Editor — Substantive and Copyediting: Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy
I had a lovely holiday with family, and now I’m back in the office looking at the two manuscripts on my desk.
In the spirit of the season, my mother had asked me if I would like one of those “I am the grammarian about whom your mother warned you” shirts. I graciously declined, and pointed her toward my Grammar Vampires post.
However, in the process of browsing related things, I did come across the irritable vowels shirt. (second item on the page)
I never have days like that.
1. Choose names for members of a culture that follow a cultural thread.
Names don’t have to be so similar that they’re indistinct, or rhyme, or all have the same vowel-consonant patterns. But in most successful science fiction or fantasy, names from a given culture have at least something in common.
Think about the ways you can tell a Spanish name from a Russian name from a Korean name, for instance.
Now think about how you can tell a Vulcan name from a Klingon name. You’d know just from the name what kind of creature you’d be expecting to meet, wouldn’t you?
2. Choose distinct names.
As a general rule of thumb, two characters in a book shouldn’t have the same first name unless there’s a specific plot-related reason for them to do so. The same goes for names that sound or look similar. Don’t create that confusion for your readers unless you have a reason to. You’ll be throwing a lot of names at your readers at once, most likely: characters, places, objects and concepts. They’ll be trying to integrate and remember all of these names while they’re trying to follow your story and get the context of the world you’ve created, all at the same time. Don’t confuse them by making them keep ‘Jazon’ and ‘Jaxom’ straight in their heads.
3. Don’t make your job more difficult than you have to.
The more complicated a name is (or the more apostrophes it has in it) the greater your chances are to screw it up. Be aware of complicated strings of vowels or consonants, doubled consonants, and the dreaded apostrophe. Names can and do drift and change over the course of writing a novel. The more complicated your naming scheme is, the more likely it is that you will slip. Apostrophes present complications all their own. Don’t even get me started on what a joy it is to go through and fix four hundred pages of inconsistent straight- and smart-quotes.
4. Don’t make your readers’ job more difficult than you have to.
If your readers can’t pronounce your characters’ names… they won’t. This will not only inhibit them from forming an emotional connection with your characters or keeping them distinct as they read, but it will inhibit them from talking about your book with others, too.
If your readers can’t spell your characters’ names, they won’t. If you’re lucky, they’ll find some abbreviation or nickname for the characters, and if you’re very lucky, they won’t be derogatory. If you’re not so lucky, they simply won’t write about them (or write reviews, or discuss them online and advertise your book through the grapevine) at all.
Your editor is hard at work. I’m juggling three manuscripts, with a fourth soon on the way, and I’m trying to clear my desk before the holidays. If I haven’t been around in the usual places — Twitter, Skype, or wherever you might normally find me — now you know why.
One common thread I’ve found through the fiction and the non-fiction I’ve been working on lately, and even in some of the social forums I dip into, is the proper handling of words relating to our online experience.
Since these are issues I find myself looking up and referencing time and again, I thought that I would share my references in one convenient place.
Chicago Manual of Style informs us that Web site should be two words, and the same goes for Web page, and that while the capital W may become obsolete someday, that day has not yet come. For now, we still recognize Web as a proper noun, short for World Wide Web.
Similarly, capital-I Internet is the preferred usage. However, online has edged out the previously preferred “on-line”, by virtue of its inclusion in the American Heritage (4th ed., 2000) dictionary.
E-mail retains its hyphen for now, and is capitalized when it begins a sentence.
Are contracts really necessary? Isn’t making someone sign a contract for editing work like saying you don’t trust them to pay?
There’s a lot more to a contract than just “Ha! Now you HAVE to pay me!” and “Ha! Now you HAVE to do the work!”
Contracts set out the expectations of both parties. If I’m editing for you, you want to know exactly what I’m going to do to your manuscript, how I’m going to do it, and when it’s going to be done. I want the assurance that I’m getting paid at a rate we’ve agreed on, and that I’m getting credit for my work. I want to make clear up front exactly how much work that rate of pay is buying.
Don’t think of a contract as a statement of distrust, it’s the handshake at the end of the negotiation. It’s the opportunity to list out expectations and agree upon them before the work starts, so that the needs of both parties are met and there are no sudden changes or last minute surprises later.
There may be a temptation to handwave the whole contract process for a simple job, or a quick job, or a cheap job, or a job from someone you trust. Don’t. I get a signed contract from every writer who hires me, or a purchase order from every larger company. Get into the habit of creating contracts and invoices, and getting anything to do with terms or payments in writing. For tax purposes, you’ll need to. And some day, some sort of discrepancy may pop up, and having a signed agreement to reference for clarification may make all the difference between a frustrating negotiation and a smooth one.
There’s a great sample contract available for download from Editors’ Association of Canada. I’ve used this as a base and modified it for my own purposes; they invite anyone to do the same.
Congratulations to Philippa Ballantine — her novel Digital Magic has been nominated for a Sir Julius Vogel award.
I was privileged to work with Pip on Digital Magic, so this is exciting on a personal level, as well. She’s a great writer and podcaster, and it’s always a treat to work on a novel with her. I wish Pip and Digital Magic all the best!
How many spaces should you put after a period?
In this electronic day and age, this editor’s preference is for one space, please.
Hitting the spacebar twice after a period is something a lot of us (of a certain age) learned in school. It’s a hotly debated topic, mostly because it’s a practice that becomes so deeply ingrained that people bristle at the suggestion that they unlearn it.
Putting two spaces after a period is a vestigial practice from the days of monospace typewriter fonts. An extra space was needed to help the eye to differentiate the end of a sentence. The extra space was also used in manuscripts to give proofreaders more room to fit in symbols or remarks.
The proportional fonts and justified margins of modern publishing have made that second space obsolete. One space after a period is the industry standard now for an electronically-submitted manuscript.
(That is to say, if you submit your manuscript to me with two spaces, I’ll be going through and changing it all to one space, myself. Even with macros and shortcuts to automate the process, can I tell you just how much I love doing that?)
For the final word, I direct you to the hallowed Chicago Manual of Style’s ruling on the subject:
[...] Introducing two spaces after the period causes problems: (1) it is inefficient, requiring an extra keystroke for every sentence; (2) even if a program is set to automatically put an extra space after a period, such automation is never foolproof; (3) there is no proof that an extra space actually improves readability[...]; (4) two spaces are harder to control for than one in electronic documents (I find that the earmark of a document that imposes a two-space rule is a smattering of instances of both three spaces and one space after a period, and two spaces in the middle of sentences); and (5) two spaces can cause problems with line breaks in certain programs.
This morning, I went for a haircut.
It wasn’t a very good haircut. It was mediocre, maybe, at best. The problem I had with it was that my stylist didn’t want to express any opinions. I would say, “I’d kind of like a change. I’m thinking about doing this, but I’m not sure how it would look on me. What do you think?” And she would answer, “I don’t know. It’s up to you. Do you want that or not?”
There are some professionals whom we pay to do us a service the way we want it done. There are some professionals, though, whom we pay for their experience and their professional opinions. I want a hair stylist who’s going to give me the most flattering cut for my hair, or at least one who’ll be willing to offer me solicited advice on what that cut might be.
As I was sitting in the chair settling for a nothing’s-changed sort of trim, I was thinking about how this applies to editing. Just this morning, I had written a client with a suggestion for rewording of a problem paragraph. In this case, professional expertise, experience, and understanding of what he wanted, combined with a willingness to point out problem areas and offer constructive solutions. He didn’t end up going with my suggestion, but the things I pointed out guided him to reword a much smoother and stronger finished result…Exactly the sort of feedback I wished I’d gotten, to help guide my own decision.
Sometimes a client just needs a simple proofread for obvious errors and there isn’t much in the way of professional opinion involved. More often, on a more substantive edit, the editor’s opinion and expertise are just as valuable as technical skill. If you have the leeway to do so, don’t be afraid to point out weak spots and make suggestions that will make a book better. It’s still the client’s decision, but your feedback helps to make that decision an informed one.
