Friday, November 11, 2011

Is Editing Ever Finished?


When I received the edited manuscript of Where Love Once Lived from CreateSpace, I was pleased with the results. However, several comments from the copy editor alarmed me some. First, she said she had read little Christian fiction and had not read any of Jan Karon's books. She also referred to the point of view as omniscient when I worked hard to write in either Brian's or Karen's point of view.

Wouldn't you think CreateSpace would find an editor more familiar with your genre? Maybe it doesn't matter what the subject is when it comes to good grammar and consistency. So far, the corrections and comments look good. I'll let you know more later as I make the suggested changes. A real plus is that the copy editor also pointed out places in the manuscript where she, as the reader, had problems with the flow of the story. Most of these continuity problems were introduced during previous edits and can easily be fixed. I just hope I don't create more grammatical errors with the changes I make. Yikes! At least one error got into the final.

The copyeditor suggested including a scene I had cut based on a reading by White Rose Publishing. More on that later. Now I wonder if I should put the scene back in.

When I published my next book, I asked for and got the same editor. She hadn't read Christian novels, but she did an excellent job as a copy editor.

How about you? Have you spent months or years editing only to find there is more to do? Or you, dear reader, have you spotted grammatical errors and inconsistencies in published books? I have.

2 comments:

  1. I doubt that it ever is ( is editing ever finished?) Even after professional editing, it seems that errors still pop up. As well, I see things that i would like to change in both of my published works, but alas ... I guess there just comes a point where you have to say 'It is finished!'

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  2. Thanks for commenting, Tracy. I think you're right when you say we just have to come to a point where we declare it finished. In my final edits, I kept thinking of so many changes I could make, but once the book was printed and therefore declared finished, I was happy with the result. I can use those changes in the next book.

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