Deliver me from persnickety authors! I generally avoid "creative" writers;
most of the books I work on are either nonfiction or for clients with whom I
have a longtime established relationship, so that they trust my judgment.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"redpencilgirl" wrote in message
...
Ah, yes, I have a very similar system...though I've just spent this
evening
trying to pare my comments down to the basics, since apparently this
author
is kind of persnickety about her work. Hence the careful wording of
Post-its, too (I'm definitely keeping THAT company in business, the way I
go
through them)...

This one gets packed up tomorrow; then on to the next one!

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

Green works well for me because a lot of my authors make *their*
corrections
in red or blue. I tend to make my "changes not to be argued with" in the
text, with an explanation (if I feel it's needed) in the margin. I use
Post-its for "suggested" changes or queries. But the more I use
computers,
the harder it becomes for me to write much by hand (especially legibly),
and
I often go through several Post-its before I get the desired wording on
a
"suggestion." That's why a separate file of comments can be helpful,
especially since you can make comments about "passim" sorts of problems,
referencing page numbers of numerous occurrences of the same issue or
drawing attention to conflicts between statements in two locations
(whereas
in the ms you'd have to write, "Detroit? Cf. p. x" and "Mobile? Cf. p.
x.").

I recently worked on a novel by a well-known and highly acclaimed
novelist.
I was typing the ms and wasn't supposed to make any changes at all, but
aside from numerous routine corrections (for which I was predictably
blasted, and they may well all be reversed), I submitted a separate
eight-page file of comments on conflicts, solecisms, awkward phrasing,
etc.
I'll be interested to see what gets published. g

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"redpencilgirl" wrote in
message
...
Wow, I never knew that about the color red! I like green, but worry
that
it
wouldn't show up all that well...and people seem to be pretty used to
my
red
by now. A copy chief I worked for once had a great system I'd love to
emulate someday: red pencil for changes not to be argued with
(serious
grammatical or punctuation issues, malapropisms, etc.) and blue for
suggestions. Of course, she worked at a magazine where everyone had
been
trained to know what the colors meant -- as a freelancer, I'd have to
attach
an explanation to every returned manuscript!

I still like my pencils and Post-its, I have to say...and while I do
get
the
same urge you do to just go into the file and correct it, it's an
itchy
trigger finger I feel I am duty-bound to resist! Track Changes would
probably keep me from making a lot of the comments I make now, simply
because
it's more of a process...and because I hate the look of a marked-up
document!
Though maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I fiddled with the color
choices...

Anyway, thanks for the commiseration and for the advice. Good luck
with
Mobile...I mean Detroit...I mean Chicago...

:-)

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

I forgot to mention that the two aforementioned characters were
gangsters
from Detroit for half the book, then from Mobile for another half;
then,
because of problems with both, we decided to make them be from
Chicago,
but
the author still keeps sending me stuff that says "Mobile." sigh

As for markup, I do sort of a combination. I don't use red pencil,
by
the
way, but green pen. In a previous life, I was a teacher (Latin), and
I
know
that people react adversely to red (one student said it looked like
her
paper was hemorrhaging), and actually green (pencil) is traditional
for
editing. I do still mark up copy by hand sometimes, but the more I
use
computers, the more I find I keep itching to get to the file and
correct
it
directly. In most cases, the result is what the client is concerned
about,
not how it was achieved, so I just make the changes, and they read
the
revised edition and (if I've done it right) think, "Wow! I'm a
better
writer
than I realized." I used to write a lot of comments on the
manuscript,
either directly on it or on Post-its, but now I often make a
separate
comments file. I don't really like Track Changes because most of the
people
I work with are unsophisticated (many of them elderly) and wouldn't
know
how
to deal with the technology (even for comments). So far I've had no
one
specifically request it, and I don't suggest it.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"redpencilgirl" wrote in
message
...
OK, now you've succeeded in really making me laugh...first because
you
DO
know exactly what I'm talking about, and second because I am so
glad
the
manuscript I'm working on isn't in THAT much trouble! You would
have
been
amused by the stunned look on my face the first time a production
editor
said
to me, "Well, actually, by the time it comes to you, the editor is
finished
with it." Meanwhile there I am wondering how on earth this author
got
a
book
contract...and whether or not the editor actually read past page
three
before
sending it off to the freelance copy editor...

Out of curiosity, do you do most of your editing using Track
Changes,
or
are
you still on pencil and paper too? (The reason all of this has
come
up
for
me is that one client is interested in making the switch. I've
never
worked
on a huge project using Track Changes, so it'll be a new
experience
for
me.)


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

I'm sorry, but you are describing exactly the kind of work I do,
and
I
can't
see that a client would have any reason to care *when* you make
the
changes
provided the required changes get made. I make numerous passes
through
the
documents I work on, and I find more mistakes every time. No one
can
see
everything at once, and I don't think anyone expects you to.
Most
instructions I've read actually stipulate that you make several
passes.
And
I have to say that I read a lot of published books where there
is no
evidence that any editor made even one pass, much less several.
I
recently
proofread the page proofs of a book to be published by Random
House
(which
had been copyedited and proofread by their editors), and the
author
(for
whom I was performing the work) and I were equally appalled by
the
number of
errors I found. I wouldn't care how many times the editor had to
read
the ms
or backtrack in it provided the errors were corrected.

FWIW, it's also true that the more corrections there are to be
made,
the
more passes it's going to take. You just can't see everything at
once.
And a
lot of things you aren't going to know are "errors" till much
later.
In
the
book I'm currently working on, there are stupefyingly thorough
bios
of
two
of the characters early on; neither mentions any military
service
(or
allows
any space in the timeline for it). Several chapters later,
they're
talking
about their army experiences in Iraq. Another character, a
nurse, is
shy
on
one page and bold on the next (she actually vacillates
throughout
the
book).
Those are just a few of the problems. As it happens, I've about
given up
on
this book, which the author is self-publishing; I finally
decided
I'd
done
all I could reasonably do, and if the author thinks it's done,
I'll
just
call it done. I don't think he'll sell more than a couple of
dozen
copies no
matter how much we polish it, anyway. g

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"redpencilgirl" wrote
in
message
...
Without giving actual examples, it's hard to give you an idea
of
what
I
mean
here, so let's say that the author of a manuscript I'm editing
creates
a
character named Frank. He's Frank from page 1 to page 72, but
on
page
73,
he
suddenly becomes Fred. Only I'm sort of distracted by the
author's
annoying
habit of putting three exclamation points at the end of every
sentence, so
I
don't notice that he's Fred until page 175. So now I go back
to
page
73
(having searched for "Fred" and discovered that that was where
the
name
first
appeared).

Anyone looking at my changes will be able to see that I made
the
Fred/Frank
change three days (or however long it has been) after the
other
changes --
deleting of exclamation points, suggestions about ambiguous
language,
grammar
corrections -- made on the same page. And while my imperfect
eye
is
something I should be aware of (because being aware of it will
make me
a
better editor), it is NOT something I need to show my
clients...or
that,
really, they have any need to know.

Does that make it any clearer why this is so important to me?

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

FWIW, your clients don't have to know when you have changed
your
mind:
just
reject the change. Or accept it, turn Track Changes off and
change
it
back,
then turn Track Changes on again.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to
the
newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"redpencilgirl"
wrote
in
message
...
In Word 2002 for Windows XP (and apparently in other newer
versions of
Word
as well), rolling the mouse over a Track Changes balloon
turns
up
the
name
of
the person who made the change or comment, along with the
date
and
time
the
change or comment was made. Currently I can choose the
privacy
option
"Remove personal information from file properties on save"
and
have my
name
replaced with the anonymous term "author" -- however, I
cannot
opt
to
remove