Editor response format.

[snoopercharmbrights]

From another thread:

... Do you want a clean edit (I make the fixes ready for you to copy and paste into a submission form) or do you prefer I highlight suggested changes in red and you go back and remove my comments?...

As an aside to this thread, that is an interesting question. I will take it to a new thread.

What do other editors do?

I mark all the changes I feel are needed (in three colours - dark yellow for "must make" like homophone errors, missed close quotes, spelling, etc. - pink for "editor's suggestions" like misnamed characters, wrong tenses, etc, - green for my personal suggestions, like my aversion to the use of abbreviations outside direct speech, my aversion to brackets in fiction, etc.). Then at the end of the editing and comments I put a "corrected" version of the story, or to be more accurate, the story as it would be if all my changes were made.

That way the author can read through "my" version of the story and see what (s)he thinks of it. The full detail is also available so that the author can cherry pick my suggestions and leave in anything that (s)he thinks is better in the original.

Just as the author must never take comments as personal, so I never take an author's ignoring my advice personally. This is literature we are creating here and all opinions are just that, opinions, not facts. If someone offers me a proof of Pythagoras' Theorem it is either right or wrong and opinion is irrelevant, but story writing is not mathematics.

 

[LadyCibelle]

From another thread:
What do other editors do?

I mark all the changes I feel are needed (in three colours - dark yellow for "must make" like homophone errors, missed close quotes, spelling, etc. - pink for "editor's suggestions" like misnamed characters, wrong tenses, etc, - green for my personal suggestions, like my aversion to the use of abbreviations outside direct speech, my aversion to brackets in fiction, etc.). Then at the end of the editing and comments I put a "corrected" version of the story, or to be more accurate, the story as it would be if all my changes were made.

That way the author can read through "my" version of the story and see what (s)he thinks of it. The full detail is also available so that the author can cherry pick my suggestions and leave in anything that (s)he thinks is better in the original.

Just as the author must never take comments as personal, so I never take an author's ignoring my advice personally. This is literature we are creating here and all opinions are just that, opinions, not facts. If someone offers me a proof of Pythagoras' Theorem it is either right or wrong and opinion is irrelevant, but story writing is not mathematics.

If I had Snooper's patience that's exactly what I would do too. Unfortunately, I'm not (patient, that is) so I rely on Word's Track Change to do my editing. Everything changed is in Red, deletions are in Blue, Comments are in those nifty bubbles that Word have, I use the pastel blue for it, and quite often I also put my overall comment at the end of the story...in Red, once again.

I was the lucky recipient of one of Snooper's edit and I was quite impressed with the amount of Work he had put in. I thought I was working a whole lot when I put a couple days on an edit but seeing Snooper's work made me realize that I was barely scraping the top off.

 

[AsylumSeeker]

Track Changes - Ugh!

I don't assume everyone has Word, and am not fond of the Track Changes function beacuse I'm not accustomed to using it.

Here are my thoughts. If a writer has published a story on Lit and is suffering some spelling and grammatical issues, that writer may prefer to just have the story edited so he/she can copy and paste with EDITED included. A clean copy so to speak, although I have borrowed this term from another editor.

Other writers, still learning and such, or more discriminating as to what the editor is modifying, may want to have more control of their story (and certainly have that right). So I use red brackets, which I think I have already explained in an earlier post and won't replicate unless requested to do so.

There are many ways to edit, and I think editors should do so in the best interest of their writers.

 

[Darkniciad]

I usually send back two copies, one "RED" and one "Clean" The red copy has everything I've changed highlighted in the original text, and I follow up with descriptions of what I did after each paragraph ( and sometimes a lot of detail about why ). The clean copy is my edit with no markup.

I preface every edit with the notation that everything is a suggestion, which can be used, modified, or discarded at will. I'm not offended if they ignore a suggestion completely.

If I feel the edited draft is ready for posting, I also include an RTF file ( .txt always inlines to the email, which is a pain in the posterior ) with all the HTML for italics and special characters for em dashes ( got tired of the double hyphen appearing ) already inserted. Easier to cut and paste without artifacts from Word or Wordperfect.

 

[Lalah]

I like AsylumSeeker's way pretty much. It helps to see both the original and modified version nex to each others.

 

[snoopercharmbrights]

My first assumption is that everyone has Word. For those who do not have it I simply save from Word 2003 as html and then it can all be read by any browser I have met so far. That is why I use Track Changes and real inserted coloured text. rather than the "bubble" comments.

 

[mjl2010]

Am I actually going to own up to the fact that I've edited for some folks? OK I have.

So I was doing it one way, rather inspired by Asylumseekers style from when he did some for me. I prefaced the stories with notes and pointed out areas they were habitually bad with.

Then I got a story back from snooper and went, OMG! I couldn't believe how great it was that way.

About the only complaint I had with snooper was, the paragraphs all came back bunched up. No blank line between them. I thought maybe I was missing something and tried to submit that way, but I had to go back and redo the spaces between the paragraphs. I'm not sure what happened but, my only complaint.

I've adopted an editing style that's a cross between what Asymlumseeker and Snooper did for me.

Missing/incorrect punctuation in narration, I do the change in red. Missing word, I add it in red. Delete a word, I use the strikeout. Substitutions, I use the strikeout plus add the word in red. I make comments in blue. Since my eyes don't see yellows and pastels well on the screen, I pretty much limit my color usage to blue and red. I'll use the yellow and green highlights to point out trouble areas and make suggestions in blue after the paragraph. The writer is left to make those changes he/she feels they need to make.

I really like snoopers way though. I just don't have the time to put that kind of work into it.

MJL

 

[snoopercharmbrights]

... Then I got a story back from snooper and went, OMG! I couldn't believe how great it was that way. ...

Nothing original in my way. I learned it from peer reviewing technical reports at work - in those dim and distant days when I worked for a living.

 

[emap]

Yeah snoopy is a marvel of editors. He actually spends the time to go through my stories and edit them. How he can stand to do that is beyond me, once I finish writing it I just want to close it up and leave it alone.

 

[snoopercharmbrights]

He actually spends the time to go through my stories and edit them. How he can stand to do that is beyond me, once I finish writing it I just want to close it up and leave it alone.

That isn't anything special. You hate your story because you have had it in your head for "days ... weeks ... months ..." (as Eeyore put it) whereas the editor is reading it for the first time, which makes it fresh and interesting, and means that errors more easily spotted.

 

[Weird Harold]

I don't assume everyone has Word, and am not fond of the Track Changes function beacuse I'm not accustomed to using it.

I haven't edited for years, but I didn't and won't edit fro anyone who can't use tracked changes -- i.e. Wordperfect Opoen Office, or Word 97 or later.

The reason I won't edit without Tracked changes is because I've seen far too many editorial comments show up in posted stories because the changes and/or comments are missed in the final review by the author.

With the reviewing tools toolbar, it's a simple matter of clicking the next/previous button to find each place the editor made a change and a single button click to accept or reject the change.

I use Word's comment feature extensively as well for the same reason -- the reviewing tools toolbar shows when there are comments left to deal with and even if they're missed, the only noticeable affect on the posted story is [HANx] left where the comment wasn't removed.

I do not expect people editing for me to use the reviewing tools, because I use the "compare documents" feature of Word 97 to highlight changes the editors made.

 

[WhiteWave48]

em dashes

*****

 

[AsylumSeeker]

White Wave is Back!

Huggss girl! Haven't seen your shadow here in a while.

 

[WhiteWave48]

*****

 

[Darkniciad]

Easy enough to remember. Everywhere you have an em dash, just replace it in the text with:

—

So long as they don't remove the ability to process special characters, using the HTML means that the dashes will remain constant, even if they do make modifications to the text processor.

Here's a link I use. Has the copyright symbol, em and en dashes, and a lot of other things that can prove useful in scene separators/etc. I tossed some hearts into my scene separators for my Vday stories.

http://www.webmonkey.com/reference/special_characters/

 

[WhiteWave48]

*****

 

[sr71plt]

I cut and paste a Word document into the submissions box and it holds the em dashes without any trouble.

 

[Darkniciad]

I cut and paste a Word document into the submissions box and it holds the em dashes without any trouble.

That's probably why some of my older stuff still has proper dashes, while the newer/recently edited ones went to double hyphens after the most recent text processor changes. I switched from Word to Wordperfect for the most part. Everything worked until they made the modifications to the processor, and then everything retrograded to double hyphens overnight.

I just decided to stop taking chances, since the preview still shows the em dashes from virtually any program, and they show up as double hyphens once actually posted most of the time.

 

[WhiteWave48]

*****

 

[Betterwood]

will edit for free sex turnaround 1 day

NO advertising or soliciting.
``

 

[Lalah]

I'll be gentle with your "baby" manuscript & won't make your teeth itch with technical stuff. It's just a fiction story... get on with it. But first I need to "like" the author & subject matter. Prefer stories about gentle consenting adults, swingers, groups, families inlaws swappers. Send free sex via email, now do I have your attn?
Limit filesize to 1 mb, prefer *.wpd that's *.RTF format, it's quick & easy like me.
--Betterwood on Lit

``

Look, the editor program is not a way for you to solicit (cyber?) sex. You keep going around offering your services for sex and that's not how it work. If that's what you're really looking for then go to a dating site, these people want someone serious about editing and not a no-stories guy pretending to be an editor just to get to them.

 

[AsylumSeeker]

Feeling Guilty

Look, the editor program is not a way for you to solicit (cyber?) sex. You keep going around offering your services for sex and that's not how it work. If that's what you're really looking for then go to a dating site, these people want someone serious about editing and not a no-stories guy pretending to be an editor just to get to them.

My apologies to all. I had left an open request out there for an editor, as I was so involved with editing I was behind on editing my own stories so I took the quick fix and thought, perhaps, I oould learn what I'm missing from another, willing, editor.

(Pulling back on Lalah's leash - Heel, bitch! And lovingly patting her loyal skull)

 

[LazyDays1221]

Doing it all wrong!?

After reading most of what has come before in this thread, I'm beginning to think that I'm doing it all wrong.

Some credit to me - I just naturally started out using the varied colours for the different types of changes or suggestions I'v made. I usually leave the author's original paragraph intact, copy and paste a second, and make/indicate my changes to the second.

Once I've read and indicated suggestions/changes for the first page or two, I send the story back to the author and suggest that they continue making changes as indicated/desired. The only time I've completely re-written a story for an author is when that author asked me to fix her French-Canadian English into Anglo-English.

Is it 'bad form' to only make changes/suggestions to the first page or two as I have? Am I obligated to do a thorough and complete edit of the entire story?

Lastly, is there a forum where authors rank, critique, or provide feedback on what an editor did for them? Can I ask/require an author to provide this feedback when I initially agree to take on their project?

I've only edited for about 1/2 a dozen authors - how do I know if I'm doing good or not?? lol

Thanks to all who reply
'Nora'

 

[Weird Harold]

...Is it 'bad form' to only make changes/suggestions to the first page or two as I have? Am I obligated to do a thorough and complete edit of the entire story?
...
I've only edited for about 1/2 a dozen authors - how do I know if I'm doing good or not?? lol

That would depend on what the author requested and just how bad the author's writing is.

I would return a story partially edited as you do only when the corrections I was making were consistent, easily found errors that permeated the story.

Otherwise, I always returned complete edits with the changes tracked for the clients approval/rejection.

One thing I clearly established was that I had no intention of becoming a co-author and would NOT rewrite anything although I would make suggestions as to possible ways to correct problems.

You can tell if you're doing what the clients need when you have repeat customers -- and/or effusive praise.

 

[snoopercharmbrights]

... I've only edited for about 1/2 a dozen authors - how do I know if I'm doing good or not?? ...

If an author comes back for more editing with the next story, then you have done some good for that author. If you hear nothing you have not been good for that author.

There are no editors who are good for all authors; like any other relationship, some pairings work well, others stink, and it is not possible to dec ide beforehand which will be which.