Editing and proof reading
Liz Bourne, our chief editor and proof manager explains the importance of good clean text
You’ve slaved for months on your manuscript, shown it to your partner, read it to your cat, and now you want to see it in print. Is it ready though? A successful book requires a touch of objectivity; when you’re so close to it for months, that’s often difficult to achieve. Readers don’t appreciate plot inconsistencies, spelling mistakes and poor punctuation, and more importantly, it will detract from the narrative and enjoyment.
What it all means
- The big picture. Also called ‘developmental editing’. This could involve restructuring the book, moving chunks of text around or even deleting some. Maybe some of the characters aren’t fully fleshed out? Or the pace of the book doesn’t work? An editor can point these out and suggest amendments. Some reviews
- Copy editing. This involves looking at grammar, consistency and individual sentences, for example, does it read right? If your book has gone through various revisions, it might have lost some of the finer details. A copy editor can check that a character has the same colour hair throughout the book, or that British English instead of US English is used consistently.
- Proofreader. The final stage. When your book has gone through various stages or revisions, it’s surprisingly easy for small errors to creep in. These might be small, but can really jar with a reader and reflect on the quality of the book as a whole.
- An editor cannot rewrite the book for you. Ultimately, it is up to you to give the final approval. Remember, there’s no shame in getting your hard work edited and proofread; all books that you see on the shelves in Waterstones will have been through a thorough editing process. Yes, it costs you money, but the process will iron out any issues, however small, and make your book the best it can be.
You can see a serious success story from an established writer here
Knowing your capitals
Uppercase. Lowercase. Do you know when to use them?
We know that we should use capital letters for proper nouns – people’s names,
cities, countries, etc. – but what about other words such as compass points, job titles
or seasons? It can be confusing but there are some simple rules we follow at Tricorn
Books to make sure your manuscript is consistent and easy to read.
Where the term comes from, upper case and lower case
Generally speaking, using capital letters can make your writing a bit ‘shouty’ and
distracting for the reader, so it’s good to avoid them other than in the obvious ways
that we were taught at school. Here are some other rules, based on examples we’ve
spotted in books that we’ve published here at Tricorn:
Job titles – capitalise job titles, but not the areas of responsibility or parts of a job
title if you are not referring to it in full. For example: ‘Katie is an editor who was
recently promoted to Senior Editor.’
Organisations – when talking generally about organisations, such as universities,
we use lowercase ‘u’. But if writing about a specific university it should be
capitalised. For example, ‘UK universities have an excellent reputation’ but ‘the
University has an excellent reputation’ (when ‘the University’ refers to a specific
institution which has already been named).
Seasons – quite often we see people capitalising ‘Summer’, ‘Winter’, etc. However,
this is incorrect. Seasons should be presented in lowercase.
Compass points – these are usually not capitalised, unless as part of a proper
noun, for example ‘the south of England’, ‘the East End’, ‘Central America’, ‘north-
east Scotland’.
As with many editorial matters, sometimes things aren’t entirely clear-cut, so we
usually refer to the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors for guidance. So
don’t worry if you’re not sure – this is what our editors can take care of!
Liz Bourne
To hyphenate or not to hyphenate…
Consider these statements:
Bob was a small business owner.
Bob was a small-business owner.
Is Bob running a small business? Or is he a short person who runs a business? A hyphen can make all the difference. But it can sometimes be confusing.
Editorial convention states that a hyphen can be used when creating compound adjectives that modify a noun. Huh? What? Let’s look at some other examples:
1 A part-time job (but she works part time)
2 A ten-minute speech (but his speech ran for ten minutes)
3 A world-class act (but the act was world class)
4 A little-used car (but the car was little used)
I could go on…
But when an adverb is used that ends in -ly, that changes things. Look at these examples:
1 A badly designed poster
2 A beautifully cut hairstyle
3 But hyphens are needed with short and common adverbs, for example:
4 An ill-prepared report
5 A much-needed grammar lesson
There are other examples and rules, but if you’re not sure don’t worry. Our experienced editors will ensure that your manuscript is copyedited and proofread to within an inch of its life! And we will help you publish your beautifully crafted and long-awaited book (see what we did there?!).
Liz Bourne