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a penny from Cheryll: authors, editors, commas & such
I know authors and assigned editors sometimes have sniffy relationships; but when it works the way it's supposed to, the editing process serves authors and their works (and publishers) very well.
There is a huge difference among various editorial functions. These range from acquisitions editor (or executive editor or managing editor or senior editor) to developmental editor, manuscript editor, and copyeditor. There is an equally huge difference between categories--fiction or nonfiction--plus the many subgroups of these: novel form, short story, poetry; creative, academic, technical, to name but a few.
I speak here of manuscript editing, which is sometimes called copyediting--although many of us make a distinction between the two.
In all cases, manuscript editors (and/or copyeditors) should serve as helpmates to authors. An experienced editor does a great deal of hand-holding and is always deferential to the author. He or she takes on the responsibility for grappling with the hobgoblins that drive authors to distraction and put their muses to sleep or into a snit: everything from trade names (marking jello as Jell-O) and spelling (the tractor is a John Deere [not a John Deer]; "I believe you mean this to be the word discreet rather than the word discrete") to pointing out repetitive words and disjointed rhythm, to safeguarding consistency--characters' names, locations, time, season, and so on. The manuscript editor must protect the author's intent and the integrity of research--and make sure the manuscript complies in all ways with the house guidelines. Much of this has to do with the mechanics of language and veers off into format.
It is easy to see that there are different rules and approaches between, say, a historical novel and an academic text. But even within these subgroups, no single approach ever fits all.
Many authors resist being edited because they think--and sometimes this is based on unfortunate experience--that the editor will try to push them into places they don't want to go. Force them at pencil-point to use serial commas. Make them change the names of their characters. Revise their plot, misconstrue their findings, mess up the pace of their story. As a result, they submit manuscripts with snow falling in July, the maid Edna becoming the maid Emily in the tenth chapter, and the hero picking up a flashlight at noon. Perhaps the setting is the southern hemisphere, the maid has multiple personalities, and the hero must take action during a solar eclipse. If so, of course they should stand. If not, the editor must bring them to the author's attention. These sorts of errors (plus typos and unintentional grammar garbles) disconcert publishers; cause eruptions (and cost overruns) during the production phase; and, if allowed to slip through, annoy readers no end. Gadflies among them write letters posthaste.
You can glean from this how I react when I read of an editor waggling a finger in an author's face while insisting the author follow at all times in all respects The Chicago Manual of Style. If that editor will inspect her Chicago, she will find explicitly stated in section 2.56 (15th ed.) and implicitly stated throughout that the style and preference of the author must be respected. It is the editor's job to make the author's life easier. It is most definitely not the author's responsibility to make the editor's life easier. That would be like cleaning your house before the housekeeper arrives. If you have a housekeeper who comes in and shrieks, "Look at that dining room. What a mess you've made of it! And look how you've dirtied your bathtub!" then you have the wrong housekeeper.
This is one of my two cents on this topic. The second I'll post tomorrow.
October 17, 2005 12:50 AM
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Comments
Cheryll - thanks for this detailed explanation. I'm a writer making her living in journalism, but one day I hope to write a book of some sort. In the meantime, a friend just gave me her manuscript to read, and I'm not sure how much editing she wants done. For all I know, she just wants me to come back and heap praise on her. And though I like the book, it needs a lot of work. Hope she's up for it, because I'm excited about working on it.
And Sara - nice new header, but it's missing something. Polkadots, I think.
Posted by: sarandipity at October 17, 2005 10:02 AM
polka dots. polka dots. OF COURSE.
Posted by: sara at October 18, 2005 12:33 PM