Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Edits - a learning curve?


I’ve spent the last 6 days going through the edits of ‘Dream of Paris’ which I finally sent to my editor on Monday evening. By Tuesday morning, she had the galley proofs ready for me (she works very quickly!), and I spent another day hunched in front of the computer.
 
The edits were interesting. I didn’t realise how often I had my characters starting a sentence with ‘So’ (please take note, Ana, and kick me if you notice me doing that in future!). My other over-used word seems to be ‘that’. I’ve managed (on the whole) to get out of the habit of using it after words like realised, decided, thought (etc) but I’m still unsure of when to use ‘that’ and when to use ‘which’ in a sentence such as: ‘There was an expression in his dark eyes that ( or which?) kicked her heart into double time.’ In some similar cases, my editor changed ‘that’ to ‘which’; in other cases, she left it as ‘that’ – and I don’t really know why!
 
I also had the usual American/British English differences to sort out. My editor was quite happy for me to do this. As she said, she and her sub-editor have never been to England, so they’re not familiar with our phrases. Besides which, she says they both enjoy the ‘British’ tone of my writing. The main ones I had to change ‘back’ to Britspeak, were: ‘Let’s go make coffee’ back to our phrase ‘Let’s go and make some coffee’; ‘she glanced out the window’ to ‘she glanced out of the window’; and ‘hit his stride’ to ‘got into his stride.’ Oh, and we say Maths, not Math!
 
The thing I had the most problems with, however, was the use of the past perfect tense. To my mind, when characters are talking or thinking about something that happened in their past, then you use the past perfect tense.
 
I’ll qualify that slightly and say I do make an exception if it’s a paragraph (or longer) of thoughts about the past. In that case, I’ll use the past perfect in the first sentence, then slip into the normal past tense for the rest.
 
But if it’s just a ‘one-off’ thought, then I tend to use ‘he had’ or ‘she had’ (or the contractions) e.g. “She thought about what Jenny had mouthed to her.” In this case, Jenny had mouthed a comment to her ten minutes (i.e. about a page!) earlier. The sub-editor changed this to ‘She thought about what Jenny mouthed to her’ – which to me simply didn’t sound right! In all fairness, I have to say my editor accepted the times when I reverted to ‘had’ (or she’d or he’d in other examples), and it did make me look out for the times when I didn’t actually need to use the past perfect, so maybe that’s something else I’ll have to watch out for in future.
 
In fact I’ve just spotted one in my current WIP in something my heroine says: “He said I’d already seen one like this but I can’t remember where.” Now – should that be ‘I’d already seen’ or ‘I already saw’?
 
All in all, a useful learning curve – which all goes to show we’re always learning in this game, aren’t we?
 
‘Dream of Paris’ should be available on Amazon later this week – just in time for Valentine’s Day, which is very appropriate, since Paris is called the City of Love! And here’s the cover, which I think is fabulous – and very romantic!
 
 

13 comments:

  1. Edits are a whole other type of h3ll but one we all survive and realize it was a journey worth making. Best of luck with your new book, Paula!

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  2. You're right, Kem - these edits did prove a worthwhile journey, despite my aching shoulders and my brain hurting! Thanks for your good wishes!

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  3. I learn something new each and every time I get edits and I realize more and more how important an editor can be!

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  4. It's the 'best' editing I've had for any of my novels, Jillian. No major revision, but it's certainly shown me what minor things I need to watch out for in the future!

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  5. The cover is beautiful! I can't wait to read the book.

    Edits are interesting. I've pretty much trained myself to not use so many that's, but sometimes, it's the only word that works! When I edit I usually do several passes, each time looking for different things.

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  6. Thanks, Debra.
    I lost count of how many passes I did before submitting the ms last November, but once I got the edits, I still found things I'd missed (as well as things I wanted to change) in addition to all the things my editor highlighted in the ms! I'll probably wish I'd changed other things too, when I eventually get the book in my hands!

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  7. Ps Debra - I forgot to say - Happy Birthday!!!!

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  8. I'm so looking forward to a rigorous editing process, Paula! But you're right, not only do you need a thick skin, but you have to be able to really analyze what's being changed and why, so you can determine if you're going to accept it or not.

    Love the cover!

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  9. You're exactly right there, Jen! My editor did say the edits were suggestions, and I was free to accept or reject, but some really made me think about the way I phrased things, so it was a good experience (even if I did get frustrated at times by the past perfect anomalies!)

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  10. So you think you say so too much.
    Okay, then. So much for that.

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  11. LOL, Ana. Actually it's my characters who say 'so' too much. Will have to have severe words with them!

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  12. See, now when my characters speak in certain ways, I don't change it. I only worry about it if it isn't conversation or direct thought. Because individual people have specific speech patterns that might not be absolutely correct.

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  13. Agree, Jen, but it wasn't just one character who started sentences with 'So ...' !

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