What is copyediting anyway?

Shedding light on a whole art

I’m going to talk about the art magic of copyediting, but two things first:

1. Robyn Ryle was on NPR’s Weekend Edition! Is that cool or what? Henriette tuned in from the banks of the Charles where she was working the docks for the Head of the Charles Regatta, and I listened as I was heading up to Maine to support a loved one at a martial arts championship. Robyn, interviewed by Scott Simon, was smart and funny and thoughtful, and she had a great and important message to share. Do take a listen! And you can read her thoughts about being on NPR here. As for our thoughts—we are beyond proud of her and her book, and thrilled that a Galiot publication was featured so prominently.

2. We’re launching an all-new, 5-day writing workshop in Wellfleet, MA focused on getting writers’ query and submission materials ready to send out to agents and editors. And we’ve called it, super creatively, Galiot’s Publishing Prep Workshop. And here’s the special part: the last two days will include two agents onsite—Amaryah Orenstein and Lori Galvin—to meet with participants one-one-one and also run some information sessions on publishing and the query process. The workshop will run from Wednesday, March 18th to Sunday the 22nd, and you can find details here. Apply now!

Ok, now for the topic at hand.

I confess that before starting Galiot Press, I failed to fully grasp the extent of what goes into copyediting a manuscript. When the freelance copyeditor we work with, Lara Robbins, sent me her marked-up version of our third book, Marian Mitchell Donahue’s BACKSTITCH, along with her stylesheet and design memo, I was stunned by the level of detail and the depth with which she dove into the manuscript. Sure, as a writer I’d always known it was important for someone with fresh eyes to make sure character traits and behaviors are consistent (you can’t have someone chewing gum on page 56 if they just had their wisdom teeth extracted on page 31) and that timelines make sense (you can’t have a character be 10 years old in one chapter and 12 in the next if they are taking place the same year). I knew that a copyeditor focuses on grammar, syntax, and style, maximizing the manuscript’s readability. I knew a copyeditor does some fact-checking, even for fiction.

But I didn’t appreciate the depth and breadth and magic of what a truly great copyeditor does. Lara picked up a gazillion little things—incorrect names of places, ambiguous words, hyphens that were missing or extraneous, and of course errant commas. All this after I could have sworn I’d sent her a really clean, clear manuscript!

Here’s an example of a note in the margins, along with a couple of links she provided:

Changed Styrofoam head to foam head. The white stuff that is used to make foam heads and coffee cups (etc.) is not actually made of Styrofoam--it’s likely made of polystyrene.

https://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/collegiate/polystyrene

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/12/18/you-have-never-actually-used-a-styrofoam-cup-plate-or-takeout-box/

I have now learned something about Styrofoam, and perhaps you have as well.

If you have a paid subscription to this newsletter, you’ll be able to see more examples, as well as screenshots of the stylesheet and design memo with all kinds of codes I’d never known were a part of the process. It’s all kind of fascinating, really.