Castle Walls Editing

Month: July 2017

  • What Level of Editing Do You Need?

    You’ve completed your manuscript and are eager to send it out into the world, but for your sake (and for the sake of your work) it’s important to determine the level of editing you require.

    The following are the four basic types of editing. (Definitions of the different kinds of editing can vary among publishers and editors, so it’s always important for you to clarify these terms and the kind of work an editor will do.)

    • Developmental (or Substantive) Editing
    • Line Editing
    • Copyediting
    • Proofreading

    Ideally, a manuscript would pass through all four levels of editing, but authors also have to consider their budget and make hard decisions about where to dedicate their resources. Asking the following questions is a good place to start.

    Have you walked away from your work?
    Setting your manuscript aside for a few weeks or even a month allows you to see it with new eyes. Let it breathe. You don’t want to submit it for editing and then find yourself wishing you could take it back for rewrites.

    Does it require a Big Picture look?
    If you need someone to address such issues as plot, character development, and pacing, then you’re looking for developmental editing. This isn’t the time to worry about typos. After all, you wouldn’t start painting your living room if you were thinking about knocking out a wall first.

    Are you ready to tackle it paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence?
    If you need someone to focus on clarity, flow, rhythm, voice, style, and readability, then you’re looking for line editing.

    Are you ready to get down to the nitty-gritty?
    If your manuscript is far along in the process and you need someone to address matters of spelling, punctuation, grammar, usage, and consistency, then you’re ready for copyediting.

    Does your manuscript need a last look?
    If you’re perfectly happy with your manuscript and need one last look to catch any typos, formatting issues, or anything else that was missed in previous steps, then you’re ready for proofreading.

    Determining your level of editing is the best thing for your manuscript and the best thing for your wallet.

    Let’s be honest, editing isn’t free, and you don’t want to waste money on proofreading if you’re going to do significant rewriting.

    If you’re still unsure about which level of editing you require, simply contact us and we’ll be glad to help you determine what’s best for your work.

  • 5 Reasons Authors Need Style Sheets

    At Castle Walls Editing, I supply style sheets when returning edited manuscripts to authors. But, you might ask, what the heck is a style sheet?

    The style sheet is a separate document (or documents) used to ensure consistency in a manuscript or across a series.

    While editors usually work in accordance with specific style guides, such as the Chicago Manual of Style, style sheets cover instances not covered by the guide or instances that conflict with the guide.

    Style sheets usually address the following areas:

    • Spelling and Styles
      Editors will specify the dictionary they follow (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, for example), but there are still any number of spelling decisions an editor has to make. The style sheet tracks the spellings of made-up words and words with alternate spellings. The style sheet also helps the editor, author, and proofreader use consistent styles for formatting and punctuation of quotation marks, ellipses, and other features of the manuscript.
    • Characters
      Consistent spelling of character names is obviously important (you don’t want Sara on page five and Sarah one hundred pages later—and family names can get even more complicated). Style sheets also track character traits and histories, so you don’t end up with characters switching eye color midway through the manuscript or performing an action that conflicts with a previous action.
    • Locations
      The style sheet tracks the spelling of place names and indicates characteristics of those places. This is important so that characters don’t head east out of a door that earlier faced west, or any number of other logical inconsistencies that can occur. The style sheet also helps track the physical layout and features of rooms, buildings, and locales for consistent presentation in the work.
    • Timeline/Plot
      It can be surprisingly easy for the author and editor to miss time gaffes and plot holes while focusing on the micro-level action in the manuscript. A timeline by day (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3) or whatever time division works best for the manuscript helps keep time elements straight while noting basic plot points.

     

    Benefits for the Author

    No author or editor can remember everything or keep track of all the information involved in a novel without some sort of handy reference. The style sheet is therefore a necessary tool that helps editors do their job while providing a multitude of benefits to the author.

    And now for the promised five reasons authors need style sheets.

    Style sheets supply the author with the following:

    1. An explanation of edits. When authors review the edits an editor has made in a document, the style sheet shows why the edits were made, thereby preventing authors from sending unnecessary queries to the editor. This reassures the author and saves the author time and money.
    2. An invaluable resource. After editing, authors may still rework their novel or they may move on to sequels or additional books in a series. The style sheet provides a helpful tool for keeping track of names and styles, especially useful for SF, fantasy, and other genre work with unusual naming conventions.
    3. Insight into their own work. The style sheet provides authors with another tool for viewing their work. Some authors create story maps or chart out their novels on index cards. The style sheet acts as another lens through which authors can view their work, and seeing their story from another angle often helps writers identify flaws and improve their novels.
    4. Lessons on style. After reviewing a style sheet, it’s not uncommon for an author to have an “Oh, I didn’t know that” reaction. Some authors may be talented storytellers but fall short on the technical aspects of writing. Style sheets help in this area, and authors are usually more than happy to learn something new.
    5. A peek inside the editor’s mind. In many ways, the style sheet maps the editor’s process and demonstrates his or her competence. The style sheet is, therefore, a useful tool for helping an author grade an editor and decide whether or not to use that editor again.

     

    A writer might take a manuscript to a copyeditor with no idea of what a style sheet is or that one will be provided with the edited manuscript. Once writers start enjoying the benefits of style sheets, however, they usually find that the sheets are something they don’t want to do without.

    For more information about style sheets or the services that Castle Walls Editing provides, select Contact from the menu to your left.

  • Sentences That Pack a Wallop

    “Tell all the truth but tell it slant.”—Emily Dickinson

    If you haven’t read Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones, you should fix that at the very first opportunity (see glowing reviews from Paul Tremblay, Benjamin Percy, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and a host of others).

    While the following doesn’t contain spoilers, I do quote lines from the book, and these lines would be best experienced in their original context. So if you haven’t read Mongrels, I’d jump ship and do that first. If that means you never get back to this post, so be it.

    Mongrels opens with a boy living with his grandfather, aunt, and uncle, all of whom, unlike the boy, are werewolves (or so the boy tells us). Of Grandpa, we hear this:

    “The moon was always full in his stories, and right behind him like a spotlight.”

    What a sentence. The rhythm is a bit unusual, and the moon-as-spotlight imagery speaks volumes about Grandpa.

    A little later we have this:

    “He twisted the cap off his wine cooler, snapped it perfectly across the living room, out the slit in the screen door that was always birthing flies and wasps.”

    On first read-through of this sentence I didn’t (and why would I?) catch the sexual tinge to the word slit. But even as I hit the period I had to jump back and reread. This imagery, like so many other well-connected portions of the novel, appears again later, and this next line gives us a clue as to what the author is doing.

    “Just a story that keeps changing, like it’s twisting back on itself, biting its own stomach to chew the poison out.”

    This is a book about storytelling and of how we make sense of our lives. Tell it slant, indeed.

    “And none of Grandpa’s stories were ever lies. I know that now. They were just true in a different way.”

    And still later:

    “Darren was just like Grandpa, telling one story, meaning another.”

    And then this, infused with sadness:

    “That’s how it is with werewolves. You have something, then you just have the story of it.”

    Stephen Graham Jones is a hell of a writer. His pages reward the careful reader, and writers in particular would do well to pay close attention. Think of it as a master class.

    Refresher on Types of Sentences

    Sentences seem like simple enough beasts. You have a capital letter, one or more words, and a period (or possibly a question mark or exclamation point or ellipsis). You usually have a subject and predicate (noun and verb).

    There are four basic types of sentences:

    • Declarative (statement)
    • Imperative (command)
    • Interrogative (question)
    • Exclamatory (statement of emotion or excitement)

    Sentences can also be described as

    • Simple (one clause)
    • Compound (two or more independent clauses)
    • Complex (one or more independent clauses plus one or more dependent clauses)

    Those are the basics, but between that capital letter and concluding punctuation mark lie infinite possibilities, and in fact sentences can stretch to infinity by connecting a never-ending series of independent clauses with conjunctions. Sentences can be punchy, or elaborate, or confusing, or hard to parse, or downright unsettling.

    Sentences can foreshadow something to come or make you question something you’ve already read. Sentences can turn back on themselves or open themselves up to shocking possibilities. Sentences can be ho-hum, but when reading ones laid down by craftsmen operating at the top of their form, they can reshape your world.