My Editor is Old School

[lagilman]

if this appears twice, it means Dreamwidth has decided to crosspost after all



Last week, I got an email from Madame Editrix, saying she had read the manuscript for FIXED (Gin & Tonic #2) and loved it. And that I should prepare for incoming notes.

(Because no book is so good that a good editor can't show you how to make it better. That's me saying that, not her. Although she totally would, too.)

In these Modern Times, usually an announcement like that would lead to checking my email for the above-referenced editorial letter. Hell, even when I was back at Penguin in the early 2000s, we were doing it that way, and all the editing work I do for d.y.m.k now is digital....

But Madame Editrix, she is Old School. She sends me a marked-up manuscript. Yes, actual paper (a printout of the file I'd sent her). With an actual pencil.

0-0

It's...kind of adorable. And weirdly reassuring. A reminder that for all that's changed in this industry, all the long-term and overnight disruptions, it really does still come down to this: words. On a page. Marked up and moved around, until they're perfect.

And, if I'm very good, little smiley faces in the margins, where I made her laugh.

So today I will be taking my printout and walking away from the computer screen for a while, to read her comments and see what she's scrawled, and think about murder, mayhem and misdirection in a calm, off-screen manner.

(there will still be caffeine, of course. Caffeine is a constant, no matter what tech you use)

I confess, I'm still not quite sure i feel like a mystery writer. Maybe that's because it's Ms. Kornetsky, not me? Or maybe it will take two or three books to settle into that skin. But this, the editing and being edited side? It always feels right.



Oh, and for those of you who've somehow missed out on COLLARED, the first book in the series? Click Here.

Comments

[etcet.livejournal.com]

She is not alone in doing things that way; I made my writerghoulie (her term for herself) ship me a hardcopy of her first self-revised draft of her latest (http://www.ajaalto.com/?attachment_id=2157) manuscript.

... which I proceeded not to make a single red mark upon, because, as you noted, there were Things What Need Fixin' at a level beyond what a line-level corrective pass would warrant. Several paragraphs' worth of questions, suggestions, and "you obviously cut a scene that explains what the fuck is going on to get to this point" notes were emailed to the author.

Once the structural problems are addressed and it's time to buff and polish it? Oh hell yes - I even bought a new pack of my preferred brand of red pens for the occasion. (In the job for The Company That Does Not Deserve To Be Named, I spent eight hours a day with a red pen, a reading lamp, and a lot of KMFDM on my headset... so, yeah, even us pixel-stained technopeasants (to quote the epithet thrown at lisamantchev) reach for implements of analog destruction when they're the right tool for the job. :-)

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

There's something delicious and terrifying about a marked-up paper manuscript.

[lagilman]

I actually find the editorial letter far more terrifying, since it distills All The Things into clear points I need to Deal With. Line by line edits are gentle, compared to that.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I miss paper edits, I really do.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Dear LJ: a single URL ought not to flag a comment as spam, you fucksocks.

============

Your editrix is not alone in doing things that way; I made my writerghoulie (her term for herself) ship me a hardcopy of her first self-revised draft of her latest manuscript.

... which I proceeded not to make a single red mark upon, because, as you noted, there were Things What Need Fixin' at a level beyond what a line-level corrective pass would warrant. Several paragraphs' worth of questions, suggestions, and "you obviously cut a scene that explains what the fuck is going on to get to this point" notes were emailed to the author.

Once the structural problems are addressed and it's time to buff and polish it? Oh hell yes - I even bought a new pack of my preferred brand of red pens for the occasion. (In the job for The Company That Does Not Deserve To Be Named, I spent eight hours a day with a red pen, a reading lamp, and a lot of KMFDM on my headset... so, yeah, even us pixel-stained technopeasants (to quote the epithet thrown at lisamantchev) reach for implements of analog destruction when they're the right tool for the job. :-)

[lagilman]

For the most part, it's not done that way because it's hella faster to send a digitally-marked-up manuscript, not to mention cheaper. As an editor, I've embraced this - life's easier if you don't have to wrangle pages, especially once a manuscript hits 300+ pages.

(I was one of the editors they test-drove early editing software on, at Berkley. Back then it was crap. These days they're quite good, be it track-changes in Word or some other program.)

I like getting digital markups, myself. It's easier to do the edits when it's all on the same screen/page.

As a writer, I am prone to printing out a draft and marking it up (I'm doing that today, in fact) but then I have to manually enter in all those changes, so it adds another step and uses more time/energy. Used only when I'm pretty sure there's something I need to see from another format, in order to catch/fix.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

True, true. We're not operating under heavy deadline pressure, but I honestly don't enjoy reading anything of substantial length on-screen (I don't own an e-reader of any sort for this reason, in addition to being cash-strapped, though the Nook/Kindle e-ink approach appeals more than some others I've seen - the Kindle application for PC didn't get a lot of traction for me).

Perhaps it's irrational, but I absolutely loathe MSWord's "track changes" feature (a dislike exacerbated by the penchant for almost every shared item at my office to open in "view final (show markup)" by default *twitch*). I don't find it clear, intuitive, or helpful for the way I approach making or receiving corrections, so I'm an underage curmudgeon and luddite. :-)

[fakefrenchie.livejournal.com]

"I absolutely loathe MSWord's "track changes" feature"

I do too.