Wired Style and Sin and Syntax author Constance Hale inspires an infectious appreciation for verbs in Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch: Let Verbs Power Your Writing. While the book dropped in 2012, its not-so-hot-off-the-presses status doesn’t diminish its readability, power, or utility for writers and editors.
Deep into the book, Hale relates that, while serving as an editor at Wired and Health, she would circle the verbs in the first two or three paragraphs of clips writers sent in. If the verbs struck her as dynamic and made the sentences jump, the writers got a call.
If not, not.
How’s that for scaring you into checking your verbs?
(Now that’s a phone you could slam to end a call!)
GREAT ADVICE: Circle your verbs to see if your sentences crackle.
On opening sentences with “there are” or “it is” constructions, Hale calls out the “phantom subject” (as termed by Patricia O’Conner in Woe Is I) as a bad idea, a “false start,” before also deriding throat-clearing constructions such as “I think” and “It seems like.”
Evenhanded throughout, Hale also writes that the authors of A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language and usage expert Bryan Garner defend the “existential there” in certain contexts, specifically those pushing the emphasis to the end of a sentence (hard to argue with her example from Shakespeare: “There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats”).
The best of books like Hale’s enrich our understanding of language and provide readers with tools for making writing and editing decisions.
Hale succeeds on all counts.
The Structure
As the author says early on, the book dips into “a little evolution, a little history, a lot of grammar, a little usage.” To explore these areas, Hale divides each chapter into four sections:
Vex, in which Hale explores confusing aspects of language, syntax, and verbs
Hex, in which the author tackles persistent myths about writing
Smash, in which Hale showcases poor usage and demonstrates how to avoid it
Smooch, in which Hale showcases good writing (and gets just a tad mischievous)
I read the book cover to cover, but as Hale herself asserts in the introduction, Vex, Hex works equally well, and perhaps better, when one picks and chooses sections to explore.
The book is designed in a way that facilitates this grab-bag approach, with the early chapters focused on linguistics and cultural history, the middle chapters on the grammar of verbs, and the late chapters on usage and style.
Wherever you enter the work, though, you’re bound to find something well worth your time.
Collective Soul
While I enjoyed the book, I do have a minor disagreement with the author over the treatment of collective nouns. Hale wrote that she always treats singular collective nouns as singular for verb agreement, whereas I prefer the strategy of treating the noun as singular when the members of the group are acting as a group and plural when the members of the group are acting as individuals.
Hale’s strategy is simpler and cleaner for editors, as no decisions need be made. In Garner’s Modern English Usage, we read that there is “little ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ on the subject,” but that one should be consistent and not flip-flop between singular and plural verbs in a piece.
These gray areas should excite editors, should glint with a bit of magic. I like having the leeway to make those decisions. Everything can’t be one thing or the other, and I’m thankful for areas of language that require flexible thinking (though these areas do come with the knowledge that no matter what you do, someone will inevitably think you’re wrong).
The Wait Is Over!
I have to admit, this week I’m all about Chicago. I just got back from Dallas (where I saw both Dawn of the Dead and Hot Fuzz at the Alamo!) and upon my return I found a little something on my doorstep.
The seventeenth edition of the Chicago Manual of Style will soon be in the hands of editors everywhere. The sixteenth edition was released way back in 2010, so you can’t blame Ol’ Sixteen for thinking its reign would last forever.
Let’s check in on how it’s handling the transition (and you can click here for a history of the manual).
Denial
“I’m built to last, baby!”
As Constance Hale wrote in Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch, “Vocabulary is not all that changes in the linguistic melting pot. Punctuation changes. Spelling changes. Meaning changes. Even grammar changes.”
Over the coming weeks, editors will be poring over Seventeen to see just what these changes entail. We were given some early teases: internet is being lowercased, email is losing the hyphen, hyphenation guidance in general is supposedly being relaxed a tad. We’re all eager to see what else is in store!
[UPDATE: Click here for a more detailed look at the changes in the new edition.]
Anger
“Back off, man! I’m serious!”
We can hardly blame Sixteen for being a little miffed. No one likes to be replaced, especially when you were held in such esteem, and it’s entirely natural to have a little resentment toward the new kid on the block.
Editors also have to learn to deal with change, and this is helped tremendously by understanding that style is style, not an immutable set of laws, and all “rules” are subject to change.
Bargaining
“C’mon, I can change. I can lowercase internet!”
It’s a done deal, Sixteen. You served us all well, but Seventeen is happening.
I’m looking forward to the print copy. The online version of Chicago is really handy, but there’s nothing like having a big, thick, beautiful reference at your fingertips. That turning of pages, mixed with the anticipation of discovery, activates pleasure centers in the brain that no online search can replicate.
The fourteenth edition (1993) of the manual was my first, and somewhere along the way my copy’s book jacket went missing. I now look at the battered old thing with fondness and just a tinge of sadness. A lot has changed in my life since 1993. I’ve gained much and lost much as well. Life moves inexorably forward.
Acceptance
“It was bound to happen eventually. Good luck, Seventeen.”
Someday Seventeen too will be replaced, and what a glorious thing it is to watch the marvelous march of language.
Personally, professionally, I’m embracing change all over the place, and I’ll say this: it’s invigorating!
Big changes lie ahead for me personally and professionally. I’ve made some life-altering decisions, and I feel good about those decisions. There’s uncertainty, sure, but I feel good about that too.
I’ve lost a lot in life. My mother and sister died when I was 17. Not long thereafter I spent a summer watching my grandmother die of lung cancer. I’ve lost too many friends too soon. In many ways I lost my father, who died just before the new year, long ago.
But I’ve also been given a lot in life. Two wonderful children. Friends who mean everything to me. A partner who is as beautiful as she is supportive.
We can’t change anything that’s come before. We make decisions and move forward.
And we hope we make decisions for the right reasons.
In Puerto Rico, contemplating the future (7/26/17)
As an editor, I make any number of decisions every day. These decisions often come down to whether I should change something or let it stand. Compared to major life decisions, some of these decisions might seem minor, but I’m not sure anything ever is, and our underlying approach to decision-making is consistent, no matter the scale.
Over the past week, I’ve followed discussions about the spelling of toward and of how U.S. editors spend a lot of time changing towards to toward, the thought being that toward is more common in American English.
Changing towards is almost a reflex.
I must have first come across this guidance at least two decades ago, and I’ve changed towards to toward more times than I can count.
There’s support for doing so.
In Garner’s Modern English Usage, Brian A. Garner writes that toward “has been the predominant and editorially preferred form” in American English since about 1900.
Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage puts toward as “at least twice as frequent” in American English.
The American Heritage Dictionary and Merriam-Webster online list toward as the primary spelling, with towards as the variant.
The eleventh edition of The Gregg Reference Manual specifies that “both forms are correct, but toward is more common in U.S. usage.”
I’m as rebellious as the next guy, and I don’t believe you always have to bow to the “authorities,” but I have a great deal of respect for each of the above-mentioned resources, and I’m going to take their guidance into serious consideration. Others do as well, so I know I’m making decisions based on reference points that other editors also hold in high esteem.
If a client has a preference for towards, that’s the client’s choice, but unless otherwise specified, I’ll make the change. It seems like a clear-cut decision.
But nothing in life ever is.
Counterpoint
As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, this is apparently my Year of the Big Decision (more on the nature of these decisions in a future post). So maybe I’m especially prone to contemplation about choices in every aspect of my life.
Whatever the case, it bothers me that I’ve always so readily accepted “more common in American English” as a reason to kill towards without giving it more thought.
Linguist, editor, writer, and book designer Jonathon Owen (of Arrant Pedantry) contended in a piece for the Visual Thesaurus that authors use toward and towards in “roughly equal numbers,” and that it’s the copy editors, rather than the authors, who enforce the distinction.
“In a nutshell, towards is seemingly rare in American English because copy editors make it rare,” wrote Owen.
If this is the case, then that’s a bit of an eye-opener, and it’s certainly something to consider when pondering language change. I suppose it shouldn’t be too surprising that copy editors enforce and thereby drive certain usages, but I always imagined that these decisions ultimately reflected actual word use among authors and that the copyediting, in a sense, followed.
Maybe that was a tad naive.
Copy editors, like authors, should have the needs of the audience in mind, but how does the conception of audience for a copy editor differ from that of the writer? And if copy editors and writers vary in background, interests, and worldview, then who should shoulder the greater weight for shaping language?
Toward/towards also came up in a recent discussion thread, with one editor maintaining that she left towards whenever possible because she didn’t want to contribute to the corpus supporting this “preference” among American authors.
Corpora like the Google Ngram Viewer have made this kind of information more and more accessible, and this ready access will undoubtedly also shape language change, as well as our awareness of our own roles in that change.
Authors, editors, readers: we’re all connected, perhaps affecting each other in ways we didn’t previously understand (or fully understand, at any rate).
As an editor, this knowledge makes me want to always question the edits I make, to place these edits in context, and to move forward and make better, more informed decisions.
Why Are We Often So Eager to Follow a “Rule”?
I always try to embrace the philosophy that in editing there are no rules, only guidelines. But I also have to admit that there’s a part of all of us inclined toward following rules and experiencing the pleasure (misguided or not) of applying them.
I don’t think editors can separate their approach to work from their approach to life (and their approach toward others). An editor who edits to help his client and ultimately the reader likely takes a much different approach to life than the one whose chief joy is “correcting” the author. As an editor, I hope I’m the former.
In this Year of the Big Decision, in this year of exploring my decision-making, I’ll suggest a few reasons why we as editors might so readily embrace “rules” such as automatically changing towards to toward.
Consistency. When there are multiple spellings of a word in a document, it can confuse or slow the reader unnecessarily. Consistency is usually a good thing. Some argue that context changes whether toward or towards sounds better in a particular sentence. While I’m open to this idea, I still believe the distraction of flip-flopping spellings might outweigh any benefits from the sound of the word in each sentence.
Being right.We want to be right, damn it! People love to point out other people’s “mistakes,” and there might be no place this happens more often than in the realm of language. I hope I resist this urge more often than not. Helping, not correcting, is the nobler approach.
Blindly following. At some level, most of us appreciate guidelines. If we’re provided one, we may grasp on to it and apply it blindly, perhaps even wielding it for years without giving it a second thought. The Year of the Big Decision might be the perfect time to take inventory of all those decisions I make without thinking. Whether or not I change those decisions, I would undoubtedly benefit from considering them in more depth.
Showing our work. We all want to show our clients that we are dedicated, thorough editors, and the low-hanging fruit of instances like towards is one quick, easy way to do that. Authors may even switch back and forth between spellings without being aware of it, and they may thank you for pointing this out, even if they choose something other than what you’ve recommended.
Adhering to author’s/client’s/audience’s preference. In the end, it’s the client’s work. We suggest what we feel is the best choice, but ultimately the client has the final say.
Toward (and Towards) the Future
Copy editors have feelings about their work. Feelings and theories and attitudes and passion.
We learn as much as possible, fight off petty motivations, and make the best decisions we can. Then we reevaluate those decisions and move forward.
Always forward.
Life can be cut short at any moment. My sister wanted to be a translator, but she never had the chance. We might even have worked together. I like to think that we would have, but maybe in some ways we still do.
I think of the years she lost and the years I’ve been granted and I keep her in mind. And when I make decisions, big and small, in editing and in life, I want those decisions to help the reader, to help the author, to help the people I care about, and even to help myself.
The following is a walk-through of the editing process at Castle Walls Editing.
First, as eager as you are to get your book out into the world, it’s important that you are ready to have your manuscript edited and that you know what kind of editing you need, whether that be developmental editing, line editing, copyediting, or proofreading.
You don’t want to hire someone to proofread your manuscript, for example, if you still think it needs major restructuring. You can read more about the level of editing you need by clicking here.
Getting Started
Let’s say you’re interested in copyediting. To get started, email Castle Walls Editing at James@castlewallsediting.comor use the CONTACT US form on the site.
The more information I know about your manuscript, the better, so this is where it’s helpful to provide a good description of your manuscript and what you would like to have done.
I will respond to your email as soon as possible and request any other pertinent information. At this point, I will also ask for a chapter or section of your work so that I can provide an estimate for the project.
To give you a better idea of the work involved, editors generally edit between six and ten pages an hour, and this number fluctuates based on the kind of editing required and the state of the manuscript.
The Estimate
Your most pressing question is probably (and understandably) about the cost of editing.
Click here for a breakdown of what you are paying for when you hire me to edit your book.
Page count is important, but page count can vary widely because of font, font size, and line spacing, so I will ask for your word count. I will then divide this number by 250 (the number of words on a standard manuscript page).
If your manuscript is 75,000 words long, I will base my estimate on 300 pages (75,000 divided by 250).
In addition to page count, however, the time it takes to edit a manuscript depends on formatting requirements, the state of the manuscript (a manuscript with numerous edits on each page will take longer to edit than one that requires fewer edits), the level of technical detail, and the presence of text features such as footnotes, reference lists, and tables.
Manuscripts have unique needs, and the best way to determine the time it will take to edit your work is to view a sample of the work before providing an estimate.
The fee for editing will also cover the creation of a style sheet (click here for more information about style sheets).
The Deposit and Contract
If we’ve agreed on the terms of work, then we’re ready to go! I require a third of the payment up front and will email you a contract specifying the exact nature of the work.
The deposit can be paid by check or through PayPal.
Submitting Your Manuscript
Now for the easy part. Email me your manuscript and let me work my magic!
This is the point at which you want to be absolutely sure you’re ready to have your manuscript edited. Once the file is sent, that’s the file I will work through to completion. It’s extremely difficult for editors to do their job when the author is reworking portions of the manuscript during the process, and the goal for all of us is to end up with the best possible version of your manuscript.
Editing Your Manuscript
Unless otherwise specified, I will edit in accordance with the Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition) and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th edition).
If editing in Microsoft Word, I will turn on Track Changes so you can review the edits. I will specify any invisible edits (edits made with Track Changes off). These include edits made to eliminate extra spaces and spaces around returns.
I also use the editing suite available from the Editorium as well as PerfectIt software. These programs help me to clean up the document and identify a wide range of consistency issues. As any editor will tell you, the more electronic aids an editor can use, the more that editor is free to concentrate on sentence structure, word usage, readability, and other such matters.
Macros are another tool I employ while editing. Macros are little programs that run within Word to carry out a variety of functions. One such macro, ProperNounAlyse, pulls all the proper nouns from the manuscript so that you can see, for example, if names are spelled inconsistently. Macros enhance the editing process in innumerable ways.
When copyediting, I do two passes on the manuscript:
In the first pass, I pore over the document and address all copyediting concerns for spelling, punctuation, grammar, style, and consistency. My goal is always to maintain the author’s voice while serving both the author and the reader.
I use Word’s ReadAloud feature for my second pass, which is a cleanup pass of the document. During this pass I look for anything I might have missed, and I fix any issues that may have been inadvertently introduced when making edits.
(Listening to the manuscript is a fantastic way to catch missing words, transposed words, and wrong words. I highly recommend it as a great way to combat familiarity with the manuscript, which can cause you to see what you think should be there rather than what is actually on the page.)
Returning the Job
When I’ve completed work, I will supply you with your manuscript with Track Changes showing (and a separate version with changes accepted, if requested). I also provide the style sheet and an editorial summary with an overview of the edits.
Billing
Once you’ve received the completed work, I will invoice you for the remainder of the fee (payable by check or through PayPal).
Keeping in Touch
I wish all authors all the success their hard work deserves, so I always look forward to hearing about your manuscript’s journey into the world!
Paying a professional to edit a manuscript is often pricier than writers might imagine, and the cost can be all the more difficult because authors often have to work the expense into a budget (or a family budget) with no guarantee of a monetary return on their investment.
If you’re here, then you are probably already convinced that editing is an important, even essential, part of producing a manuscript for your audience. But before deciding to make that investment, it’s also important to understand (and be able to explain to loved ones) just what you’re paying for.
The Time It Takes to Edit
For authors, the real eye-opener about editing might be the sheer number of hours that the editor will spend working on their manuscript.
Many authors might even think that all editing is, in essence, proofreading. But from developmental editing down to proofreading, the time requirements and the amount of work required per page varies for all the different levels of editing.
At the proofreading stage, for example, the manuscript has (presumably) already been through the copyediting stage, and the proofreader is only looking for typos, wayward design elements, and anything missed (or introduced) during previous stages. So a proofreader would be able to look at more pages per hour than, say, the copyeditor.
For copyediting, during which an editor checks for spelling, grammar, punctuation, style, continuity, and consistency, an editor generally edits at a rate of six to ten pages per hour.
So if you have a 400-page manuscript, that’s at least forty hours of work, and that only accounts for one pass through the document, albeit the pass that accounts for most of the expense.
I like to do an initial read-only pass to familiarize myself with the work, then the copyediting pass, and then a final pass to catch anything I might have missed or any errors I might have introduced while inputting edits.
More Than Spell-Check
Writers also might not realize just how much an editor delivers. It’s easy to imagine that the editor will do a simple read-through, mark a few spelling issues or misplaced commas, and then be on his or her way. But the benefits to the manuscript go far beyond.
In addition to checks for grammar, spelling, usage, and consistency, a copyeditor provides (or should provide) a style sheet noting character names and all word uses that vary from Merriam-Webster or the Chicago Manual of Style or whatever other dictionary and style guide the editor is following.
With my style guide, I also include a timeline and breakdown of character and location details on the style sheet (so you don’t have a character with blue eyes on page ten and green eyes two hundred pages later). You can also learn more about style sheets here.
Authors are generally surprised by all the help provided during a copyedit—and they are generally very appreciative as well. The author’s job is to tell a great story, and if an editor can help put that story before an audience in its best possible light, then all the better for the author, the reader, and the work itself.
The Five E’s
With a good editor, you get an invisible partner dedicated to your success and to the success of your work. You get someone to pore over your beloved manuscript word by word and help push it to its best possible form.
An editor lets readers dissolve into your story without any technical details breaking the spell. You never want to give your reader an excuse to stop reading, and an editor helps ensure that doesn’t happen.
The following are five e’s that an editor provides:
Expertise
Experience
Equipment & Resources
Effort
Élan
Expertise
Quite simply, editors should know things that authors don’t about word usage and about formatting a manuscript and about the editing process. That’s part of why you’re paying them! Editors should also display expertise with the tools at their disposal. The author’s job is to tell a great story, and the editor can help by having expert knowledge of Word and macros and wild-card searches and editing software.
Editors should also have expert knowledge of the various style and usage guides, and editors should keep abreast of language trends and shifting styles. Editors should also display a level of expertise that empowers them to know when and when not to break style (it doesn’t help your manuscript to have an editor who inflexibly applies a “rule” no matter the context).
Experience
I’ve been editing for more than twenty years and have learned a lot over that time—including that I didn’t know as much as I thought I did twenty years ago!
When you pay for an editor, one of the things you’re paying for is the benefit of that editor’s experience, whether it’s two years or twenty years or forty years. Part of the magic of editing is that editors are always learning, and editors take great joy in passing these lessons on to their clients.
Equipment & Resources
Editors have to maintain equipment and software. I like to use a multi-monitor setup, which I find increases productivity and allows me to have the page I’m editing displayed at a good size in portrait view on a revolving monitor, while my style sheet is open on a second monitor (I also have my Chromebook open for additional resources).
I edit primarily in Word and use the software packages and macros from PerfectIt and the Editorium to increase productivity and help with formatting and consistency issues. These tools save time and allow me to focus more on the sentence structure and word usage and the real mind work of editing.
The less time I spend on tasks that can be automated with a macro or piece of software, the more efficient I am and the more bang you get for your buck.
Writers should also expect editors to have a library of resources and to be familiar with them. Editors should have an expert working knowledge of and access to style manuals such as the Chicago Manual of Style and the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, the major dictionaries, and such language resources as Garner’s Modern English Usage and Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage.
Effort
Editing requires long periods of concentration as editors pore over a work page by page, paragraph by paragraph, word by word, and letter by letter. This is the real work of editing, and it can’t be rushed. It’s not that someone can’t deliver a well-edited manuscript for a dollar a page, but when you look at the time it takes to edit something properly and the hourly rate that this equates to, you have to wonder if an editor editing at an extremely low pay rate isn’t rushing through the work.
There is nothing that editors value more than good clients they want to work with again and again. My goal is to deliver the best possible job to my clients so that they want to use me again and refer me to their associates. There are no shortcuts for making this happen. It’s all about hard work.
Élan
This is a bit harder to quantify, and I suppose an editor could have a poor attitude toward his work and still do a good job, but it seems far-fetched. Passion and enthusiasm for editing is what keeps an editor from rushing through the work, and this passion adds unlimited value in any number of different ways.
Editors get paid for their work, but the rewards of editing also lie in helping authors produce manuscripts that are sent out into the world and are enjoyed by readers, whether that entails the countless readers for a bestseller or a handful of readers for a passion project with a more limited release.
Let’s Get Started
For more information about how Castle Walls Editing can help you with your manuscript, contact us here.
Sometimes I’ll be reading happily along and find myself tipping my cap to another editor for the care taken with a particular usage. For just a moment, that editor is there, ghostlike, almost visible through the page.
You don’t need an EMF meter or full-spectrum camera to spot an editor, nor do you have to worry about ectoplasm on your favorite book. The following are five signs an editor has been at work.
1. En dashes
Most people don’t know an en dash from a haberdashery. The mark is most often used in number ranges (1971–2017) and when connecting an open compound to another modifier (Pulitzer Prize–winning author). Many would like to exorcise them from use, but I have a real fondness for en dashes.
2. Capping aunt and uncle
People understand writing “I love Aunt Janice and Uncle Bill” but often look askance when seeing something like “I love my aunt Janice and my uncle Bill.” Most likely a copy editor took down the a and u. (Capping of mother and father also causes confusion, though not quite as much.)
3. Apostrophes with abbreviated words
Love ’em or leave ’em. When letters are left out at the beginning of a word, the letters are replaced with an apostrophe, not an opening single quote. Some simply don’t know this, and some don’t take the time to fix it. I’ve seen the wrong quote there so often I have to smile when I see the apostrophe.
4. Plural possessives
Speaking of apostrophes, there’s probably nothing that trips up your average citizen more than possessives, especially plural ones, especially when they involve names. If I had a nickel for every time I saw something like “the Smith’s house” when referring to a family of Smiths—and not to that one Smith everyone knows as such . . .
5. Comprise
Traditionally, the whole comprises the parts and “is comprised of” has been considered poor usage. Whether or not you care about this usage anymore, an editor has likely laid his cold, spectral hand on the text if it’s used in the “correct” way.
