{"id":29540,"date":"2015-07-04T06:30:45","date_gmt":"2015-07-03T18:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=29540"},"modified":"2015-07-03T21:45:01","modified_gmt":"2015-07-03T09:45:01","slug":"aha-gotcha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2015\/07\/04\/aha-gotcha\/","title":{"rendered":"Aha! Gotcha!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Back<\/a>

It’s that time…<\/p><\/div>\n

“Got what?”<\/em> you may inquire, puzzled at my authorial exuberance.<\/p>\n

“A continuity error,”<\/em> I shout, waving my arms about, “caught right there in the act, plain as the nose on Pinocchio’s face, in the <\/em>Daughter of Blood<\/strong> (The Wall Of Night,<\/a> Book Three) manuscript.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Which is, of course, exactly why authors and publishers copyedit manuscripts. Matters of “style”, i.e. comma placement, spelling, and punctuation may all figure, but the really<\/em> important aspect (imho) is this: the copyedit is effectively the “last chance” to identify errors of detail embedded in the story itself.<\/p>\n

So what does a continuity error, caught brazen-faced in the vasty wilds of a manuscript, look like?<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The copyedit rocks on.<\/p><\/div>\n

In the case of Daughter Of Blood<\/em><\/strong>, the issue related to time and connectivity. A character was reflecting on two past events—but had them the wrong way around, chronologically, in terms of the story-as-written. So the second event—in the character’s “recollection”—had happened before<\/em> the first. An error a reader could be expected to notice, since they will be privy to all the same information as the character.<\/p>\n

So I call that “Aha: gotcha!” moment a great copyedit save. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Other great copyedit saves so far? Spotting a point in the manuscript where text—approximately a paragraph or so, as it turns out—was missing, must count as one, I feel. “Hmm, that reads a little oddly,”<\/em> I thought…<\/p>\n

Sometimes, though, it’s just silly stuff — like referring to a character as being a “solitary” figure (in\u00a0 a physical rather than an emotional sense), when the text has just described him\/her as being closely surrounded by others.\u00a0 Um, ah, anything but<\/em> “solitary”, in fact…<\/p>\n

And yes, you are quite right: copyediting is really and truly close attention to detail territory.<\/p>\n

A very different mode from writing the book in the first place, where the author really has to be in touch with the big picture—like where the story will begin and end, plus all the stations of the story in-between, just for example. Not to mention characters and the infinite nuances of their development…<\/p>\n

Question:<\/strong> Oh, you want to know where I’ve gotten too with the whole shebang?<\/p>\n

Answer:<\/strong> As of the close of play last night, I’d just pushed past the 75%-of-the-way-through-the-manuscript mark.<\/p>\n

You may stamp, toot, holler, and whistle, at will. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Got what?” you may inquire, puzzled at my authorial exuberance. “A continuity error,” I shout, waving my arms about, “caught right there in the act, plain as the nose on Pinocchio’s face, in the Daughter of Blood (The Wall Of Night, Book Three) manuscript.” Which is, of course, exactly why authors and publishers copyedit manuscripts. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,23,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books","category-about-what-im-doing","category-about-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29540"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29544,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29540\/revisions\/29544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}