Tag: editing

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David Antrobus

The Editor’s Fedora Part 2

February 27, 2014 by David Antrobus | 2 Comments on The Editor’s Fedora Part 2

Okay, after Part 1, you should now have the MS nice and clean. What’s the next step? How do you find an editor? This part isn’t hard, but it’s crucial you find someone who’s right for your book. And there’s no substitute for research. Ask around. Google. If you haven’t already done so, join writers’ […]

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David Antrobus

The Editor’s Fedora Part 1

February 25, 2014 by David Antrobus | 2 Comments on The Editor’s Fedora Part 1

As an independent writer myself and a passionate believer in the indie ethic, I have to acknowledge one of its major downsides: a real or perceived shoddiness in the final product of self-published authors. Which is where I now switch hats and replace the bohemian beret of the writer with a more conservative form of […]

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Adrienne Montgomerie

This Book Contains Canadian Spelling

February 11, 2014 by Adrienne Montgomerie | 11 Comments on This Book Contains Canadian Spelling

Every publisher who has hoped for a large U.S. audience has asked me to edit to U.S. spelling standards. You know, drop the dipthongs (oe and ae), omit the u from ou pairs, use z instead of s, allow only one consonant before adding an ending… They seem to think Americans won’t buy a book […]

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Susan Glickman

Editing the First-Time Novelist

January 28, 2014 by Susan Glickman | 1 Comment on Editing the First-Time Novelist

I teach Creative Writing in the continuing education programs at both Ryerson and the University of Toronto. My students know that I also work as a freelance editor, so they often ask me whether they ought to hire one. Sometimes they even want to hire me, but generally I refuse. Why? Because first drafts from […]

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Melva McLean

The Envelope, Please

January 16, 2014 by Melva McLean | 7 Comments on The Envelope, Please

I was at a film event the other night, and someone asked, “So what do you do for a living?” I, of course, answered, “I’m an editor.” They asked, “What movies have you worked on?” It happens all the time. But the other night, for the first time, someone asked me if I saw any […]

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Rosemary Shipton

What Should an Editor Be?

January 7, 2014 by Rosemary Shipton | 26 Comments on What Should an Editor Be?

We were nearing the end of a Stylistic Editing seminar — a group of about 30 people of varying ages and experience working in-house or freelance for book publishers, magazines, businesses or governments. A woman in the third row raised her hand: “In my work I’m the only editor,” she said, “so I don’t really […]

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Wilf Popoff

Wasted Words: The Tragedies and Farces of History

December 10, 2013 by Wilf Popoff | 3 Comments on Wasted Words: The Tragedies and Farces of History

  “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce, third as more repetition.” I know Marx would have added that last part had he been on the ball. In the event, he was so fixated on dialectical something or other that he didn’t get around to it. And then there was the business about workers […]

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Virginia Durksen

Myth: The Rules are the Rules (Not)

November 26, 2013 by Virginia Durksen | 2 Comments on Myth: The Rules are the Rules (Not)

Some rules are rules. Not meant to be broken. Others are more like etiquette or Sunday best. When was the last time you wore Sunday best? That’s because society has changed in the half-century (or however long) you’ve been alive. When was the last time you split an infinitive, misspoke “you and I” for “you […]

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Virginia Durksen

Myth: Perfection is the Goal

October 16, 2013 by Virginia Durksen | Leave a Comment

We’ve all had that moment of pride when the book or the brochure arrives, still smelling of ink. And the next moment, when we open the book to discover the glaring error that has somehow managed to survive our eagle-eyed hunt, to live forever as testament to our failure. That moment is sent by the […]

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Wilf Popoff

WASTED WORDS: Squandering Words on Money

October 9, 2013 by Wilf Popoff | 3 Comments on WASTED WORDS: Squandering Words on Money

The love of money is not only the root of all evil; it is also the root of ghastly copy. I find it particularly ironic that word economy has only a fleeting acquaintance with commerce. Consider the grating and ubiquitous tautology, expensive price, as in, “The house with a river view comes at a more […]

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Kate Icely

DISPATCHES 7: Finding Work in Unexpected Places

October 2, 2013 by Kate Icely | Leave a Comment

Getting an internship can lead to a job—but it might not be the job you were expecting. When I first started taking courses at Ryerson University, I didn’t have a clue about the variety of jobs available to me. I knew I could be an editorial assistant at a publishing company, but there were so […]

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Virginia Durksen

Myth: Consistency matters consistently

September 10, 2013 by Virginia Durksen | Leave a Comment

And so begins a mini-series, a sub-set of The Inner Editor by Virginia Durksen. Each “mythbuster” explores an assumption commonly made about editors or editing and offers a new perspective on that assumption. Consistency matters when you’re adding a column of numbers. Consistency also matters when you’re training your dog (or your kids, for that […]

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Wilf Popoff

WASTED WORDS: Stalking Verbosity

July 30, 2013 by Wilf Popoff | 4 Comments on WASTED WORDS: Stalking Verbosity

Verbosity is the technical term for Wasted Words and it reflects the ongoing motif of this blog series. Verbosity noun the fact or quality of using more words than needed; wordiness. (Oxford Online Dictionary) Not much here to make a writer proud. I admit to being verbosity-obsessed: while writing I’m terrorized by the possibility I’ll […]

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Virginia Durksen

THE INNER EDITOR: The Useful Conversation

July 24, 2013 by Virginia Durksen | 2 Comments on THE INNER EDITOR: The Useful Conversation

The desciptive-prescriptive war is over. Long live the conversation. In the past month, my colleagues have been chatting about an article called Descriptivism vs Prescriptivism: War is Over (if you want it). Its heading perpetuates a flawed premise, but the author offers good evidence that prescriptive and descriptive can both be thoughtful approaches to the […]

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Karen Virag

GETTABLE GRAMMAR: Taking issue with “issues”

July 11, 2013 by Karen Virag | 4 Comments on GETTABLE GRAMMAR: Taking issue with “issues”

I think I remember the first time I heard the word issues used as a synonym for problems. I was watching a long-forgotten television sitcom, and one character commented on another’s weird behaviour by saying, “She has issues.” She overenunciated the word issues and at the same time made little scratching gestures with her index […]

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Rosemary Shipton

Editors and Self-Publishing Authors

June 25, 2013 by Rosemary Shipton | 15 Comments on Editors and Self-Publishing Authors

As editors, we must break out of our anonymous shell and shout our virtues loudly and clearly for writers to hear. We’ve all heard the stories: a few authors who self-publish do extremely well, earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, while the majority have little success, bringing in less than $500 all told. […]

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Iva Cheung

Going Out of Style

June 18, 2013 by Iva Cheung | 1 Comment on Going Out of Style

It’s house style. I don’t think I fully appreciated the power of that sentence until I could no longer use it. As editors we’re constantly striving to balance the needs of the publisher, author and reader, but with the growth of self- and custom publishing, the needs of the publisher are becoming irrelevant in more […]

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Wilf Popoff

WASTED WORDS: A World Without Problems

June 11, 2013 by Wilf Popoff | 1 Comment on WASTED WORDS: A World Without Problems

“Houston we have a challenge!” “This is Houston Apollo. What do you mean by challenge?” “A power drop in one of the two main electrical circuits.” “That’s a problem Apollo. Can’t copy challenge.” I’ve altered parts of this celebrated exchange from 43 years ago to support my case. At the time challenge was a word […]

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Lana Okerlund

What Do Editors Need To Know Now?

May 7, 2013 by Lana Okerlund | 2 Comments on What Do Editors Need To Know Now?

The volatile state of the publishing industry today—and, by extension, the editing profession—can sometimes feel pretty daunting. Digital disruptions to the book, magazine, and newspaper segments of the industry in particular are like an ongoing series of earthquake tremors beneath what previously felt like steady ground. Technological innovations have brought new forms of reading and […]

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Kate Icely

DISPATCHES 3: An Intern’s Survival Guide

May 1, 2013 by Kate Icely | 4 Comments on DISPATCHES 3: An Intern’s Survival Guide

For all the good that comes out of an internship, sometimes being an intern can be tough. Interns are dropped into a completely new environment where everyone has more experience than they do. It’s important that they make a good impression, but, at the same time, interns’ skills are only just developing, and they have […]

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Karen Virag

GETTABLE GRAMMAR: Learning to like “like”

April 9, 2013 by Karen Virag | 2 Comments on GETTABLE GRAMMAR: Learning to like “like”

One often hears complaints about how some people litter their sentences with the word like—not as a noun, verb, preposition or conjunction, but as, like, an interjection. Like that. Now I know that Canadians like to blame Americans for all the world’s ills, but we can’t really lay this verbal tic at the feet of […]

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Kate Icely

DISPATCHES 2: What’s in an Internship?

April 2, 2013 by Kate Icely | 5 Comments on DISPATCHES 2: What’s in an Internship?

When I enrolled at Ryerson in the fall of 2011, I took as many editing courses as I could. Copy editing, proofreading, grammar, substantive editing…. The more courses I took, the more I loved working with words. After years of university, here I was, finally surrounded by people who thought exactly as I did. People […]

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Iva Cheung

What does your markup say about you?

March 19, 2013 by Iva Cheung | 5 Comments on What does your markup say about you?

A friend of mine was venting to me about his old boss, who used to look over his reports. Whenever his boss found an error, he’d not only circle it but also emphasize his discovery with an exclamation point—a practice that drove my buddy nuts. Encoded within this tiny mark of punctuation was his micromanaging […]

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Karen Virag

GETTABLE GRAMMAR: Things that dangle

March 12, 2013 by Karen Virag | 1 Comment on GETTABLE GRAMMAR: Things that dangle

Things that dangle in the night. And in the day. Hours before giving birth, a woman’s boyfriend leaves her for her best friend and quits the talent agency they run together to start his own competing business. Now that is one amazing—and appalling!—boyfriend. First he gives birth, then he betrays his girlfriend. Typical man. In […]

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