Looseleaf Editorial & Production

Book Editing & Design

Kristy S. Gilbert

Weekly Roundup: 12/3–12/9

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Shape Catcher

This isn’t exactly brand-new stuff, but this website is an awesome tool for anyone who presents writing on the internet. Most of the time the general characters on your keyboard are good enough for you, but if you need a special character, visit Shape Catcher, draw your character in the box, and the site will spew out code for all the characters it can find that might be what you’re looking for. Chances are, if there’s code for it, Shape Catcher will find it.

Hand-written letterDaniel Abraham: A Private Letter from Genre to Literature

Genre writer Daniel Abraham writes an elegant letter from genre books to mainstream books. I for one enjoy genre books and mainstream books, and it’s nice to see a new way of presenting the fact that neither one should be snubbing the other. Whether you read genre, mainstream, or both, take a minute to read this letter.

Chuck Wendig: The Seduction of Self-Publishing

There are a lot of good reasons to self-publish. There are a lot of good reasons not to. There are a lot of bad reasons for both options as well. Chuck Wendig, a self-published author himself, talks about the seduction of self-publishing, why he’s glad he didn’t have it as an option five years ago, and why he’s glad he has the option now. If you’re considering the self-publishing path, take a look at this post. It’s rational in a debate that has a lot of irrationality on both sides.

Galley Cat: American Booksellers Association Attacks Amazon’s Price Check App

You’ve heard about Amazon’s new app, right? The one that gives shoppers a $5 incentive if they scan the barcode of a physical book with their smartphones and then buy in on Amazon? This is the ABA’s response to that. In some ways, Amazon’s idea is like price-matching offers or coupon clipping: it’s a way for people to save money. On the other hand, it gives you an incentive to go into a store, use its space, its personnel, and its merchandise to find what you want, and give that store nothing in return. It’s basically a way of saying: “Go have Joe do all my work for me, then I’ll give you want you want.” Amazon gets the reward for the store’s efforts. Not illegal, certainly, but it doesn’t exactly thrill me either. Still, I’m not surprised. This response from the ABA is a little like that: not explicitly outraged, because this is the sort of thing the ABA has come to expect from Amazon, but peeved nonetheless.

Jessica Hische: Inspiration vs. Imitation

Jessica Hische—a letterer, illustrator, and designer—writes about the line between inspiration and imitation. What’s the difference between being inspired by someone’s work and imitating it? Hische speaks in terms of illustration and design, but the same principles apply to writing. It’s sometimes a fuzzy line—what one person thinks is a ripoff another person may think is a fresh take on old ideas—but it’s one you should consider. Are you imitating someone for the sake of learning something? Wonderful. Are you imitating someone for the sake of selling something? Probably not the best idea.

Image by Simon Howden via FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Leaflet Review: Embassytown by China Miéville

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Embassytown by China MiévilleIn the far future, humans have colonized a distant planet, home to the enigmatic Ariekei, sentient beings famed for a language unique in the universe, one that only a few altered human ambassadors can speak.

Avice Benner Cho, a human colonist, has returned to Embassytown after years of deep-space adventure. She cannot speak the Ariekei tongue, but she is an indelible part of it, having long ago been made a figure of speech, a living simile in their language.

When distant political machinations deliver a new ambassador to Arieka, the fragile equilibrium between humans and aliens is violently upset. Catastrophe looms, and Avice is torn between competing loyalties: to a husband she no longer loves, to a system she no longer believes in, and to her place in a language which speaks through her, whether she likes it or not.

First, check out that cover. Isn’t it awesome? Maybe it’s my recent obsession with black-white-red color schemes, but I love it.

China Miéville is known for bending things: definitions, genres, minds. His latest novel, Embassytown, follows that vein. It’s a science fiction novel, a mystery, a thought experiment. It’s a book that, at one point, I thought of as the Opium Wars in Space, except it’s not like the Opium Wars at all.

What drew me to the book was the idea that it’s all about language: the Embassytown colonists and their Ariekei Hosts speak very different languages. The Hosts have two mouths that speak in tandem, but simply emitting simultaneous sounds is not enough to speak their language: machines cannot speak it; they cannot write; they have no word for “that.” Hosts can only speak the truth, because their language is truth, and they only hear Language when there is a soul behind the sounds. They need humans to act out events so they can construct similes; for this to be like that, that must have actually happened. Avice Benner Cho, the main character, is the girl who was hurt in the dark and ate what was given her, and the Hosts use her simile all the time.

So that’s what intrigued me. What really impressed me was Avice’s growth. This is a character who is very different at the end of the book than she is at the beginning, and yet her growth is so masterfully done, so natural to her surroundings, that it never felt like a character arc. It felt like someone maturing to meet her circumstances; it felt real.

I’m not normally in for alien-world science fiction. Those books normally get too weird for me, to be honest. (Even in Embassytown it still gets weird, and I have absolutely no idea what a Host looks like. I ended up just imagining them like praying mantises and adding eye stalks and other bits when the narration called for them—then I’d go back to my praying mantis model.) But Embassytown kept me interested and engaged. It may have been that there was a lot of linguistics in it (mostly from Avice’s husband, who is a linguist) and I was able to recall the linguistics I studied in college. That probably helped. But Avice kept me rapt. I devoured this book. I thought about it for days afterward (I’m still thinking about it).

The book jacket copy and the Library of Congress information for Embassytown make loyalty out to be one of the main themes of the novel. I didn’t get much of that vibe. Sure, there are little loyalty battles in there, but I didn’t come away from the book aching about loyalty. The ache that I came away with was the idea that change has to happen, progress has to be made, but sometimes what you leave behind is just as valuable as what you’re moving towards. Sometimes you have to leave things behind out of necessity, and what you leave them for may be better in some ways, worse in others, but it’s what you need. And that’s a little sad. Bittersweet enough to make me ache.

I guess that’s probably too hard to fit in Library of Congress filing information. Basically, this book is wonderful. I’ll likely reread it. I feel like I shortchanged everyone involved in its creation because I got it 50% off at the Borders liquidation. And when it comes time to nominate books for the Hugos, this one’s going to be on my mind.

Content warnings: Language, mature themes, sci-fi violence.

Leaflet Review: Snuff by Terry Pratchett

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Snuff by Terry PratchettAt long last, Lady Sybil has lured her husband, Sam Vimes, on a well-deserved holiday away from the crime and grime of Ankh-Morpork. But for the commander of the City Watch, a vacation in the country is anything but relaxing. The balls, the teas, the muck—not to mention all that fresh air and birdsong—are more than a bit taxing on a cynical city-born and -bred copper.

Yet a policeman will find crime anywhere if he decides to look hard enough, and it’s not long before a body is discovered, and Sam—out of his jurisdiction, out of his element, and out of bacon sandwiches (thanks to his well-meaning wife)—must rely on his instincts, guile, and street smarts to see justice done. As he sets off on the chase, though, he must remember to watch where he steps. … This is the countryside, after all, and the streets most definitely are not paved in gold.

I’ve mentioned before that I adore Terry Pratchett’s novels, right? Almost as much as I love fairy tales. And most of my favorite Discworld novels are Sam Vimes Discworld novels, so of course I had to read Snuff, Pratchett’s most recent release.

For any of you who haven’t read any Discworld novels and don’t know anything about them, let me preface this by saying that you can pick up pretty much any Discworld novel and read it without reading those that preceded it. The novels all stand alone reasonably well. That said, I’d recommend reading Thud, the last Sam Vimes novel, before picking up Snuff. There are some things I believe would make a lot more sense if you’ve read Thud.

Snuff is a fun read, enjoyably paced and full of Pratchett’s distinctive voice. Sam Vimes is just as wonderful as always: who doesn’t love a cop who does whatever he can to make the world right, while still holding himself to the law because he understands he needs it just as much as anyone? With all the TV shows with devil-may-care protagonists, Vimes stands apart. He always gets his man, but he knows when he’s crossing lines that shouldn’t be crossed, and his integrity in that is always impressive.

Praise like that for a character in a comic novel sounds a little odd, and it should. Snuff wasn’t the sort of gut-bustingly funny novel that Pratchett has turned out in the past. I didn’t laugh out loud very often (though I did still), and there wasn’t quite as much absurdity in it. The novel felt more serious to me than most of Pratchett’s work, although it didn’t reach the elegant poignancy of Night Watch, my favorite novel of Pratchett’s.

All in all, I enjoyed Snuff. I’d recommend it to people. I recommend it to you. But I can’t say that it’s the best thing Discworld has seen. Nor is it the worst. When compared to other Discworld novels, it stands up somewhere in the middle of the road. Still, that means it’s miles ahead of many other things I read.

Leaflet Review: Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

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Zoo City by Lauren BeukesZinzi December has a Sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit, and a talent for finding lost things. But when a little old lady turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheck, she’s forced to take on her least favourite kind of job: missing persons.

I got Zoo City after the Angry Robot presentation at WorldCon, but I’d decided to read it before then. In the alternate Earth of the novel, if you’ve done something awful, you gain a magical animal companion that grants you a magic ability. If your Animal dies, a dark force colloquially called Hell’s Undertow will murder you within minutes. Zinzi December, a former drug addict and current email scammer (more or less against her will), is accompanied by Sloth and has the ability to feel a person’s lost items and follow threads from an individual to a particular lost item. Zinzi uses that skill to earn some money legally by finding lost rings and suchlike.

As you might imagine, having a visible display that you are (or have been) a criminal presents some issues. Most animalled people (called zoos) in the story live in a slum of Johannesburg, South Africa, called Zoo City. That’s where Zinzi tries to scratch out a life.

The book is told in first-person present tense, which normally annoys me a bit, but Zinzi is such an engaging narrator that I hardly noticed. Her descriptions are pitch-perfect and fresh, and her character shows in every sentence. She’s honest to the reader (if not exactly honest to other characters), three-dimensional, and you can’t help but root for her. Zinzi’s doing her best to make good in a world that won’t see past her Animal, and very few things go right for her. (Speaking of her Animal, Sloth is such a sweet little bundle of externalized guilt.)

The book’s plot is essentially Zinzi trying to piece together the truth of a mystery while piecing herself together at the same time. There were a few plot events I felt were a little less than flawless, but it was such an enjoyable ride I didn’t care.

One thing I really appreciated in this book was that it took place in a setting I’m unfamiliar with (while still being on Earth, of course). The author is from South Africa and she did a ton of research to make her portrayal of Johannesburg slums accurate. The book told a great story while expanding my awareness of other walks of life, locations, and events. That dimension of the book is something I’m especially grateful for because it came above and beyond the engaging characters and story I expected (and found).

All in all, I’m definitely going to pick up another novel from Lauren Beukes. I’ll leave you with some of the first lines of the book, which I think should convince you to go read it now:

“Morning light the sulphur color of the mine dumps seeps across Johannesburg’s skyline and sears through my window. My own personal bat signal. Or a reminder that I really need to get curtains.”

Content warnings: some language, drug references/use, violence, etc.

Leaflet Review: My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me

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My Mother She Killed Me ... CoverFirst, let me apologize for my extended absence. I was in the middle of moving across several state lines, and when I got to my new home it took a certain company quite a while to get the internet up and running in my house. Because I’m not keen on composing blog posts while using the internet at Denny’s, I let the blog linger. But I’m back with a series of book reviews on what I’ve been reading for the past month. They’ll also stand in for my weekly roundup this week—no internet means I haven’t a clue about anything that’s been going on this past week or two.

To start today’s review, here’s the copy from the back cover of My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me, an anthology edited by Kate Bernheimer:

Neil Gaiman, Michael Cunningham, Aimee Bender, Kelly Link, Chris Adrian, Lydia Millet, and more than thirty other extraordinary writers celebrate fairy tales in this thrilling volume—the ultimate literary costume party.

Spinning houses and talking birds. Whispered secrets and borrowed hope. Here are new stories sewn from old skins, gathered from around the world by visionary editor Kate Bernheimer and inspired by everything from Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” and “The Little Match Girl” to Charles Perrault’s “Bluebeard” and “Cinderella” to the Brothers Grimm’s “Hansel and Gretel” and “Rumpelstiltskin” to fairy tales by Goethe and Calvino.

Fairy tales are our oldest literary tradition, and yet they chart the imaginative frontiers of the new twenty-first century as powerfully as they evoke our earliest encounters with literature. This exhilarating collection restores their place in the literary canon.

This collection won this years’ World Fantasy award for the anthology category.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a fairy tale junkie. Base something on a fairy tale and I can hardly keep myself away from it for long. So when I heard about the anthology My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me (edited by Kate Bernheimer), I had my eye out for it everywhere. It took a bit of finding, but I got myself a copy.

Overview

The collection is a gem. That isn’t to say I enjoyed every story (the charm of anthologies is that even if you don’t like every story, you’re bound to get plenty that you do like). However, each story added something to the fairy tale tradition. Some stories were retellings of fairy tales; some took a tale as a starting off point; some borrowed character or thematic arcs without matching up neatly on the details. After every story is a short snippet from the author explaining why he or she chose a particular base story and how his or her story was influenced by whichever the “original” (a dangerous word in fairy tales, but most authors pointed to a specific book they’d read as a child as their source).

The stories ran the gamut on genre: fantasy, magic realism, realism, environmentalist manifesto, daily log, and questionnaire all made an appearance. Many of the stories’ tones were dark (the anthology’s title aptly forewarns you of that), some were quaint, and a few really resonated with me.

Favorite Moments

It’s difficult to talk about an entire anthology, so I’ll talk about a few stories. My favorites were “The Color Master” by Aimee Bender (inspired by Perrault’s “Donkeyskin”), “Catskin” by Kelly Link (inspired by Joseph Jacobs’s “Catskin”), “A Day in the Life of Half of Rumpelstiltskin” by Kevin Brockmeier, and “With Hair of Hand-Spun Gold” by Neil LaBute (both based on “Rumpelstiltskin”).

“The Color Master” is about the tailors and cloth-dyers that created the dresses that were the color of the moon, sun, and sky for the princess in “Donkeyskin,” the princess who is trying to invent impossible pre-marital tasks for her father so she doesn’t have to marry him. Unfortunately these tailors are very good at their jobs and create the impossible dresses the princess requires. The main character is torn between her exhilaration at meeting the requirements and her mentor’s revulsion at the attempted incest of the king. The descriptions are sublime.

“Catskin” was uniquely dark and bizarre, and it veered far from the story that inspired it (to be fair, Link says it is inspired by many fairy tales). “Catskin” manages to feel like a fairy tale while telling a completely new and intriguing story.

The Rumpelstiltskin stories are both very different, and both made me think about the funny little man very differently. “With Hair of Hand-Spun Gold” is really creepy, probably creepier because it’s a realist story, but it’s done very well and had my arm-hairs standing on end almost the entire time. It’s essentially the return of the Rumpelstiltskin stand-in character: he has found the mother and her daughter after years and approaches the mother on a park bench while the daughter plays on the playground, unaware.

Final Thoughts

The anthology does what it sets out to do: it displays how fairytale narratives infuse our lives, whether we acknowledge them or not. I was impressed with how the stories stretched and expanded what it means for a story to be based on a fairy tale. Each story gains something because it has a foil narrative—whichever “original” story you as the reader have in your head—and through that foil you interact with the story in a different way than you would if it stood alone. My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me has stories that will appeal to a broad range of readers, many of whom wouldn’t believe they’d like a retold fairy tale. While I didn’t enjoy every minute of the book, I enjoyed the ride it took me on.

A few content warnings to those of you who are considering this book: some stories include rough language, explicit sex, and extreme violence. Fairy tales have a lot of psychosexual themes and many are inherently violent, and several of the anthology’s authors ran that route. If you’re squeamish (which I often am), dip your toes in a story before diving in—skip it if you want to. The charm of the anthology is that there are plenty of other stories if one of them doesn’t suit your fancy.

Looseleaf Proofreading

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This week I’m going to look at each of Looseleaf’s editorial services and tell you what they are, when you need them, and some tricks you can use to do some editing yourself before you hire it out. Today is proofreading day.

What Is Proofreading?

Proofreading is a lot like copyediting, which I talked about yesterday, but with a few important differences. It’s still nuts-and-bolts editing, but it’s more restrained than copyediting. Proofreading is supposed to be the last thing that happens before a book is released (except fixing the errors found in proofreading, of course). This means that sometimes a proofreader will allow text through that isn’t ideal, but isn’t exactly wrong either. When I proofread I look for errors and inconsistencies that the author would change if he or she saw them, not for things I think should change. If it won’t make the author look like an idiot, at this point, it’s probably okay.

Proofreading also tackles an aspect copyediting leaves alone: formatting. Because I proofread on the final version of a manuscript, I make sure the final version looks the way it is supposed to. If there are font changes, I point them out for the typesetter; if there are words that are hyphenated in an unhelpful way, I suggest a different line break. I point out lines that are too spaced out, too cramped, or too short to stand on their own. I make sure page breaks happen at good points in the text and that there are no distracting patterns in the word spaces. (If you’re savvy to typesetting lingo, proofreaders look for bad breaks, widows, orphans, rivers, word stacks, and more.)

Proofreading is important for both print books and ebooks. Ebook formatting can get botched during creation or during conversion from one file format (e.g., .doc, .pdf, .indd) to another (e.g., .epub, .mobi, .amz), and it’s important to proofread the final version as it will be seen by your reader.

When Does a Manuscript Need Proofreading?

As you’ve probably gathered from my description of proofreading, it’s the very last thing you do. Proofreading should be done on manuscripts that have already been copyedited and that are deemed ready to be released. If you don’t have your manuscript in the final version for print or electronic distribution, proofreading isn’t for you yet. This can be an important distinction when you’re hiring someone. Most editors will be able to figure out if you’ve asked for proofreading when you actually wanted copyediting, but knowing the difference will help you search for the right editor.

How Can You Do Some Proofreading Yourself?

As with copyediting, I don’t recommend proofreading for yourself. That isn’t to say you’re incapable of catching the types of errors proofreaders focus on, but rather that when it comes to your own work it’s not advisable to rely on yourself. If someone has seen your manuscript before (unless it was a very different version), they’re probably the wrong person for your proofreading. I won’t proofread manuscripts I’ve already worked on; instead I choose one of my stellar editor friends, have them proofread it, and then review their work to make sure it’s in line with what the author and I have discussed in previous edits. This ensures that the author is getting the best editing possible. If I’m new to a manuscript, that means I’m the right person for the job. When it comes to your manuscript, you’ve seen it too many times to be qualified.

So instead of telling you how to proofread, I’m going to give you some tips on preparing to hand your manuscript over to a proofreader, whether you’re paying them or not. The best piece of advice I can give you is to make a style sheet. A style sheet gives your proofreader a map for how things should be, and it cuts down on the time a proofreader spends asking you questions. Here are a few things that should be in your style sheet:

  • How you spell and capitalize characters’ names, place-names, theories, principles, and objects unique to your manuscript. (It’s also helpful to write out any acronyms you use.)
  • What style guide you use for your citations (Chicago, APA, MLA, etc.).
  • What color your characters’ eyes, hair, skin, etc. are. (Other personal details that need to be consistent—like age—are also very helpful.)
  • Any facts that are particularly pertinent to making sure everything makes sense chronologically.
  • Your stance on any ambiguous language issues you feel strongly about (e.g., who / whom). This also includes any unique spellings you have that deviate from dictionary standards (e.g., writing lifewriting as one word instead of two).

If you have a style sheet with your opinions and needs for the manuscript on it, you’ll have one extremely happy proofreader, which is almost as good as proofreading for yourself.

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Looseleaf Copyediting

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This week I’m going to look at each of Looseleaf’s editorial services and tell you what they are, when you need them, and some tricks you can use to do some editing yourself before you hire it out. Today is copyediting day.

Clean CopyeditingWhat Is Copyediting?

Copyediting is a nuts-and-bolts type of editing that focuses on grammar, spelling, punctuation, style, and consistency. When I copyedit I polish your work. I make sure your character’s eyes stay the same color throughout the book and that you capitalize words or phrases the same way from beginning to end; I make sure you get the I’s before the E’s (except when you shouldn’t) and that your pronouns agree in number and gender with whatever they’re standing in for. Copyediting is, essentially, what most people think of when they think of editing. It’s cleanup.

Sometimes copyediting isn’t necessarily a right-or-wrong type of thing.* There are a lot of language scenarios in which you have more than one option. For example, you might be using whom in a grammatically correct way and un-dangling your prepositions (“Willis needed to figure out to whom he should send the package”), but that might not suit your character voice or the tone of your book (and maybe “Willis needed to figure out who to send the package to” would be better). When I’m copyediting, it’s my job to make sure you stay consistent in your language choices and that they align with the message you’re trying to portray. (If you’re writing something scholarly, that means I’ll scour your citations and make sure they’re correct down to the spacing between the periods, because it’s important to your credibility.)

Copyediting goes a long way to increase your credibility, and nothing will hobble your street cred faster than a misspelled word, misplaced modifier, or missing quotation mark. Copyediting gives your work polish.

When Does a Manuscript Need Copyediting?

A manuscript needs copyediting after the content of the manuscript is completely satisfactory. (If you copyedit before your final revision, the copyediting becomes a little superfluous because your final changes are going to effect your wording, which means you’ll need to do the copyediting again.) When you’re sure your story, study, or article says everything you want it to say in the way you want to say it, you need copyediting to make sure all your words, phrases, and facts flow. Copyediting comes after you’ve deemed your work “done” and you’re ready for final touches.

How Can You Do Some Copyediting Yourself?

Copyediting is a hard thing to do for yourself, mostly because by the time you’re copyediting you’ve seen your manuscript too many times to count. It’s also hard because you know what you meant to say, so you might not be able to see that you didn’t actually say what you meant to. However, there are a few things you can do to help yourself.

  • Change the form of your manuscript before you edit it (print it out, put it in a different font, etc.) The more you can defamiliarize yourself with the text, the better you’ll be able to edit it.
  • Use electronic tools to search for a phrase and make sure it appears the same way throughout your manuscript.
  • Keep a sharp eye out for errors you know you’re prone to.
  • Be wary of homophones (words that sound like each other but mean different things): your / you’re, their / they’re / there, lead (metal) / led (past-tense of to lead), etc.
  • Read your manuscript backwards. This helps you see when you’re missing words in common phrases that you might not see otherwise.
  • Read your manuscript out loud.
  • Look things up. Use a solid online dictionary (like Merriam-Webster) or other resource. It also wouldn’t hurt to have a reference book or two on hand if you know how to use them (i.e., a usage dictionary or a style guide like the Chicago Manual of Style).

Overall, I don’t recommend doing your copyediting yourself, though it may be a good idea to have a friend or two look over the manuscript before you hire a copyeditor. The further someone is from your manuscript, the better they’ll be at catching little mistakes.

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* As an example, copyeditors don’t even agree on what to call themselves. Sometimes they’re copy editors instead of copyeditors.

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Looseleaf Substantive Editing

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This week I’m going to look at each of Looseleaf’s editorial services and tell you what they are, when you need them, and some tricks you can use to do some editing yourself before you hire it out. Today is substantive editing day.

Railway TrackWhat Is Substantive Editing?

Substantive editing is also called line editing. That’s because for a substantive edit I go through a manuscript line by line and consider how each line could be better. This means it’s a lot more sentence- and word-based that developmental editing, but it’s still focusing on how the manuscript works as a whole. It can go as big as reordering paragraphs and as fine as tweaking a word to sustain your tone. When I do a substantive edit, I look at how the little pieces work together to strengthen your plot or argument, your character development, your theme, your structure, and your ability to reach your audience.

Substantive editing with me often involves some ghostwriting. By that I don’t mean that I insert sentences you have to include. What I mean is that sometimes the suggestions I make in a substantive edit are best communicated through examples. If you need a transition between two paragraphs, I may write one. Then I’ll leave a comment explaining why I did what I did and asking you to look over the change. I may pull a sentence from the end of a paragraph and put it somewhere else, but I’ll want you to make sure I didn’t change the meaning from what you intended.

This means that substantive editing involves a lot of tweaking, reordering, and decision-making from the author—which means that even though a substantive edit may involve grammar-related changes, it can’t stand in for a true copyedit. By the time the edit is done you’ll have changed a lot of text, and any time you make lots of changes you need to go back and make sure the details of those changes are clear and consistent.

When Does a Manuscript Need Substantive Editing?

Your manuscript needs a substantive edit when you think your story or argument is solid, but you want help with the details. A substantive edit won’t overhaul chapters, scenes, and arcs the way a developmental edit will; it will make sure every line is serving the structure you’ve already set up and keeping your ideas on track. So if you’re satisfied with your setup, but you want something more in-depth than an error-hunt (i.e., a copyedit), you should be looking for a substantive editor.

How Can You Do Some Substantive Editing Yourself?

Before you can do a substantive edit, it’s important that you have a concrete vision for your book. If you aren’t sure whether you want a dark tone or a darkly humorous one, you’re going to have trouble doing the fine-tuning the book needs (some of you won’t have any trouble with this, but some discovery writers may need to think about it). After you feel that you understand your structure, you can ask yourself questions. The more you do on your own before hiring an editor, the more that editor’s feedback will help your writing, because the editor won’t be telling you things you already knew.

  • Does this line communicate my purpose to my audience?
  • Would this sentence be more effective earlier or later?
  • Does this word suit the tone/character/viewpoint? Is there a better word?
  • Does this dialogue match the character’s purpose in the book?
  • Does this sentence contribute to my argument, or is it distracting from my main point?
  • Is this action consistent with the character I’ve created? Is it stereotypical or cliché?
  • Is this bit of dialogue didactic or stilted?
  • Does this transition show the logical progression of the plot or argument? Does it leave a gap the reader has to bridge? How can I transition better?
  • Does this element of the book support or erode my theme?

Some of these questions are similar to those you ask in a developmental edit. The difference is that in a substantive edit you’re focusing on smaller things—smaller errors and smaller opportunities. These small things are the ones that take your manuscript from being good to being excellent.

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