Editorial Services
Thanks to Eric K. Auld…
1. A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.
2. A dangling modifier walks into a bar. After finishing a drink, the bartender asks it to leave.
3. A question mark walks into a bar?
4. Two quotation marks “walk into” a bar.
5. A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to drink.
6. The bar was walked into by the passive voice.
7. Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They drink. They leave.
Making time to write is hard when you’re a stay-home parent. My own kids are teenagers—busy, busy teenagers with jobs and social lives and cell phones and their own agendas. If I wanted to work on a novel, they’d probably be thrilled to have me out of their hair. But I remember when I first started freelancing. One child was a toddler, the other an infant, and the only way I could work was to get up at four in the morning and hope for a couple of productive hours. The rest of the day was hopeless, but I had those precious two hours each morning.
If you’re a writer with children at home, you can do a certain amount of work each day without stashing your kids at daycare or plopping them in front of the TV (although a half hour of Nick Jr. can be a life-saver). Here are a couple of tips I learned along the way.
First, make your writing career a family decision. Announce your goal to the family, get their input, brainstorm together for ways you can get some writing done each day, and delegate chores if possible. When a child feels they’ve contributed to the plan, they’re much more likely to cooperate.
Take advantage of family, friends, play groups. Would Grandma like a few hours of kid time each week? Can you trade days with a neighbor? Or host a play group one day in your home, and the next week you’re free.
Structure your child’s day. If your kids are home full time, create a schedule and try to stick to it (at least until the next developmental stage comes along). If they know that after breakfast, Mom or Dad is going to sit at the computer while they build a LEGO tower nearby for half an hour (you can use a timer), they are less likely to protest or interrupt.
Kids are also more likely to let you work if you give them your undivided attention first. Set up an activity, sit down with them for 15 minutes, and interact positively; then casually announce, “Great job. You guys finish illustrating your castle stories, and I’ll sit over here and work on my boring old grown-up story.”
Make your work space off limits. Respect your children’s personal spaces, toys, or treasures, and teach them respect for your own space. Remind them that your desk is for work and your computer is not a plaything (except of course for Farmville and Mafia World on Facebook, but they don’t have to know that. Nobody has to know that).
Older kids love to be “in charge.” Make clear chore charts depending on age, and put the kids in charge of picking up toys, sweeping the kitchen, feeding the dog, or watering a few plants.
You’ll have to be realistic. Depending on your kids’ ages, you may only expect to work an hour or two each day. But if you are organized and can provide structure to their days—and if you schedule plenty of quality one-on-one time—the little darlings are more likely to respect your need to write.
An added bonus: With a structured day, your children will do less lolling around, whining about being bored, and when they have free time, they’re more likely to enjoy it—sometimes independently!
One of the most common errors I see in manuscripts is comma splicing (also called run-on sentences)—a grammatical no-no. Comma splicing is the use of a comma to join two independent, complete sentences that can stand on their own. (I wrote a sentence, I used a comma splice, it became a run-on sentence.)
Here’s an example of a run-on sentence, along with four ways to fix it:
Joann bought a one-way ticket to San Diego, she vowed to leave her crazy family far behind.
First, you could break it up into two sentences:
Joann bought a one-way ticket to San Diego. She vowed to leave her crazy family far behind.
Or use a semicolon:
Joann bought a one-way ticket to San Diego; she vowed to leave her crazy family far behind.
Or use a coordinating conjunction:
Joann bought a one-way ticket to San Diego, and she vowed to leave her crazy family far behind.
Or use a subordinate clause (rendering the second complete sentence as an incomplete sentence or clause):
Joann bought a one-way ticket to San Diego, vowing to leave her crazy family far behind.
Remember, a comma just isn’t tough enough to take on two full, complete sentences. You’ll need the power of more industrial-strength punctuation if you want to avoid run-on sentences.
It’s clear why writers should use an editor if they’re planning to self-publish a book. If they don’t have their manuscripts edited, their work will be published as is—typos and all. Writers who plan to self-publish can either hire an independent editor, purchase the editing services of the publisher, or put their trust in friends, colleagues, or members of their writing group to review their work.
But writers who plan on publishing in the traditional way often wonder why they should consider the services of an independent editor. After all, don’t publishing houses provide
this service?
The answer is yes, but things have changed over the last few years. Ten years ago, if a publisher saw a promising manuscript, they would invest in the potential of the project. The author would then benefit from hours and hours of valuable editing support and feedback from the publisher’s own editorial division until the book was polished to a high gloss.
Today, if a publisher receives a manuscript that has a certain marketability, despite flaws in plot or character, for example, it’s possible the book will go straight to print, with minimal editorial
intervention. If they receive a manuscript that shows promise but will require some work to make it marketable, chances are they’ll simply reject it. Many publishers don’t have the resources to support a huge editorial staff nor the time to invest in a project that might eventually pay off. For many of these publishers, it’s become a matter of staying afloat rather than building up an author’s success.
Note that this is a broad generalization. Most traditional publishing houses go through a multi-step editing process—from content editing to copyediting to a couple of proofreading passes—and put their authors through rigorous rewrites. These authors are rarely disappointed with the end result.
But the folks who have been disappointed in the minimal efforts of other publishers often turn to independent editors for their next projects. They look for objective professionals who can spot problems with dialogue, character, plot, point of view, scene, and sophistication. Whether they want a line-by-line edit or a more comprehensive critique, they’re looking for a fresh eye and an unbiased opinion. They’re looking for someone to fix the mechanical errors and spot the big-picture problems, things they may overlook as they’re too close to the work themselves.
The more successful authors have learned self-editing techniques and are able to review their final drafts with a fairly objective eye and a detailed checklist. This is a skill all serious writers should master, but not everyone has the time or the resources to develop it before their book goes to print. And that’s where independent editors come in. Unfortunately, it’s up to you, the writer, to determine whether an editor has the technical know-how, the experience, the sensitivity, and the compatibility to improve a manuscript. Don’t despair though. The right editor is out there for you. And your book will be all the better for their expertise.
