An Example of Editing
Jul - 15 - 2009Filed in: Editing
On Saturday and Sunday I try to get in 6-8 hours each day and it’s the only span of free time I have that’s long enough to let me really sink down into what I’m doing and think of things in big picture terms. It’s the long days when the good stuff tends to come. It’s also the long days that make me wonder how much more I could accomplish if I could get rid of the need to make money at a real job. Any patrons out there looking for an artist? Let’s talk.
For those that wonder what the editing process is like, I thought I’d provide a glimpse of what’s keeping my nights and weekends busy.
Here’s a paragraph as it appeared in the manuscript when I submitted it to my editor:
“When they moored in Philadelphia again two weeks after the Whistle they had a hold full of imports from Britain to unload. For two days they wheeled round the capstan to lift up the ill-gotten fare and wheeled it round again to lower to the wharf. Fin, too small to offer significant help at the capstan fetched wagons from the shipping companies and assisted in delivering their sales to warehouses up and down the waterfront. Even after the captain paid the Congress its share, the take was so large that he easily made good on his claims of riches when he paid each sailor his due in bags of gold so large that Fin thought she’d have to spend half of it before she could even lift the sack. She bought some good boots, new trousers, a sailor’s trunk, and a leather vest that better concealed the secrets beneath her shirt. She ate well, and drank well, and spent money, for which she had little use, on frivolous things and she wrote to tell Peter she was safe and sure.”
Reading that just now gave me a bit of a shiver. I spotted several mistakes right off the bat. Now, here’s the same paragraph as it looks after my editor chewed it up. (Her notes and changes are in brackets since you can’t see her annotations the same way they are displayed in Word):
“When they moored in Philadelphia again[,] two weeks after the Whistle[,] they had a hold full of imports from Britain to unload. For two days they wheeled round the capstan to lift up the ill-gotten fare and wheeled it round again to lower [the crates] to the wharf. Fin, too small to offer significant help at the capstan[,] fetched wagons from the shipping companies and assisted in delivering their sales to warehouses up and down the waterfront. Even after [delete: the captain][Creache] paid the Congress its share, the take was so large that he easily made good on his claims of riches [by][delete: when he paid][paying] each sailor his due in bags of gold so large that Fin thought she’d have to spend half of it [delete:before she could][to] even lift the sack. She bought some good boots, new trousers, a sailor’s trunk, and a leather vest that better concealed the secrets beneath her shirt. She ate well[delete comma] and drank well[delete comma] and spent money, for which she had little use, on frivolous things[. A]nd she wrote to tell Peter she was safe and sure.”
So you can see that she added some needed commas (they are my Achilles heel), and changed some wordings and word choices for clarity and flow.
My job then, and what I currently spend a few hours each day doing, is to go over each change and suggestion and decided whether or not I want to keep it, or discard it, or in some cases, just do some plain rewriting. Here’s what the paragraph looks like after I finished with it:
“When they moored in Philadelphia again, two weeks after the Whistle, they had a hold full of imports from Britain to unload. For two days they wheeled ‘round the capstan to lift up the ill-gotten fare and wheeled it ‘round again to lower the crates to the wharf. Fin, too small to offer significant help at the capstan, fetched wagons and delivered their take to warehouses up and down the waterfront. After Creache paid the Congress its share, the take was so large that he easily made good on his claim of riches by paying each sailor his due in bags of coin so large that Fin thought she’d have to spend half of hers to even lift the sack. She bought some well-fitted boots, new trousers, a cedar sailor’s trunk, and a leather vest that better concealed the secrets beneath her shirt. She ate well and drank well and spent money, for which she had little use, on frivolous things. And she took time to write, to tell Peter she was safe and sure.”
In general I’d say I accept 90% of the editorial changes without question. Other times, there are things that I rather like, even though they might not be technically correct, and I keep them. And still other times, I find that a small fix doesn’t quite do the trick and I have to rework more than just a word or two to solve the issue. Then once the issue is solved, I have to make sure that fixing one thing hasn’t broken another. I study the entire paragraph to make sure the fix fits into the flow of the whole.
So that’s the process that goes into editing that 176 word excerpt. The manuscript is 100,000 words. It’s a long process and it’s just as often enjoyable as it is mind-numbing or infuriating. But that’s the job. I love it. Hopefully one of these days I’ll get paid for it.
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