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Text of the page (random words):
ning and so he a word repeated two or three times in the space of a single sentence overuse of a piece of punctuation such as a semi colon this is also where she corrects any typos or spelling errors and makes the whole thing conform to house style that is the style adopted by a publisher as regards grammar typography spelling and other items house style isn t always something authors can anticipate a british or canadian writer will write colour or neighbour or centre and a publisher whose house style uses american spelling will change these to color and neighbor and center similarly an american writer who describes a car s tires will find a british publisher changing that to tyres if you use a serial or oxford comma when you write we went dining dancing and then to the beach to listen to the surf and the publisher doesn t then expect the line to read we went dining dancing and then to the beach to listen to the surf when your story comes out some publishers use em dashes like so while others use them thusly with a space either side some use single quotes around dialogue others use double quotes house style is a fact of life and there s nothing you as a writer can do except go along with it unless altering something in your text to conform to house style will ruin a vital plot point if the solution of your mystery story hinges on the word kerb being spelled in the british style then you ll have to explain why it can t be spelled curb even though that s the american publisher s house spelling as i said house style can t always be anticipated but what about all the other things turned up in copy and line editing the fact that you wrote just desserts instead of just deserts that your story set in the future mentions the american presidential election of 2014 even though the fixed four year election cycle in the states means there ll be presidential elections in 2012 and 2016 not 2014 that the hero walks across the room and opens the widow no t the window that you write of a river being dissected by a bridge rather than bisected that you ve established your vampire villain can t tolerate silver yet at the end of the book the hero is given a silver ring taken off the vampire s hand as a souvenir of the case that you have the sun rising in the west yes the editor spotted all these well no she didn t the first four are all examples i can recall offhand that weren t picked up in editing and made it through to the published version the last two were picked up prior to seeing print and yes that s one of the reasons she s there it s one of the most compelling arguments against publishing houses getting rid of editors and against editors who do little more than compile an anthology with no real skill or ability to edit in any meaningful sense if an editor makes no edits whatsoever to your story merely bangs it into a text file and sends it back to you to proof ask yourself if your story was really that good that no changes needed to be made to it if you re honest with yourself the answer will be no but and this is a big but it s really up to the writer to go through his story and clear this up before it gets to an editor you ve had your story idea you ve written the tale gone through it again to make sure it hangs together and then wham off it goes to an editor but it s to be hoped that you as the author did more than that before you printed it and put it in an envelope or more likely these days attached it to an e mail and sent it off few things make an editor s heart sink faster than reading a submission chock full of misspelled words poor grammar and erratic punctuation if you didn t care enough to fix all this before you sent it then why should the editor as an author part of your job is to make sure that your finished story is as good as it can possibly be go through it as many times as it takes getting rid of repeated words fixing the grammar and punctuation brushing it up and smoothing it off while spellcheckers are fine after a fashion they won t tell you if it should be complement when you ve typed compliment or that you ve used there instead of their if you know that your grammar is a bit shaky or your spelling not up to par or don t know where to use a colon instead of a semi colon then get someone else who knows what they re doing to read it through before you send your story off and tell them to be honest and critical nice as it is to pass your story off to someone to read and get a short but sweet great story loved it back as a reply that isn t terribly helpful when it comes to polishing your work and making sure you ve got as many of the kinks and errors out of it as possible last but certainly not least comes the proofreading this can as i said sometimes be combined by the editor with the job of line editing although whereas line editors are also lookin g to change word order syntax grammar and punctuation where necessary the proofreader is looking almost strictly for misspellings typographical errors and missing words by the time the proofreader gets to the text it has been set into the format in which it will ultimately appear so correcting obvious mistakes are about the only alterations anyone wants at this stage as extensive changes might throw out formatting or pagination it s for this reason that when ellen hartwell jones sends you the final page proofs of your story to read through she does not want to see them come back with rewrites additions or deletions the time for rewriting or editing your story has come and gone she wants to know if you spotted any mistakes by this stage you will probably have been asked for a biographical note a story note or something combining the two if you re not sure what s wanted then ask if the word count isn t specified your definition of short or brief may not agree with the editor s then make sure you establish an upper limit before you write your 2 000 word essay detailing the story s background genesis development and dénouement this should go without saying but make sure that if you comment on the story you don t put any spoilers in the note prefacing such comments with a big bold spoiler alert is generally frowned upon these notes often precede the story and no one will thank you for giving away a huge plot twist or key point in advance even if you know the note will be going after the story or in a separate section at the back spoilers are best avoided which brings us almost to the end of the process at least as far as writers are concerned now it s a question of sitting back and waiting until the finished book is available one point of basic etiquette to remember throughout the process is to try to reply to editor s e mails as quickly and accurately as possible remember that she s dealing with two dozen or more other writers too plus juggling the demands and queries of the publisher any other editors and or proofreaders and possibly dealing with the cover art as well the less chasing around and follow up she has to do the easier the entire process is for everyone when the colossal book of fantastic vampire cat stories is at last published you might be asked to take part in some publicity for it if circumstances allow some writers like to take a hands off approach to publicising their work preferring to let others do the job of marketing and promoting but if you re able to take part in a launch or signing or reading somewhere it s very much appreciated and usually a lot of fun if nothing else you get to meet with a group of other writers and complain like edward gorey s mr earbrass about the unspeakable horrors of the literary life and so we take our leave of ellen hartwell jones admiring the latest addition to her bookshelf and wondering what her next project is going to be perhaps she already knows and is drawing up a list of names of writers she d like to invite to submit to it if you re fortunate enough to be on it i hope my little guide helps you to clear away some of the hurdles good luck posted by barbara roden at 10 27 a m 5 comments monday january 03 2011 okay no more of that tied nonsense and here we are with tonight s nhl standings showing the canucks firmly on top of the entire league by two points and still with at least a game in hand on the three teams right behind them as someone who hasn t been off the canucks bandwagon since 1970 all i can say is that however long it lasts it s a helluva ride posted by barbara roden at 10 57 p m 1 comment we re number one as of right now the vancouver canucks are number one overall in the nhl i wanted to capture the moment posted by barbara roden at 11 52 a m no comments editing made ridiculously simple part one i wrote the following post for simon marshall jones s ramblings of a tattooed head blog to try to explain the editing process to those who might not be entirely clear as to what goes on and why part two of the post will follow in the next week when simon suggested that i write a guest blog entry i wasn t sure quite what he wanted i could i said write from a writer s perspective but i d be equally at home writing as an editor simon immediately said that he thought something from an editor s perspective would be just the ticket i think a piece from someone on the other side of the table so to speak would be a great idea i ve concentrated so far on writers but editors need their say as well so there you have it if you enjoy what follows then i ll happily take the credit if you don t it s all simon s fault to tell you the truth i m rather pleased not to have to whitter on about writing it s a very personal and internal thi ng writing immensely interesting to the person doing it but considerably less so to almost everyone else you know how much blood you ve shed getting those 739 perfect words down on paper in a given day but anyone watching would merely have seen someone staring at a computer screen furious bursts of tapping alternating with the dull click of the backspace key being deployed heartfelt sighs cursing long periods of inactivity the consumption of innumerable cups of coffee tea beer whisky water delete where applicable and the single sharp tap which indicates that a whole block of text has been deleted editing though well that s a whole different kettle of fish in some respects the staring at a computer screen occasional furious bursts of tapping sighs cursing and consumption of liquids is about the same first of all the words editor noun and edit verb are often used very broadly when in fact not all editors do the same thing and there are different types of editing today i m going to talk about the editor whose name is on the cover of the book for the purposes of this piece i m going to go with an anthology called the colossal book of fantastic vampire cat stories edited by ellen hartwell jones although a lot of comments will apply to magazines and their editors as well the person whose name on the cover is preceded by the words edited by is the person whose vision shaped the anthology she developed the guidelines possibly with some input from the publisher decided whether the anthology was open to general submissions or was by invitation only invited those authors she wanted contributions from in the latter case read every submitted story and finally decided which stories will make it into the finished anthology her work goes beyond all this in some cases far beyond but for today i m going to limit myself to what i ve detailed above the guidelines are or should be fairly straightforward with the editor explaining exactly what type of story she s looking for and often what she s not no zombies if the editor doesn t want explicit sex or violence this is where she ll say so word count will be mentioned 2 000 to 6 000 words or up to 10 000 words as will payment details the reading period or final deadline for submissions what format the manuscript should be in whether electronic submissions are okay or she d prefer paper manuscripts sent by snail mail and sometimes what the response time is expected to be if this is a sequel or follow on to a previously published anthology perhaps this is the second colossal book of fantastic vampire cat stories the editor might suggest you read the first volume to get a good idea of just what sort of stories she s looking for now the following piece of advice might sound as if it should be filed under b for bleeding obvious but here goes read the guidelines carefully and in full then read them again and a third time for good measure this ensures that you might well find the answer to a question you had after the first read through and that you know exactly what the editor is looking for how it s to be presented and by what date of course if you still have a question or need clarification about something then by all means ask better to do so at the beginning of the process than at the end unless you ve received permission from the editor to say exceed the word limit or get an extension to the deadline or send your manuscript electronically when she specified snail mail then it s simple follow the guidelines think of the process of getting your story accepted as a hurdles race from the outset there are a few hurdles in your way how good is your story how much competition do you have how closely does your story fit with the guidelines every time you deviate from the guidelines you re needlessly putting another hurdle in your path and potentially decreasing your chances submissions open on june the 1 st don t send your story on may 20 th guidelines specify times new roman don t use arial words that are to be italicised in the final text should be underlined wean yourself away from ctrl i don t know what standard manuscript format is look it up i m not saying that an editor will reject your story unread because it s in the wrong font or you ve used italics when she s specified underlining instead but she wouldn t be human if she didn t think what a maroon or some variant thereof and wonder just how closely you read the guidelines or how well you grasped them and these thoughts won t reflect well on you and in the case of sending the story before the submission window opens the editor won t think wow he s really eager bet it s a great story i have to read it she ll be thinking the idiot couldn t even pay attention to a simple thing like when to send in the story at the same time that she reaches for the delete key on to who gets to submit open submissions are much loved by writers for obvious reasons everyone who wants to submit can give it their best shot and has a chance and not so greatly loved by editors also for obvious reasons everyone who wants to submit can depending on any number of factors an open submission policy can result in hundreds of stories flooding across an editor s desk and while it does mean that an unknown or little known writer has a chance of cracking the table of contents of a major anthology it also means that the editor will inevitably hav...