Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Daniel -- Pop. 1280 is very funny , and yes, it's The Killer Inside Me
as  turn of the (last) century farce. I was fascinated by the end --
he has to pull off a number of things for the book to have a satisfying
end (come-uppances for the bad guys, but also for our hero). I gave it
to Chris Oarr from the CBLDF as he was sitting next to me when I
finished it.
...

The weird thing is, the technology is there for the equivalent of
Soundscan: one could actually see what the real bestsellers are.   But
no-one wants it. (And all bestseller lists are weighted -- you famously
won't find the bible, or road atlases on the non fiction lists, for
example.)

...

Copy-editing American Gods, or rather, reading the US copy-editor's
copy edits and writing OK or Stet in the margins a lot.
  

    
Neil -- What does Stet mean?
  

    
I know an editor whose license plates say "STET"....
  

    

Generally the wisest comment an editor ever writes.
  

    
I applied for the STET plates years ago & they were taken.
  

    
"Stet" means: typeset this the way it was originally written.  You need to
be able to indicate that, because sometimes the editor has blue-penciled all
over something, and then decides--or the writer is able to insist--that
those handwritten changes not be applied.
  

    
It's not a bad job of copy-editing at all, so far. My main moments of
puzzlement are with things that are obviously author-intentional and
should have been queried rather than unilaterally 'fixed'. For example,
I have one character who says "fucken" which has been carefully
changed to "fuckin'" all through; while the very careful use of
"mister" spelled out rather than abbreviated when it's in dialogue has
been fixed throughout as well...  Anyway. Up to the end of Chapter 8 so
far.
  

    
Neil, did you give them a style sheet with the manuscript?
  

    
Martha -- no.  The only time I did that was with Stardust, where I
actually was allowed to talk to my copy editor before the book was copy
edited, and say "Please leave english usage intact wherever you can"
and bless her she did.

With this one, I'm very happy for anything to be fixed over to US
usage wherever possible. (Although if they'd let me know before they
sent the mss off to be copy edited, I could have done a find and
replace on grey to gray and realise to realize and saved them several
hundred dollars in copy-editing fees on that alone.)

The oddest thing today was the copy-editorial note that a 'black
brownstone' was a contradiction in terms, and I should change it to
'row-house'.  And I thought, the last time I was in brooklyn most of
the brownstones  were still a sooty grimy sort of black...
  

    
I never bother with short stories, but I'm thinking for a novel, a style
sheet could be a good idea.
  

    
Possily... I'm not sure what you put in a style sheet that isn't in
the novel, though.

Mostly you want to say things like "please don't repunctuate the
dialogue to make it more grammatical."  For the rest of it, I figure a
good copy editor should look at the mss and see what the author is
doing. 

There's one dream sequence in which characters talk with dashes and
italics.

-- Kind of like this, he said.

-- Like that, she said?

-- Yes, he said, only without the italics cos you can't do them on the
Well.

The copy editor carefully fixed them all to speech marks. And I just
as carefully wrote stet next to them. I can't see that a style guide
saying "During the dream sequence I use dashes and italics to indicate
speech" would have saved me this.
  

    
Well, things like "fucket" is spelled that way in dialogue, and so is "cos".

And I don't see why you couldn't say that you use dashes and italics for
dialogue in dream sequences.  Sure, it should be obvious, but why not?
Copyeditors have all dealt with writers who have strange blind spots and
always get odd things consistently wrong without it being on purpose.  They
don't know it's on purpose if you don't tell them, necessarily.

But the stet stamp is a useful thing.
  

    
argh. Computer hiccup just sent reply into the void.
............

What I said was that while I took your point, I found myself reminded
of Teresa Nielsen Hayden's essay On Copyediting, in her book Making
Book (both of which after taking the book down from the shelf last
night to check the quote I wound up rereading)...

and to retype the quote I typed last night:

"As a general rule, if an author's preferred style isn't flat-out
wrong or otherwise stupid, doesn't make it unnecessarily hard for the
reader to figure out the author's meaning, and furthermore is
reasonably consistent, chances are you should let it stand."
  

    
Send the copy editor a note...

   "Stop fucken with my intentions!"
  

    
And the Amazon.com id is
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0915368552
  

    
I don't think anyone else has mentioned this, but over at Scott
McClouds website there is only one panel left in "Choose Your Own Carl"
 For those who have no clue what I'm talking about, here is a
description from the site.  It is "The Web's only Fully Interactive,
Multiple Path, Reader-Written, Death-Obsessed Comics Extravaganza!!" 
It's also a whole lot of fun.  The deadline for suggestions for the
last panel is tonight at midnight.

http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/carl/3b/cyoc.html

Jen.
  

    
Scott got too many "Oh yeah, the fix was in!" accusations the last
time I submitted a Carl and he picked it. I'd not dare do it this
time...
  

    
hmmm... Judgement vs. judgment. Blowjob vs blow job. Kebab vs kabob.
Discuss.
  

    
And when did it become a bad thing for men to be blond and women to be
blonde? I hate it when something happens and I miss it.
  

    

It is poor judgement to have a blowjob kabob?

...or is that not quite what you meant?
  

    
Hello all!  After seeing my little brother's musical I decided that
elementary school musicals should stick to topics a little more fun
than American history.  Not that American history can't be fun, its
just that they wouldn't be permitted to put those parts in.

Len--No, I have not seen the essay...in fact, I did not know who David
Sedaris was until your post.  Took the time to do a little research
and read a few essays.  I like them very much, so thanks!!!!

Neil--Unfortunately I was not inspired during the play to do anything
but give very nasty looks to the guy behind me who said rather loudly
"LOOK AT THE FAT KID!" when my brother came out on stage.  I turned
around, smiled in a very frighteningly sweet way, and said "Yes, he's
my little brother.  Isn't he lovely?  It would do you much good to shut
up now."  With the looks I gave him between songs during the rest of
the play, I'll bet he thinks twice before picking on the fat kid.  (He
was at least 23 for goodness sake!)

Finding all this copy-editing talk very interesting.  Has anybody here
ever found that their work did not come out the way they wanted it to
due to the editing process?  

Michelle--Do I remember from somewhere that you are in a band?  Is
there anywhere to find any more information about it?
  

    
ergh... too much to respond to! Dammit I hate work!

Um, "kebab" just makes me read the word with a Chicago accent... but
that might just be me, the girl who speaks in a Canadian accent when
tired and still spells far too many words with an 'extra' "u".

Neil - You really don't *have* to give me all those neat Stardusts...
but I won't argue if you insist! :D And I'm plugging away to all my
friends to pre-order AG. My website might even be updated by the end of
the weekend (unless stupid boy-problems persist and leave me too
flustered to turn on the computer tomorrow).

Angelina - http://www.sfmidimafia.com/ Look up Bastet's Dream. The
music is under "media". Right now it's pretty empty, since all but 2 of
my songs are only 2/3 finished, and one of the finished ones belongs
to my brother (I gave it to him as a wedding present) and he doesn't
want it online.

squeaks, SF Midi Mafia - Mantenerlo nella famiglia. ;P
  

    
        I use judgement, blowjob, and kebab, and just typing the word kebab
is making me hungry.
  

    
Today's strangest were:

The copy editor changed "hessian sack" to "burlap sack", leaving me
puzzled (and writing stet) as I don't believe they are a US/UK
terminology, thing --  I thought they were two completely different
types of rough hemp/jute cloth (and that burlap was closer to a
canvas); and he changed "none of the passengers were hurt" to "none of
the passengers was hurt", which Fowler, the OED, and the Oxford
Dictionary of English American Usage all condemn ("It is a mistake to
insist that the pronoun None is singular only and must at all costs be
followed by singular verbs").

And, to add to yesterday's set of usage queries for the panel...

Wintry or wintery?


..............

Angelina -- occasionally things can be edited into shapes one isn't
entirely happy with. (And copy editing, and editing are two different
processes.) 

I think the most important thing to do is to keep reminding myself
that the copy editor's job is to make me, and the book, look good. And
he's done a really sold and workmanlike job.

(DC Comics used to have a copy editor who used to insert goofs between
me seeing and okaying the black and white version of the comic and it
being printed. I think my favourite was Notting Hill becoming, on her
orders, one word. But after a while she started leaving my stuff alone,
which was, in that particular case, a relief.)

... 

Michelle -- you're welcome.
  

    
Being one to go for extra letters, I slip my ballot for 'wintery'.