As a general note to all pro copyeditors out there, since apparently I am going to have to have this discussion today...
There are some specific vernacular issues that cannot simply be changed out. Let us review.
There are some specific vernacular issues that cannot simply be changed out. Let us review.
A person who's "got a suspicion" cannot be changed out for "a person suspected." People who get suspicions are a different sort of people in a different sort of book.
"Lord willing" is a specific phrase, more or less equivalent to "Inshallah" and should not be corrected to "If the Lord is willing." If you do this, I am legally allowed to fire you out of a cannon into the sun.
Likewise, if you attempt to change my singular "they" to "his or her" I get to say very unkind things about your ancestors.
It is the Century of the Anchovy, people!
Giving someone a Look is not the same as looking at them, and I am going to perhaps set myself and the manuscript on fire now.
I literally just left a comment that said "STET and also what the hell?" so that's how editing is going.
AN ENTIRE PAGE where the copyeditor changed every "they" to "it" when referring to a humanoid of unknown gender or species so if you need me, I'll be committing arson.
Also they added an unnecessary em-dash.
Also they added an unnecessary em-dash.
I've never had to leave STETs that say "Please put this entire paragraph back the way it was" before. It's kind of impressive in its way.
They changed "I never had to do X ever again" to "I never had to ever again do X" and I'm not even mad, I just wanna talk.
Halfway through the manuscript. Another talking character changed to “it” instead of “they.” I am calling it for the day. Tomorrow I have a mammogram and suddenly boob-squishing seems preferable to this.
UPDATE: My beloved agent, who reads my Twitter, called me once she stopped laughing to say that she has contacted the editor so that I can stop this if I have to. Editor is suitably accommodating. We're on a deadline, I'll power through, but yes, they confirm this is WEIRD.
(I also had another editor at a different house contact me going "Was this one of ours? Because if it was one of ours, give me names and I will fix it." I feel the love.)
The thing is--I've had like thirty books edited at this point, maybe more. At least 90% of those, the copyeditor was good, professional, and basically an invisible fairy copymother that sprinkled correction dust and caught the bits where I borked the chronology.
It's a hard, fiddly job, and it's the kind where if you do it well, hardly anybody notices you were there. There aren't like, awards for heroic acts of copyeditry.
But every once in a blue moon you get someone who thinks their job is to rewrite a nearly finished book and they cause untold grief and then all the good fairy copymothers are filled with shame.
