Even though she knew she was no longer that awkward child, with more size than shape, and even though she knew that at times she had been beautiful, all she could think about was that she was only one donut, one chocolate shake, one raspberry torte away from being that child again--the girl who got stuck on the jungle gym, the one that could never keep up and finally stopped trying, hiding in the bushes at recess to escape the taunts of her thiner counterparts." Though I recommend you don't do it one horribly run on sentence as I did, I hope you get the point :-)

*Scenes unnecessary to the plot. I call these 'author moments' when you get toward the end of a scene and think "The only reason this is here is because the author wants it here" and I believe we all have those scenes. Ones that for one reason or another speak to us, but don't speak to the story. If you can rewrite it and work in a plot point, go for it, but if there is no way around it accept that it's a pause button and junk it.
-Remember that too much emotion can spoil a great scene. Even if you tend to be on the melodramatic side of life, ask yourself if it's reasonable. When I edit other peoples work I'll underline these sentences and write "Too Much" or "Really?" to draw the authors attention to the fact that I'm not buying it. Keep it real.

*Verbal diarrhea--when your characters are just talking too dang much. We've all read this, and we've likely all been annoyed with it--it's one of the reasons, in my opionin, that books that are made up of a collection of letters are hard to read, nothing happens. I don't mean that the letters, or the dialogue, isn't necessary, but let your characters pause and glance out a window. Let them rub a hand across their forehead or order another drink. Don't let paragraphs of talking go on and on--you'll lose your reader.

This is the point in which you are transitioning from 'what do I want to write' into 'what will other people read' and you have to be very objective about this. It's not easy--I promise you it isn't--but to create your best work you have to keep your reader in mind and realize that some dogs are just plain mean. If it can't be trained, it's best not seen amid polite company.

Editing: It's not over 'til it's over

A popular post from April 2008

by Heather Moore

Part of the writing journey is, of course, rewriting

Many new writers are surprised to learn that a book goes through a number of drafts or revisions before it's even accepted for publication. Of course there's a point in time when you need to stop revising and start submitting.

On average, I have my manuscript reviewed/edited by 5-7 people before submitting to a publisher. My publisher will send my manuscript to three readers, who in turn write up evaluations that outline the strengths and weaknesses and suggest whether or not the manuscript is publishable.

IF the evaluations are favorable overall, the publisher will officially "accept" the book. Then the publisher sends me the three evalutations (sometimes they are quite long: 10-13 pages), and I go through each comment and use the advice to make my manuscript stronger. I don't agree with all comments, but I try to explain to my editor why I don't want to change something.

Then, I'm assigned an editor, who goes through my new revision and gives his/her comments. I edit from the editor's comments. This is when the edits "really" count and a writer has to weigh each suggestion or correction with care. It's not the time to brush off a suggestion with "Sally from my critique group just doesn't get me . . . so I'll ignore her character motivation comment . . ."

But even after submitting the next revision . . . it's still not over. A disk changer will implement my fixes, and any approved fixes by the editor, and sometimes the disk changer will come back with comments. THEN the manuscript is typeset and goes to two copyeditors. The copyeditors are mainly proofing, but they may also find an inconsistency that needs to be fixed.

Through this process, the author is reading each new version, checking for errors that can creep up through the typeset or the disk-changer process.

So, by the time the book is sent the press, I don't want to ever see it again. Yes, I'm excited to hold the book in my hands and to gaze at the cover when it hits shelves. But open it and read it? No.

My excitement comes from getting good reviews, hearing comments from readers, and knowing that all of the hard work was worth it. And of course, undying gratitude for all of the "editors" who helped me on the path.

Who do you listen to?

A popular post from February 2008

By Julie Wright

In tenth grade I had an English teacher who, for whatever reason, determined to hate me. This was the year I read To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time. This was the year I really knew in the marrow of my bones that I could be a writer. I was fifteen.

My teacher didn't have the same marrow-in-the-bones feeling about me. He took a short story idea I'd outlined for an assignment, and told me it would never work. "Very few authors pull off the passage of years in one book--let alone a short story. You can't do this." His red scribble on the top of my outline made my stomach sink into my shoes, and made my confidence slip into the well of despair.

But I was stubborn.

I determined he was wrong. After all . . . he'd never been published, what did he know? I wrote the story, submitted it to the school writing contest, and won first place. I even beat out the seniors.

Feeling proud of myself (and rich with the 100 bucks I had in my pocket from prize money), I took the story to my grandmother. She loved me. She would tell me how wonderful I was.

Except she didn't.

She really loved me, and loved me enough to be brutal. Hard love sucks rocks sometimes. She told me how to change the story, how to make it better, how to make it work.

She told me not to give the story back to her to read until I fixed it.

I fixed it. It took me 297 pages to make it right, but I fixed it. She'd already passed away. She never got to see it complete and right.

The lesson learned? Ignore the comments that shatter your belief in yourself and accept the comments that will improve you, even when they hurt to hear.

There will be voices shouting at you from all sides when you start writing. There will be the blind love voices who tell you you're brilliant, even if your story needs a major overhaul. There will be the hurtful voices who work to undermine your security in yourself. There will be the demon voices whispering the cacophonous words, "You can't do this."

Then there will be the hard love voices . . . the voices with your best interest in mind. The editorial voices that say, "You can do this. Don't give up, but make it right."

Where you end up as a writer depends on what voice you choose to listen to.

Who are you listening to?

Why is Editing so Hard?

A popular post from February 2008

By Heather Moore

Like many of you, when I sit down to write, I love the feeling of accomplishment. Recording the number of words written at the end of a writing session gives me a tangible record of achievement. It’s better than getting all of the laundry done, or having a clean house. Because by the next day, laundry has started to pile up again, and the kitchen counters are stacked with more homework.

But that word count continues to grow each day, and no one can change that . . .

Until it’s time to edit.

Editing is like lugging that basket of dirty clothes, again, to the laundry room. It’s like seeing the dishes piled in the sink—when it seems you’ve just washed them.

Editing is work.

There are times when I get an edit back from a fellow reader—and although I’m so grateful for the time they put into reading my manuscript—I know the next few days are not going to be easy. Every correction brings me closer to a cleaner manuscript, but there are those comments that I dread. You know the ones, “I can’t picture this.” “This isn’t consistent with the character.” “Your man sounds like a whiny woman.”

Those are not quick fixes. They take re-evaluation, re-thinking, and re-writing. Just plain work, and lots of time.

So to make editing more bearable I’ve come up with a few suggestions.
1. Turn on your favorite music.
2. Get out that chocolate.
3. Only do a set number of pages a day so that you don’t get too frustrated. Anywhere from 20-50 should do it.
4. Do the quick fixes first, and set aside the pages with the harder rewrites. Then come back at the end and work on the more difficult editing. By then, you’ll have whittled down the imposing stack of 300 pages to a mere 20-30 pages.

Self Objectivity

A popular post from December 2007

By Josi S. Kilpack

A friend called me the other night to discuss a point in her book. I had edited this work for her a couple years ago, so I was familiar with the story despite the fact that she'd done several revisions since then. The reason she called was because there was a magical element in the story that wasn’t sitting right with her. She’d gone over it a few times and just felt like it wasn’t sensible, that it didn’t work. She wanted to know what I thought.

I thought it was fine, very creative in fact, and I told her so. She was not appeased.

“Then why is it bugging me?” she mused. So we continued talking about it and over the course of a few minutes she came up with a solution that didn’t necessitate cutting the element—it really is very clever—but added a dimension to it that would work and make it more plausible. In once sense it was a very small, a minor detail, to her overall story, and yet in it’s own way it was huge.

After I hung up, I thought about scenes I’ve had in my own books that have stuck out to me. A couple specific ones came to mind after this conversation and I realized just how impressive it was that this friend of mine would take the quality of her work seriously enough to want to make sure she was good with this detail. It occurred to me what a brilliant thing this was for her to do and what a reflection of her skill as a writer it was as well.

Fact is, it’s relatively easy to make changes people tell us to make, it’s rather simple to cut things when we’re told to cut them. Letting someone else point out our mistakes makes us feel more secure somehow, but it’s a matter of skill to be objective enough about our own work to not only see our own mistakes, but then to ponder, discuss, and brainstorm on them enough to find a solution for the singular reason of making our book our best work.

My challenge to each of you, today, is to think of your work—maybe something on the shelf, maybe something you’re working on right now and objectively think of one detail that isn’t ‘settled’ in your own mind. Maybe it’s a character, maybe it’s a name, or a place, or a missing line of dialogue. Maybe it’s a magical element, or the sequence in an action scene; perhaps you’ve missed an opportunity to foreshadow, or you’ve laid it on too thick and exposed a plot line you weren’t ready to expose yet. I challenge you to find a quiet spot or a blank piece of paper and brainstorm that detail. How can you fix it? What would make it stronger? What would help you make peace with it?

It’s fabulous to have outside readers and it’s wonderful to get professional advice, but honing your own ability to objectively tweak your own brilliance, therefore admitting that you don’t always get it right the first time, will improve your overall writing far more than another person ever will. Then, when the time comes to ask someone else to give you an opinion, you can have confidence, rather than naïve hope, that you are presenting your best work.

Starting Your Book

A popular post from August 2009

By Heather Moore

When I meet writers who are looking to get published, they often ask me how I decide where to start my story, who the characters will be, and how I plot.

So as I’m preparing to write my next book, I thought I’d give you some insight into my process.

1. Thinking. Maybe mulling is the more correct word. I have to have the main character pretty well defined in my mind before starting to write. The secondary characters come into the story to support the main character—and sometimes they surprise even me.

2. Creating a schedule. Writing, of course, is not always controlled by that effervescent muse (Annette—I’m probably using effervescent wrong). Writing is part creativity, and part science. Editing definitely falls into the science category, as well as actually completing a book. Like any writer, I’m constantly pulled in different directions. But once I decide on a book, I need to create the schedule to get it completed, and limit any other stories in my head that are trying to derail priority number 1. For example, if I decide to turn in a book on December 1st to my publisher and I start on August 1st, I divide the word count by the number of writing days. And I leave a couple of weeks in for editing. August: 25,000 words (average 1,000 words a day, 5 days/week). September: 25,000 words, October: 25,000 words, November: 10,000 (2 weeks), 2 weeks of edits.

3. Character sketching. This is an evolving process and changes and grows as I get further into the writing process. For instance, when I write my first draft, my character motivations aren’t usually ironed out. I’m writing mostly plot and dialog. About half-way through draft 1, I’ve had to make solid decisions about my characters, so I’m adding information to my character sketches as I go. So during the 2nd draft, I’m inserting more characterization to the beginning of the book.

4. Point of view & tense: I take into consideration who my audience will be and who the most important characters are. Will the story happen in real time (present tense) or past tense? Will my characters speak in first person (ideal for YA), or third person? It’s a lot of work to change this part of the process, so doing your research beforehand will save you a lot of time later.

5. Conflict. This goes hand in hand with character sketching. I have to ask myself what is the main conflict of the book, and of each character.

6. Beginning. Now that I have some basics going and I actually sit down to write, I usually concentrate on where I want the story to begin. Not to say that the first chapter I write will be the actual first chapter of the book, but I start pretty near the beginning. Before I start a chapter/scene, I ask myself: “What is the point of the chapter? What will be accomplished? What will it show that may/may not be relevant to the story as a whole?”

7. Creating a scene. I create scenes in several phases. Phase 1: writing and not caring too much about “fleshing out” the characters or the description, but I am nailing down the direction of the scene. Phase 2: revising the scene and inserting more description, making more concrete decisions about the character. Phase 3: this will happen when the whole book is drafted and maybe new developments have happened along the way. So I now have to go back through each scene to make sure the story is properly directed. As you can see, creativity has just been replaced by careful analysis (science).

Okay, looking over this list makes me wonder why I even start a new book. Every writer has what works for them. My style might be convoluted, but you never know, it might work for you as well.

Grammar = No Tears

A popular post from May 2009

Have you ever shed tears over grammar? Or maybe you've been in denial that you need help . . . You'll find relief with Annette Lyon's newest book: There, Their, They're: A No-Tears Grammar Guide From the Word Nerd.

Only Annette could pull this off! Congrats!

And if you're interested in this easy-to-follow grammar guide, you can find it here.

When is my MS ready to be edited

A popular post from October 2008

By Josi S. Kilpack

I received this question from a fellow writer completing her first novel. Even though I gave an answer different from what she actually asked, I decided to use it for my blog post this week because a lot of people get to the end of their initial writing and are eager to have someone do the editing for them now that they are done. While this is completely understandable and a very important psychological fear (willing to get feedback) there is a right time and a wrong time to have someone else edit your book regardless on whether you get a professional editor or just ask a freind. Hopefully this will clarify a little bit:

Hi Josi,
I've been making pretty good progress. I'm at about 60,000 words, and if I just didn't have to do things like sleep, I could be done on Monday. So as I'm getting nearer to completion, I'm trying to figure out who I can have edit this for me. I wanted a good friend of mine to do it for me, but she's slammed with work right now and can't. She gave me a suggestion, but the other woman is reviewing another book right now and wouldn't be able to get to mine for a while. Do you have any suggestions of who I can ask or where I could look to find someone?

Josi said:
Way to go, that's awesome that you're making such good headway and are ready for another set of eyes to see your baby. Before you look for an editor, however, be sure to go over your complete project yourself, looking for things on your own that need to be clarified, things that are redundant, etc. Getting an editor to read over your book is a BIG deal and they can help you a lot, but if you give them a rough draft their advice won't be as helpful because they won’t be fine tuning, they will be helping with the building process. It’s also very frustrating for an editor to wade through things that should have been caught by you, the author. Especially when you use a friend that is doing you a favor, you don't want to waste their time (which is hours and hours of work if they are good at what they do) by handing them something you know isn't ready or you haven't revised at least once (more than once is even better). Should you send them a rough draft, they may be much more hesitant to offer their help next time. If you use a professional editor, they can do their best work when you have already caught all the little things you can catch, this allows them to do the nitty gritty things you can't see yourself. If you don't look (i.e. revise your completed book) you'll undoubtably end up paying them to point out things you could have seen on your own, often times those are things that will require such substantial changes in the story that their line edit will be irrelevant by the time you make the changes they suggest.
In a nutshell, you need to get it polished and ready to go in your mind before you ask anyone to put their time and experience into it. Good luck and congratulations! Most people never finish their book, you're ahead of the pack!

Moving Past the Re-editing Block

A popular post from October 2008

by Annette Lyon

Reader question:

I've been having the same problem for a long time. Whenever I write a few pages, I cannot resist the urge to re-write them again and again to the point that I end up throwing them out and starting over. I know I'm not going to get anywhere with my manuscript if I keep this up, but I still can't resist doing it.

I was wondering if I could get a little advice on how to curb my desire to edit and re-edit and re-edit.


On one hand, it's not uncommon for writers to reread what they wrote yesterday, tweak it a bit, and get into the groove again before going on to the next scene. But of course, doing so is useless if you don't keep going. Getting back into the groove is a different animal from reworking chapters to death and then throwing it out and never making progress.

First and foremost, it sounds like your internal editor/censor is yelling at you all the time. If that's the case, your editor will continue to hold back your creative side. The critic isn't a good writer. It's a good editor. Your writer brain needs freedom and creativity, but it's being strangled by your critic.

You do need your critic, obviously. But at the right time, not all the time, and most definitely NOT when you're trying to get out of the gate and finish a manuscript in the first place.

Just like every writer finds their own way to get into "flow," every writer has to discover their own way to silence the critic when it's not time to edit. I wrote about the inner critic here, and that post might have some ideas to help you out.

But there are other things you can do as well. The creative brain is difficult to tame, and at times, you have to trick it to behave.

Here are a few ways to trick the critic into going back into its cave:
Give yourself permission to write garbage. In fact, make a point of writing garbage for a day or two (or a page every day), just to prove you're capable of it. This kind of exercise stumps the critic (Wait, it's supposed to be bad? Then what can I yell about?) and gets him to move aside.
Write out of order. If you have a basic idea of where your story is going, there's no reason you're obligated to write chapter one and then two and then three. Do you know what the exciting climax will be? Write it today. Have a scene you're especially excited about getting to? Put it down now. You can always bridge the scenes together later. And sure, the parts you write this way may need changing when you reach them the "real" way. But who cares? You're making progress.
This trick is another way of putting the critic off-guard. He has a hard time knowing what to do with the situation (and how to yell at you because of it), because it's not what's "supposed" to come next.
Write on a different computer than the one holding your manuscript. Walk away from your PC and borrow a laptop. Heck, use plain old notebook paper. Use whatever, just so long as it doesn't have the rest of your manuscript on it. Forcibly cut yourself off from the rest of the book so you can't keep tweaking it. Instead, you have a fresh screen or piece of paper waiting for the next part of the story. Paste the new scene/s into the file later. (Then save and close the file. Do not tweak!)
Even better, use an AlphaSmart Neo or Dana. The Neo does the same things as above (keeping you away from the rest of the file), but it has an additional perk: since you can see only a few lines of text at a time, you're less likely to go back for tweaking even during today's drafting session. As you type away, you're mostly oblivious to how many words or pages you've written, and you get lost into the story itself.
Set specific goals and attach rewards to them. It's shocking how well this works. While you do want an overall goal ("Finish this book by my birthday"), getting past the re-edit-treadmill type of block takes smaller goals. ("I'm going to write 1,000 words a day.") Reward yourself with something small and concrete whenever you reach a goal. It can be your favorite treat from Cold Stone, a DVD rental, a nap, or the latest episode of The Office. Whatever is enough of a carrot to keep you going.
Withhold something. This is the flip side of rewards. Our own Julie Wright often puts a book she's dying to read on top of her desk but doesn't let herself crack the cover until she reaches a writing goal. Once when I was bemoaning a big revision, my husband challenged me to have no chocolate until I got through a six-inch stack of manuscript critiques. That one got me moving fast! Something I'd been avoiding for weeks was suddenly done during a weekend. Motivation is an amazing thing.
Best of luck getting off the re-editing treadmill and reaching the end of your book! You can do it.
Readers: Have additional ideas? Let us know in the comments!

Everyone Needs An Editor

A popular post from December 2009

By Julie Wright

I got a great question from one of my up and coming author friends the other day about professional editing. She made this comment to me:

I'm assuming you don't send your own work off to an editor since you are one.

In my fantasy world, this might be true, but in reality, I'd dash out my eyes before trusting them, and only them, to catch all my flaws. You know that old saying? Something about not seeing the forest because of all those trees? Writing is a lot like that. We get too close to our projects and lose all form of objectivity. Or sometimes, even when we know something's wrong with our manuscripts, we don't see how to fix it exactly.

I have several professional authors/editors (These editors all work for Precision Editing Group) who I trade manuscripts with. I trust these people completely. I trust them to be brutal, but brutal in a way that helps. I've known editors who slash manuscripts to pieces simply because it makes them feel smarter, or empowered, or whatever, but a good editor will not slash for their own benefit, but the benefit of the manuscript. You know who you can trust for honest-even-when-it-hurts critiques. Don't trust your manuscript to anything less. And no matter how published, or smart, or HUGE an author is--everyone needs an editor.

And just for kicks, here is how my writing, editing, submitting process works:
• Write the book
• Edit the book myself
• Go over it one more time (just in case)
• Then send it to three others
• Write something new while waiting for the results
• Get results
• Cry a little over the fact that I’m not all that brilliant
• Eat chocolate and get over myself
• Do final edit
• Submit
• Get edits back from my publisher
• Cry over the fact that I’m not all that brilliant
• Eat chocolate and get over myself
• Do final final edit
• Get galleys
• Curse myself for not being more thorough in final edit
• Do final final, I-mean-it-this-time edit
• Get author copies of my book and still think of ways I could have been better, while also thinking how cool I am for getting a new book published.
• Eat chocolate and get over myself.
• Finish writing new book

If you're being honest with yourself, you know you can always do better. This is not to say you should never let a manuscript go. We all have to finally shout, "Enough!" and move on to a new project. Sometimes more fiddling is just more fiddling.

Eventually your book has to stand on it's own, but dragging it through a few other sets of eyes, makes it stand a little taller.

The Almighty Edit

A popular post from March 2013

by Julie Wright

As an editor, I get to ruin a person's day. As a writer, I get my day ruined by editors.

I know it's important, the job of an editor. I know I'm helping other writers. But as a writer, I don't know what I'd do without a good editor. A good editor is what saves you from yourself. He or she will save you from certain embarrassment if that scene or sentence actually makes it into the final version of your manuscript.

This post might seem a bit like an ode to editors past, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention the editor who changed my life as a writer.

Kirk Shaw was/is (he's at law school, now) a great editor. I owe many thanks to him for saving me from myself. He told me what scenes were lame and needed to be cut. He told me when I was going too easy on my characters and in what ways they could stand to suffer a little more. He taught me several comma rules. I still don't know all the fickle ways of the comma, but that's merely because we didn't have enough time together. The man was a genius at his job.

Some good things to keep in mind when editing your own manuscript

•  Make your characters work for it. If the quest is too easy, it's not worth reading about.
•  If a word is not a contributing member of the sentence, then it needs to be evicted. Make sure your words all have a specific function.
• If a sentence is not a contributing member of your page, then it needs to be evicted.
• If a page is a not a contributing member to the story, then it needs to be evicted. Don't let the dead weight take up residence in your story.
• Cutting hurts. But a tight and tidy package looks nicer and is better received than the one hastily slapped together with a few errant pieces of tape and rumpled wrapping paper.
• There is a difference between the words lightening and lightning. Make sure you used the word you meant to use. Spell check doesn't catch this.
• There is also a difference between a nice dress and a mice dress. Sometimes you hit a wrong key, but the word still fits well enough in the sentence that spell check doesn't see it. Make sure you are reading your story out loud during your final editing stage. You catch so much more when you're reading it out loud and having to say every word as it is written.
• Do your characters have a goal they're working toward or are they just playing around?
• Avoid passive language--especially in a book meant for action and suspense. The active voice makes the scene more immediate and urgent. The passive voice slows everything down.
• Editors never use the phrase "Show, don't tell" because they think the words sound pretty together. When you see that phrase, take it to heart. Showing versus telling makes the difference between meh and amazing. It is the plastic roses bought at a dollar store on clearance versus a fresh bouquet from one of the nicest florist shops in town. Always act on this directive when an editor tells you it is needed.

These are just a few things I've seen needing fixed over and over during my time as a writer and editor. When you get an editorial letter, it isn't a time for weeping and feeling terrible. It's a time to be excited to jump into your work and make it better than it was before. I love that Kirk was such an amazing editor that he inspired me to be better than I was. Thanks, Kirk. I know law school was the right choice for you, but that doesn't mean you aren't sorely missed in my life.

CS Lewis has this quote:

“Imagine yourself a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, you can understand what he is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping up the leaks in the roof and so on. You knew that these jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently, he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and seems not to make sense. What on earth is he up to?

The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought. He is throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage, but he is building a palace."

Your manuscript is your house. Build a palace.

A Primer on Using an Electronic Edit

A popular post from October 2012

by Annette Lyon

So you’ve hired an editor to go over your manuscript, and you’ve gotten the electronic file back. It’s covered in changes—additions, deletions, comments, and formatting.

How do you work with such a file? Do you pull up your original version, looking at them side by side, and make one change at a time? Sure, you could.

You could also count a haystack one piece of hay at a time—a laborious and awfully inefficient method.

As editors, sometimes we forget that clients haven’t worked with Word’s Track Changes feature before, and we send off a file assuming the person on the other end will be familiar with what they’ll see when they open it, and they'll know what to do with it.

Over the years, I have learned that that’s not always the case. Here’s a primer on how to use the Track Changes feature in Word. Knowing this stuff will make a huge difference in how much time and effort you put into your manuscript when you get your edit back.

Create a New File

The first thing to do when you open your edited file is to save it in your manuscript folder under a new name. You want to keep every version you have separate, so if you ever need to look back at an old version (or revert a section to the way it was), you can. An easy way to do that is by adding the date to the file name, such as: My_Brilliant_Novel-9-1-12.

Using Track Changes

Editors have their personal editing styles and preferences. I like to have deletions show up in the margins in bubbles, and I add comments (also margin bubbles).

When you open a file that I have edited in Microsoft Word, you'll see every change made, including additions (right in the text), plus comments, deletions, and formatting changes in those bubbles in the margins.

If you have a relatively recent version of Word, you can easily accept or reject any change. On the ribbon (that newish, button-covered menu at the top), go to the REVIEW tab.

In the CHANGES group, click the arrow buttons to navigate through the edit. Use NEXT to go to the next change. It will be highlighted. Then you can accept or reject that change and move along with the NEXT button.

If you see a chunk of the edit you're happy with as is, select the section (such as a full a sentence, several lines, or words, a paragraph, etc.) and click either the ACCEPT or REJECT button. That will accept (or reject) all of the changes in that part and move to the next change. 

The same goes for rejecting changes in large chunks—select the section and click REJECT. The ACCEPT and REJECT buttons are next to each other, so they’re easy to find and use.

Additions
Be sure to look for vertical lines in the left margin. Those indicate an addition-type change in a line. If there's been no deletion or format change (which show up in the right margin in bubbles), you could easily miss a change such as an inserted hard return, space, or punctuation mark.

Note: When you think you're done with the edit, do a final search for changes using the NEXT button. This will help you track down any lingering changes (likely additions) you missed.

Comment Bubbles

Search for comments (also under the REVIEW tab) to read and address those, although you can also do that as you move through the Track Changes. When you're done with a comment, simply right-click on it and choose DELETE COMMENT from the menu.

Note: As with searching for edits, be sure to search for comments one final time when you’re done with your edit to be sure they’re all gone!

Next Step: Proofreading

After you've gone through the accept/reject process, it's worth reading through the entire file to proofread it. It’s a good idea to have another reader (or two!) proofread it as well, because it's easy for an author's or editor's eyes (someone who's already familiar with the text) to fill in what's supposed to be there and miss errors. (This is why I almost never proof a book I also edited. The only exception is if the edit and proof are months apart so my brain has forgotten most of it.)

A good proofer will catch about 80% of mistakes, which is why it's wise to have multiple people proofread your work. With any luck, the 20% one person misses will be caught by someone else's 80%.

Inline View

Some clients prefer to see track changes inline instead of in margin balloons. (So you’d see a strikeout through a word that’s been deleted, but it’s still on the line of text, along with an inserted new word.) If you fall in this category and receive an edit from someone like me who uses balloons, you can switch the view and then use the same Accept/Reject process as with the bubble view.

To switch the view to in-line Track Changes, follow these steps (for Word 10—I imagine other versions have a similar method):

-On the ribbon menu at the top of the screen, click the Review tab.
-In the Tracking Group, next to the Track Changes button, you'll see smaller menu options.
-Click the middle option, Show Markup. A drop-down menu will appear.
-Hover over where it says Balloons, and another menu will show up.
-Click Show All Revisions Inline.

More and more editing is done electronically. I believe about 95% of Precision Editing Group’s work is electronic, which is also why we rarely edit manuscripts in WordPerfect. (It’s the superior word processor in almost every respect except this one; it has no Track Changes feature. That, and Word is the industry standard now, thanks to Bill Gates.)

Whether you’re hiring an editor or waiting for the editor at your publishing house to return your edit, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with Word’s Track Changes feature. When you receive an electronic edit back, you’ll know just what to do with it, saving you time—and, likely, prevent new gray hairs.

Department of Redundancy Department

A popular post from April 2010

by Annette Lyon

We all know that a rough draft is needs revisions. (That's why it's called rough, right?)

One area of revision that seems to elude many beginning writers is something that is quite easily fixed when it's pointed out to them.

So today, I'm talking about a few of those, most of which have some element of unneeded repetition (that alone is redundant).

Dead wood.

Watch for words that don't have a strong enough job and might as well be cut.

It's easy to slip in dead wood when you forget that your own voice can actually be a good thing, that there's no reason to create an elevated tone.

Elevated tones quite often slip into wordy and redundant passages that have more padding than substance because the writer thinks in the early stages that they sound cool. While the following example is made up, I see this kind of thing frequently:

They walked by foot until they came to a land known by the people living in the city of Bordon as Bordon City.

(Doesn't walking imply on foot? And why not have them simply walk to Bordon City? Because saying it's "known as the city of . . ." sounds cooler? Bleh.)

Cut that dead wood. Read aloud and mercilessly yank entire paragraphs if they're aren't pulling their weight. Rewrite so they're strong, they're purposeful, and they aren't repetitive.

Even a word or two can be redundant, like "the true fact" (facts by definition are true) or "the famous celebrity" (again, by definition, a celebrity IS famous). Those words are empty. Keep an eye out for small phrases like those that can slip through.

(Your delete key really can be your friend.)

The Um, Duh Factor

As with "walking on foot," avoid adding details that are obvious.

Seeing the sight,

(As opposed to what, seeing the taste? Also: he heard the sound and other variations.)

I noticed an open door to my left. The door was slightly ajar.

(We've already established that the door's as open.)

She nodded her head.

(I don't think there's anything else she can nod besides her head.)

He blinked his eyes.

(Unless he's some freak alien, eyes are the only thing he can blink. Just say he blinked.)

Repeated Sentence Structures . . . Especially Bad Ones

Be careful not to have the same sentence structure for too many sentences. Shake things up a bit. Intense passages do well with short, snappy sentences, while long ones will bog down the pace. On the flip side, when you're focused on an relationship or other emotional (but not anxious) moment, longer sentences can give a different feel. Experiment and play!

A commonly used structure is subject + action + object/preposition/other, such as:

Sam ate the apple on the porch.

Julie sat beside Sam.

Sam didn't share the apple with Julie.

Boring, no?

So shake it up. Vary the length of sentences, the order things are shared in.

NOTE: Try to keep events in chronological order so the reader can experience and feel them with the character. If you describe a character's reaction to an event before we learn of it, we can't sympathize.

For example, DON'T do this:

She gasped and screamed, feeling like her lungs were ready to burst when she saw the dead body.

Let us SEE the dead body first. Show it. Then we'll gasp and scream right along with your character. It's hard to evoke emotions in your reader when they don't know why they're supposed to feel a certain way.

-ING!

One common (and horribly awkward) way of structuring a sentence is using a gerund phrase at the beginning. (Using an -ING verb phrase).

I won't say to NEVER use this structure, because it can work. But please, please, please, don't rely on it. Keep the use to a minimum and for a specific feel.

Here's what I mean:

Looking at the door, she reached for the knob. Opening the door, she saw who was on the other side. Smiling, she greeted the UPS man.

Why -ING openings don't usually work:

• For starters, English doesn't sound natural like this. If your story doesn't sound natural to the reader, they'll put it down and find something else that does sound real.
• It's easy to inadvertently describe two actions that you cannot do simultaneously. This pulls the reader right out because the structure implies that both are happening at the same time. ("Stepping out of the shower and grabbing her robe, she answered the door." Really? I bet the person on the other side got an eyeful.)
• Finally, this structure simply looks amateurish. (What, you couldn't find a more powerful way of saying it? You had to rely on an -ING phrase? A hundred times?)

As usual, don't worry too much about these things in the drafting stage. Let your creative brain have fun in its sandbox. These are issues to address when playtime is over and the editor hat comes out of the drawer.

Your work really will outshine much of what's out there if you can avoid repeating yourself and saying the same thing more than once. Like being redundant Again and again. :-D

Why 50 Pages?

A popular post from May 2010

by Annette Lyon

"I want PEG to edit my entire novel."

When we hear that, of course we're excited. We love what we do, and we love helping writers. But instead of telling the client to send the whole puppy over, we usually request the first 50 pages, or sometimes only 30.

Clients' natural reaction is, "Um, why?"

After all, they're planning on using our services for the entire manuscript; why not send the whole thing at once?

For that matter, some people have even wondered if we're nuts based on a pure business perspective: Why in the world wouldn't we willingly take on 350 pages to edit (and charge for) and instead settle for 50?

So here's the scoop . . . and why it's in everyone's best interest that we generally function this way.

Case in point:

(This really happened recently, but it's also happened more times than I can count.)

PEG often gives free 10-page edits so the client can get an idea of whether we're a good fit. I did one such 10-page edit for a client, who then wanted their entire book edited.

GREAT! Right?

The client was instructed to send the next 50 pages. The client was confused. "I said I wanted you to edit the entire book."

The client pushed the issue, but Heather, our fantastic manager, held her ground and had me work on the next 50 pages.

I can honestly say those pages had some great potential. The writer had talent. But yes, it did need a pretty solid edit. There were several sections that needed smoothing out, clarifying, more showing details, and the like, but overall I thought it had some serious promise.

On the other hand, if I'd worked on the whole thing up front, all I would have done is repeat the same commentary and suggestions over and over again.

Almost like, "See the notes on pages 12, 29, 42, and 83. You're doing it again." That kind of redundant advice gets meaningless and wastes everyone's time.

Instead, we aim for the writer to learn how to write better by getting mini lessons through an edit of the first part of their work. Then they can learn how to fix many of the problems throughout the rest.

In the case above, I returned the 50 pages. The client soon e-mailed me back saying that a light bulb had basically gone off. They'd learned so much from the edit on those first pages that now they knew how to write better.

"I'm going to revise the rest before sending it back to you for editing."

Bingo.

That's exactly why we work this way.

If a writer can be taught how to make their work better simply by getting a detailed, 50-page edit, then they should have that opportunity. We'd hate to have them paying six times the amount to learn the lessons they could have figured out by page 38 of an edit.

After all, the very same beginner mistakes will almost certainly be made throughout the rest of the book. Why pay an editor to fix the same things over and over and over when you now have the ability to do it yourself?

Not only that, but when you're dealing with content edits, if the plot or other major elements have serious issues, there's really no point in editing too far: so much of the book will need to be rewritten that any edits on page 234 won't be relevant anymore.

It's not at all unusual for a writer to get their 50 pages done, go back to revisions, then send the full, revised version. Always, it's a step (or two or three) up from where it would have been had they sent the whole thing in first.

Here's another editing secret:

A single edit can take a book up one level, but it can't take coal and turn it into a diamond. The better a piece is before it reaches an editor's hands, the higher level it'll end up on the other side of the edit.

When an author in this situation rewrites and then sends in the rest of the book for editing, they've brought it to a higher level on their own. That then helps the editor to take the polished version and push it one step above that.

It's amazing to me how well writers learn from getting those initial 50 pages back. It's as if their writer toolbox is suddenly filled up with shiny, new tools. They're able to both see the flaws in their work more easily and know what to do about them.

In the end, not only does the writer get a much bigger bang for their buck this way, but their skill level for future writing goes up right along with the quality of the one piece they had edited.

Everyone wins.

I Think the Best and Expect the Best

A popular post from September 2010

By Julie Wright

My father was once the president of the Optimist International Club. Yes, optimists have a club and yes, they’ve really gone international.

At the age of thirteen, I came home with a mountain of homework to do and plowed into it (this is because I was ugly and unpopular and didn’t really have anything else to do in my life EXCEPT homework). Halfway through the mountain, my dad called.

“I need you to write up a speech and be prepared to give that speech out loud in front of a panel of judges and several hundred other people who are part of my club. I’ll be picking you up in a little less than two hours. Oh, and Julie? You have to wear a dress.” (Okay, fine, he didn’t actually mention the hundreds of people. He left that part as a surprise.)

It seems many of my life altering moments involved being rushed into something before I could think it through well enough to protest, and me wearing a dress. So I wrote a five minute speech on this topic: “I think the best; I expect the best.”

I was thirteen (as I’ve already pointed out). Five minutes of positive thinking for any teenager is quite a stretch. It turns out, this little shin-dig Dad had me go to was a public speaking contest. Lots of kids were entered and most of them were tutored by drama and public speaking coaches. The only public speaking I’d ever done was yelling at my brother in the grocery store. Why my father felt compelled to throw me in the mix at the last minute, I couldn’t really say. Standing in front of all those adults scared me to knee-knocking death.

Of course, I didn’t win. And I actually had the gall to feel badly about not winning. I went with two hours preparation and a dress that didn’t fit (because I never wore dresses back then; my parents were hard pressed to get me to wear shoes), and I had the nerve to feel I should have placed higher than the people who went prepared.

And what might this little trip down memory lane mean?

It means that so often we go into something less than prepared and then get ticked off when it doesn’t turn out the way we think it should.

I meet writers who finish their first novels and immediately begin submitting. And while I congratulate them for the fact that they actually finished a novel, and further congratulate them for having the fortitude it takes to submit, I wonder if they aren’t going into a contest less prepared than their competition.

Did those writers send their manuscripts out to critique groups? Did they receive the right coaching? Did they study up on how to make themselves stand out in the slushpile? Do they know the mechanics of writing? Are they passionate about their manuscript? What are their credentials? Did they even run a spell check before sending in the manuscript?

And worse, those writers (me included back before I knew better) whine when they don’t walk home with a contract in hand. The speech I wrote back then still resonates with me.

I think the best; I expect the best. And something more to take away the prize: I gave my best.

Tips on the First Draft

A popular post from June 2010

I stumbled across this fantastic vlog made by Joanna Penn, writer, speaker, and aspiring novelist, as she chronicles her progress and lessons learned as she writes the first draft of her novel.

It's about 5 minutes long and definitely worth the time.

A few things to note as you watch:

• You may not need a strict outline, but some kind of outline or idea of where you're headed helps.
• You may get an "aha" moment that changes your outline. That's OKAY. (And probably fantastic.)
• Set specific goals for yourself. Personal deadlines are awesome.
• Be realistic. Even though she's thousands of words from crossing the first-draft finish line, Joanna is fully aware that it's a first draft and that after crossing one finish line, there are more ahead: revisions and editing. Lots of both.
• Push yourself to write. Don't wait for the muse. The muse may well show up in the middle of a session you forced yourself into.
• Research can not only make your story more accurate, but it can make it come alive and even spark plot and character ideas.

Define IT

A popular post from June 2010

by Annette Lyon

I didn't realize until I kept seeing the same thing cross my desk (or, um, monitor) literally dozens of times that one very common way of telling is often overlooked.

Here's the awesome news: this kind of telling is really easy to change into showing. (Easy is the kind of fix we all like, right?)

So what's the weak telling I'm talking about?

When the words THAT and IT are too vague.

Most of the time, sure, the reader will technically know what you're referring to, but if you'd just define IT or THAT, you'd be showing us rather than telling.

For example, you write:

I knew THAT hurt him.

Okay, so chances are we know, thanks to context, what THAT refers to. But what if you were to be more specific? Can you SHOW us?

Switch out THAT with what it refers to:

I knew my words hurt him.

Zing! So much more powerful.

Let's try another:

IT felt like family.

WHAT felt like family? Show us by defining IT:

Being with them felt like family.

OR

Dinner that night felt like family.

And one more:

IT would make things easier.

WHAT would make things easier? Define IT:

Breaking off their relationship now would make things easier.

Simple yet so effective.

In rough drafts, most of us add those extra words without giving the issue much thought. No problem. But when you're going through revisions, try this: search for THIS, IT, and even THAT.

Not every instance will fall under this category, but of those that do, see how many you can replace with showing details. Be specific.

You don't want to get wordy, so there may be places where IT and THAT fit better.

But don't assume as much. Look at each case to see if defining those words with detail makes for a stronger sentence.

Trust me; it can pack a huge punch.

Wait. Try that again: Trust me; defining IT and THAT can pack a huge punch.

Yep. Much better.

Types of Editing

A popular post from August 2010

By Heather Moore

I recently turned in a manuscript to my publisher. Although I’m thrilled to have completed another manuscript, I’m thinking of the editing process with some trepidation.

Once you have a publishing contract, you might think the publisher has forgotten about you for awhile. “When will I get to work with my editor?” you might ask. Be careful what you wish for. Although I have been lucky enough so far to have editors who’ve allowed fair give-and-take throughout the editing process, the editing process continues to be daunting.

When I finish my manuscript, I send out the book to several alpha readers on my own. When I get their comments back, I go through my manuscript and revise. So by the time I turn in the manuscript to my publisher, I feel I’m well into the editing process. Yet, from the publisher’s perspective, it has only begun.

Steps of editing that you might face (or look forward to):

Phase 1: General evaluations from the readers who were hired by your publisher to see if your manuscript is marketable and fits the line-up of the publisher.
Your Job: Revise according to suggestions and resubmit

Phase 2: Your assigned editor will read through book and make general comments. Sometimes this might come back very detailed or more overall plot/character/etc. issues.
Your Job: Revise, discuss, revise again, with editor

Phase 3: After both you and the editor are pleased with the book, the manuscript moves onto the copy editing stage (or line editing). My publisher uses two different copy editors for this stage
Your Job: Review copy edit, approve changes, or revise accordingly. This stage is really the last chance to change anything in your manuscript.

Phase 4: Proofreading. Once the copyedits are finalized, the manuscript is transposed into book layout form. Also called the galley stage or the typeset version. My publisher uses two proofreaders to check formatting and look for typos or other errors.
Your Job: Some writers leave it up to the proofreader, but I like to print out a hard copy and, yes, painstakingly read through it again. During this stage it’s very hard to change more than a word or two since a sentence addition or deletion often changes the layout of the page and/or chapter.

The good news is that with all of these stages of editing, your book will get much stronger, much tighter, and become something to be proud of.

Self-Publishing: Are You Ready?

A popular post from May 2012.

by Annette Lyon

Often I find blog post topics thanks to questions people direct at me. This week is no different; I've had several people, from aspiring writers to professional editors, ask me about the self-publishing boom, and specifically, about whether it's worth hiring an editor before uploading a book.

The short answer is YES, absolutely! I don't care if you're a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. You must be edited. Everyone needs to be edited. (Go back to THIS POST for a refresher as to why!)

But for the longer, more detailed answer:

The biggest mistake I see with writers eager to self-publish is that they publish too soon, without taking years to develop the writing chops to create a great book. Some authors also jump in feet first without learning about the market and the industry, not knowing that self-publishing isn't for everyone, and that traditional publishing is still alive and well, and may be the better option for them.

The truth is, waiting is hard. I get that. I really do. But it's worth it. Even the biggest successes with self-publishing (like the crazy successful Amanda Hocking) spent years writing multiple books to learn the craft before hitting that publish button.

So here's my advice for any writer starting out, geared particularly for those considering the self-publishing route:

1) Write your story. Then: revise, revise, revise. A lot.

2) After you've gotten it as good as you can make it, get critiques.
This means having people read it who will be honest. Note I said people. That's plural. You need several people to weigh in so you get a well rounded view of your work for both its strengths and weaknesses. And that doesn't mean Mom.

3) Revise, revise, revise, again. 

You may end up doing this for several complete manuscripts before you're really ready for the public to read your work. There's the famous 10,000 hours you must put into a craft before you master it. There's the million words you must write that a lot of people quote as saying you must put in before you write anything good. While those numbers are daunting, and possibly not true for everyone, they're a pretty decent benchmark.

Even if you have talent, there's a good chance you need to learn, and that means writing tons, getting lots of feedback, reading books on writing, attending conferences. You know, all the things we've been talking about on this blog for, oh, forever.

Feel you're ready for a professional edit? Whether you go through PEG or someone else, here are some things to keep in mind:

1) Consider getting a content edit first. 
This means that you won't be getting the nitty-gritty stuff with fixing comma splices and dangling modifiers. This is like a professional critique on big-picture issues: The plot sags here. This character's motivation isn't believable there. That description doesn't work. The conflict is weak. And so on.

After a content edit (and you may be lucky enough to have skilled friends who can do that for you), revise again.

2) Get a line edit.
This is the nitty-gritty, where the editor smooths out your sentences, gets rid of passive voice, fixes grammar and punctuation, and so forth. Basically, where the editor makes you look even better, polished.

Here's something you may not want to hear: It's not a bad idea to get more than one line edit. Publishers often do two or more on one book. If you hope to have a successful self-published book, you need to put in the same resources and effort into polishing it as the pros do. (Because you want to be a pro, right? Right.)

3) PROOF the book.
I've known people who get a professional edit, accept all the tracked changes, and immediately upload the book for sale.

Bad, bad, bad idea. 

For one thing, you may not agree with every change the editor made. For another, mistakes will creep in, no matter how talented the editor (who is human and therefore fallible). You must proof the book. Preferably, you'll have at least three skilled people go through it. If you're doing an e-book, do another proof on an e-reader to make sure it looks right on the device.

In an editing class during my university studies, my professor said that a good proofer will catch about 80% of errors. This is why she required three students to go over any manuscript destined for the university press. The hope was that the 20% any one proofer missed would be caught by the 80% from the other two.

A great example: I recently proofed Abel Keogh's self-published book, Marrying a Widower. I consider myself to be a good proofer, but he wisely had more than one person proof it. (Was I offended? Heck, no. When I heard he had another proofer, I thought that YES! Abel gets it! He's a total pro!) In both of his non-fiction self-published books, readers have found a couple of minor typos, even with all the (professional!) work put into them. And that's a good error rate.

His books are doing very well, and they've been received with respect. That's partly because he's written a couple of great books with wonderful content, but it's also because he took the time (and money) to create a professional presentation for them.

I shudder to imagine what what the result would have been had he cut corners. But he didn't, and as a result, he's a self-publishing success story.

Doing it all yourself takes time, not only with editing and proofing, but with layout and cover design. (Another place to absolutely not skimp!)

So is the investment worth it? 
Unequivocally, yes, that is, if you hope to be taken seriously and have any kind of sales or success.

On the flip side, if you think that hiring professionals for these services is too much, you simply won't sell many books, and your reviews will be awful, which feeds the low-sales problem. In short, skimp on editing, proofing, layout, and cover design, you'll end up with a sub-par product.

For that matter, self-publishing in the digital age has gotten a bad rap because of people doing everything I said not to: they rush the process, too eager to upload work that simply isn't ready.

While you're unlikely to have the success of JA Konrath or Amanding Hocking, you can still sell books and get royalties . . . but only if you put in the necessary work to make sure your book shines.

This is one more reason why a large number of successful self-published e-book authors are the ones who were traditionally published first, who then put up their back list as e-book titles. Those books had already been through professional editing and  had already gone through the vetting, revision, and proofing process.

Need more convincing? Read this post by Elizabeth Craig and her teenage son's experience with a poorly edited e-book.

Don't be tempted to cut corners. It's not worth it!

Stages of Editing

A popular post from May 2014

By Heather B. Moore

At the recent LDS Storymakers Writers Conference, I taught the class on Navigating the World of Revisions (without burning your manuscript to a crisp). No matter how many books you write or how many you have published, you will still have to go through editing. And it will be painful every time. Not that you won't see the value of it, but it's work--hard work.

Here is a run-down of what to expect when working with a traditional publisher. If you are self-publishing, you need to also mirror this editing process because you are now competing with the traditional publishers.

1. Beta Readers. When do you need Beta Readers? Always. Change up your beta readers with each manuscript. Customize to your subject matter. Vary your readers, ie another writer, someone knowledgeable in subject, someone who is a good technical editor, those in your target market, the most outspoken person in your book club.

2. Critique Groups: Pros: several opinions at once, motivational, accountability, great support system. Cons: time investment, give and take, differing visions and goals. 

3. Acquisition Editors: First to review query or manuscript and determines if manuscript is a possible fit. Rejection a high possibility at this stage. Sends to evaluators or next stage acquisitions. Usually is the contact person with author until book is accepted.


4. Content Editors (Developmental Editors): Once your book is under contract, you’ll be assigned an editor (in house or on contract). Developmental Editor focuses on structure, plot, characterization, conflict, pacing, etc. You are typically given 2-3 weeks to work on revisions. 

5. Copyediting: You’ll have 1 or 2 copyeditors go through your manuscript. Technical considerations, sentence structure, punctuation, grammar, consistency errors. Some publishers let you review the copyedits, some don’t.

6. Proofreading: Proofreaders look for errors and any formatting issues in the typeset version. I always ask for a chance to proofread as well. Then I double check that my corrections were put in correctly… Each stage of editing presents an opportunity for new errors to be made. 

7. Contract editors: In-house editors are those who work for the publisher, usually at their on-site location, for 40+ hours a week. They only have so many hours they can spend on each project. Contract editors are often used when there is a large line-up and the in-house editors are swamped. Contract editors are freelancers who may or may not have regular work from the publisher. They may be commissioned for any of the editing stages.