Edit, editing, edited: Do you even know what the words mean?

Warning and disclaimer:

This is a rant.  It is an angry rant that may be filled with "bad" words. 

IF YOU ARE A SELF-PUBLISHED WRITER WHO HAS HAD NEGATIVE REVIEWS BECAUSE READERS HAVE SAID YOUR BOOK CONTAINED MISSPELLINGS, PUNCTUATION ERRORS, WORDS USED INCORRECTLY, OR NEEDED EDITING, PLEASE PUT ON YOUR BIG GIRL PANTIES BEFORE READING.


I've written before about there being a difference between proofreading and editing.  Let me explain it again.

Proofreading generally is intended to fix errors of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammar, and word usage.  In other words, errors on a micro level of writing mechanics.

A proofreader may -- but may not -- correct errors of grammar such as replacing "had went" with "had gone" or "several ladys's coats" with "several ladies' coats."  A proofreader may -- but may not -- correct errors such as a character's name changing from Harry to Woodrow in the middle of Chapter 3 or point out that the hero has brown eyes in the prologue and blue in the middle of the opening scene.  A proofreader will probably not tell you that your scene set on the corner of Dearborn and LaSalle in Chicago violates the known cartography of the city because Dearborn and LaSalle run parallel to each other.  A proofreader will almost certainly not correct historical inaccuracies nor inform you that the character on page 75 who is sharing a carriage with the heroine had in fact been killed on page 62.

A proofreader is not an editor, and proofreading is not editing.

How difficult is this to understand?

A proofreader is not an editor, and proofreading is not editing.

Allow me to illustrate:

Thomasina watched out the window in the front door until her mother and brother had went, then she locked the door. Now that the confrontation was over, she gave in to the overwhelming weighth of stress. Much as she wanted to follow commonsense and secured the locks on the back door, she stumbled only as far as the stairway. Her knees were weak, her head ached, and she feared she would collapse in hysterical tears if she didn't give herself a receipt.

She sank down onto the bottom stair and leaned forward, elbows on her knees, forehead on her upturned palms.

"I should of stayed in Seattle," She lamented aloud, but even as the echoes faded in the stillness, a shivery tightening in her stomach reminded her that if she had not came back to Ridgewood, to the confrontations with her family and questions of the House, to the enduring and now pressing mystery of her Father's death, she would of never re-established contact with Steve Angelotti.

She took a deep and calming breath and tilted her head back, then to each side, stretching the taunt muscles in her neck and shoulders. Whatever the problems, the decision to return to Ridgewood were her own to make. 

She was hungry, too.  A glance at her watch told her it was nearly half past seven, her sandwich and salad lunch with Steve was hours ago. But as she glanced down the hall toward the kitchen, she wondered how she would ever keep anything on a stomach as knotted as her's was right now.

Let's try that again:

Thomasina watched out the window in the front door until her mother and brother had gone, then she locked the door. Now that the confrontation was over, she gave in to the overwhelming weight of stress. Much as she wanted to follow common sense and secure the locks on the back door, she stumbled only as far as the stairway. Her knees were weak, her head ached, and she feared she would collapse in hysterical tears if she didn't give herself a respite.

She sank down onto the bottom stair and leaned forward, elbows on her knees, forehead on her upturned palms.

"I should have stayed in Seattle," she lamented aloud, but even as the echoes faded in the stillness, a shivery tightening in her stomach reminded her that if she had not come back to Ridgewood, to the confrontations with her family and questions of the House, to the enduring and now pressing mystery of her father's death, she would have never re-established contact with Steve Angelotti.

She took a deep and calming breath and tilted her head back, then to each side, stretching the taut muscles in her neck and shoulders. Whatever the problems, the decision to return to Ridgewood was her own to make. 

She was hungry, too.  A glance at her watch told her it was nearly half past seven; her sandwich and salad lunch with Steve was hours ago. But as she glanced down the hall toward the kitchen, she wondered how she would ever keep anything on a stomach as knotted as hers was right now.

If you don't know what the mistakes were and couldn't correct them by yourself, you need a proofreader.

A proofreader, however, will not fix bad writing, poor story construction, lackluster characterization, static description, research errors, implausible motivation, impossible logic, or any of the other macro level problems that beset far too many self-published works.

If all you've done is hire someone to clean up the punctuation and spelling, DO NOT claim that you've had the book edited.

The above selection is from a contemporary gothic romance I'm writing titled The Looking-Glass Portrait.  I had to create the errors in the first sample so there would be something to fix, and then, by the goddess, I fixed the errors.

If the person you hire doesn't, can't, or won't correct all of your grammar and syntax errors, they haven't done any editing, and they haven't even done a competent job of proofreading.



Here's a brief passage from Leah Banicki's Seeing the Elephant originally published in 2011:

Corinne stands waiting in her Aunt's fashionable 12th street Boston home. The walls gilded in pinks and golds. The chandelier weeps with great drops of crystal. This place doesn't look like a prison, but Corinne lost her freedom the moment she tied her first whalebone corset around her petite frame.

Banicki, Leah. Seeing the Elephant (Wildflowers) (p. 5). Smashwords. Kindle Edition.

The book received some nice reviews on Amazon, but also some very harsh criticism for the poor grammar, especially the shifts in tenses.

Today -- 4 December 2012 -- the revised version of that book was free on Amazon, with a new cover, a new title, and an announcement from the author that it's been revised, rewritten, and "professionally edited."

Here's that same passage from Finding Her Way, the revised version published 27 October 2012:

Corinne waited in her Aunt's fashionable 12th street Boston home. The walls gilded in pinks and golds, great drops of crystal cascaded from the chandeliers, the grand staircase wrapped elegantly around the back and majestically descended into the great hall. Halfway down the stairs there was a great view of the parlor on one side and the ballroom on the other. Artisans from Italy and France laid the exquisite marble floor. The fireplaces designed by a famous stonemason, the iron grates, and tools imported from the best artists and craftsmen from around the world. Few houses in Boston could boast of finer rooms or impressive displays of wealth. It had been a long while since it even fazed Corinne. This place did not look like a prison, but Corinne had lost her freedom a few years ago when she tied her first whalebone corset around her petite frame. The grandeur came at a price.

Banicki, Leah (2012-10-27). Finding Her Way (Wildflowers) (Kindle Locations 150-171). . Kindle Edition.

The segment has quite obviously been rewritten and expanded. The mix of present and past tenses has been fixed. But "Aunt's" should not have been capitalized in the first section and that error wasn't fixed in the rewrite. The Boston address of "12th Street" should have been capitalized, and that error wasn't fixed either. The short incomplete sentence about the walls in the first passage was expanded for the second, but it remains an incomplete sentence, sort of, but mixed with others to make a ghastly run-on sentence.  The second highlighted description is a similar combination of fragments and comma splices. The use of the word "impressive" is incorrect, since the sentence structure implies "few houses in Boston could boast of impressive displays of wealth." Should the word "more" have been inserted? I don't know. All I know is that in this single paragraph there is more than enough evidence to show me this book was not "edited." It wasn't even proofread very well.

I've said often enough that I'm not going to do book reviews here on this blog, but I have to say I'm sorely tempted right now. Except that there is no way I could even begin to read, let alone review, this book without indulging in some very heavy critiquing. The opening is all tell, no show. There is a major historical error on the opening page. There are still words being used inaccurately.

Is it an improvement over the first version? Yeah, I guess so. But it hasn't been edited. And that's the point I'm trying to make. I'm sure Leah Banicki won't read this. I'm sure dozens of other self-publishing writers who are paying for "editing" services won't read this either. They'll go into denial, they'll insist there are no errors, they'll call me a hater or a jealous competitor or something. And they will never admit that they screwed up. They will never admit their stories are flawed, their writing is inadequate, their research is flimsy, their characters are wooden/TSTL/whatever. Most important, they will insist until the cows come home that the book must be absolutely flawless because they've had it "professionally edited."

Except they haven't. They don't even know what the word means.