Re: Copy Editing and Hammers
Aug. 11th, 2025 07:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynling> What's the point of copy editing if you have no sense of style?
Sorry I'm not done yet.
When it comes to matters of style, a writer will sometimes bend grammatical rules to make their prose more interesting and enjoyable to read. This sort of playfulness is obnoxious if overused, but it can be fun in moderation.
To give an example, I have this one sentence in my story where I'm like: "The room was cluttered with A and B and C and D." The point of breaking grammatical rules in this instance is that the sentence is cluttered like the room is cluttered. Also, the sentence is written in perfect iambic pentameter to convey that the clutter is pleasing in its own way.
Again, it's annoying if every sentence is like this, but you'd think an attentive reader would come across this particular sentence and maybe smile a little. Most readers wouldn't notice the structure of the sentence at all, but perhaps they'd have a clearer sense of how the room looks and feels. The copy editor, on the other hand, saw the sentence and wanted to give me a lecture on grammar.
She also seemed to have trouble understanding that, even though a character might privately think one thing, there are circumstances in which they would say something else to be polite. This is not an inconsistency; it's basic characterization.
Once again, this can be obnoxious if the reader is expected to make connections that only exist in the writer's mind, but sometimes a character is going to need to say something they don't truly believe. Real people do this too. To be polite in social situations.
I guess there are two points to take away from this. First, I should be more specific about what I want from a copy editing job. And second, experiences like this make me somewhat hesitant to spend actual money (ie, hundreds of dollars) to hire an editor for a longer project. Getting clueless and unnecessary feedback is actively harmful in that it makes me second-guess whether what I'm writing is accessible to the lowest common denominator of TikTok girlies who only read YA romance. Nobody needs to write like that.
Sorry I'm not done yet.
When it comes to matters of style, a writer will sometimes bend grammatical rules to make their prose more interesting and enjoyable to read. This sort of playfulness is obnoxious if overused, but it can be fun in moderation.
To give an example, I have this one sentence in my story where I'm like: "The room was cluttered with A and B and C and D." The point of breaking grammatical rules in this instance is that the sentence is cluttered like the room is cluttered. Also, the sentence is written in perfect iambic pentameter to convey that the clutter is pleasing in its own way.
Again, it's annoying if every sentence is like this, but you'd think an attentive reader would come across this particular sentence and maybe smile a little. Most readers wouldn't notice the structure of the sentence at all, but perhaps they'd have a clearer sense of how the room looks and feels. The copy editor, on the other hand, saw the sentence and wanted to give me a lecture on grammar.
She also seemed to have trouble understanding that, even though a character might privately think one thing, there are circumstances in which they would say something else to be polite. This is not an inconsistency; it's basic characterization.
Once again, this can be obnoxious if the reader is expected to make connections that only exist in the writer's mind, but sometimes a character is going to need to say something they don't truly believe. Real people do this too. To be polite in social situations.
I guess there are two points to take away from this. First, I should be more specific about what I want from a copy editing job. And second, experiences like this make me somewhat hesitant to spend actual money (ie, hundreds of dollars) to hire an editor for a longer project. Getting clueless and unnecessary feedback is actively harmful in that it makes me second-guess whether what I'm writing is accessible to the lowest common denominator of TikTok girlies who only read YA romance. Nobody needs to write like that.
no subject
Date: 2025-08-11 02:30 pm (UTC)Fun fact! The use of more conjunctions than you actually need to create some type of effect is a rhetorical device with a long and respected history.
My IRL job title contains the word "editor"; it's a position I accepted out of a naive hope that I could help people get their ideas across more cleanly and accurately. I find that my colleagues are all weird pedants who want to split hairs about arbitrary word usage conventions, ask ChatGPT what an infinitive is, and not even attempt to understand the substance of what they're reading.
So often in the wild I read shit and think "man, imagine how much better this could have been with an editor!" But I am probably underestimating how many times people really did engage an editor and the editor, like the one you spoke to and the ones I work with, simply did a bad job.
no subject
Date: 2025-08-12 01:24 pm (UTC)It's been my experience that good editors are worth their weight in gold. Editing at all levels is an art that I greatly admire.
My own writing could definitely benefit from editorial work, always. Every time I've professionally published something - which isn't often, but still - I get back editorial comments that are so brilliant and obvious that it's almost painful. Not painful in the sense that I feel embarrassed, but painful in the sense of being suddenly exposed to unadulterated insight. Like Lovecraftian, almost.
Because I knew there'd be disparities, I decided to experiment and hire three freelance copy editors to work on this story. The last one to return the manuscript has a light touch and a good sense of humor, and I think she's a keeper. I'm happy she exists. I'm happy you exist, too!
As for your colleagues... I've gotten insane peer reviews from people like that, and I'm convinced that they have their own special place in Hell. And they're probably sicko enough to enjoy it.
Anyway, I gave this particular editor five stars and a large tip. It's my god-given right to vent on my stupid little blog, but in my heart I wish her well at (what I now assume is probably) the start of her editing career. Hopefully her work will improve with experience.