The good news—I have a keyboard and the problem had not corrupted any data.
The bad news—I got to work on the Intruder galleys again and realized when I read a sentence I NEVER would have written that the copyeditor had seriously messed with the text—
Jane, bless her, figured how to get a PDF converted to a Word Perfect file (using ‘copy’ and notepad, I think) and we were thus able to run compare-write to see what damage had been done: universal, pernicious, information-changing, conversion of Cajeiri’s ‘tone’ to Business English, meddling with Bren’s ‘voice’, and changing the political outlines of the aishidi’tat by deciding to capitalize things and make them districts, changing the word ‘clan’ to district, and those are only small samples of what this person did on every single page.
Betsy Wollheim, bless her, is horrified, and will stand behind my corrections, but I now have 241 singlespaced pages to go through and view all the corrections (red ink) that number about 8 per page, and sometimes involve having to rethink the politics involved, or to recall why I made a particular word choice — and I know, or I would have used some other word—and do things that just play hob with my concentration on the current book. You all know what a hellish time I have had this year getting this book going, and why—and I had FINALLY gotten on a roll—
Now this. I could spit nails.
When William Maxwell edited Eudora Welty’s galley proofs for the New Yorker, in the days when the editors put proposed comments in pencil in the margins, he erased 95% of the copy editor’s suggestions, because he knew how they would violate the author’s intent. She didn’t write much if any fiction after he retired. You need a Wm. Maxwell of your own, preferably a writer him/herself, of your own sensibility with your own ear. And also, you DESERVE that.
There was an incident with Jim Baen—who was a good editor—on Paladin. I have, yes, an idiosyncratic style, and yes, I use outre forms that send people scurrying for their grammar books; but by damn, I know how to use the subjunctive and who-whom, and the ‘forces a reading’ style of punctuation.
Well, Jim said he started reading, and had all these yellow sticky notes to query me—and then he sank into the story and got the hang of it, and went back and pulled every single sticky note but one—in which he was absolutely right.
Jim was an editor who had the wrong side of several writers of my acquaintance, but that little gesture—and admitting it—showed Jim’s other side: he and I had a mutual respect thing going.
Goodness. You’d think that as you got through a book, you’d realise that all the stuff you’d “corrected” was deliberate when it was consistent throughout. Or at least, you might send off a query to your supervisor to check.
To quote Professor Kirke “What do they teach young people these days?” :p
Well, that is indeed horrible and frustrating for you. Not to mention that turning your text into ‘Business English’ is blasphemy. If it wasn’t for the business English part, I’d suggest we aim this person at selected list of popular authors (both lit fic and sci/fi) who don’t seem to have any editorial oversight at all. I’d say I have a little list, except it’s not little.
I once had an early reader who would, unasked, line edit my work and change every tense and swap the order of every sentence. She confused past tense with passive voice and since she knew passive voice was BAD she had a hell of time. As did I; it was maddening. She’s not a reader any more, no surprise.
Oh and apparently WordPerfect can convert PDF automatically. File > Open PDF. With a bunch of different options for conversion, including without formatting, etc. I’m not sure which version of WP they were talking about though.
That is precisely the thing that gets me. (I’m still astonished.) A good editor can suggest changes. A good proofer/editor can polish typos and grammar, punctuation, spelling. A good editor is dang near invisible. A good editor has a good writer/editor relationship that can improve the manuscript, because he or she understands writing, literature. A good editor will get into the style of the story too, and work from within that viewpoint.
CJ, your unique style, the way you word things, is one of the things I really like about your books. It varies some by series. The style used for Chanur is different in quantifiable ways from Foreigner, for instance. A good editor should be able to clue into that by the time he or she is partway into the first chapter, even if he or she has never read one of your books before. It’s markedly apparent. (Sorry, pun, markedly, used of a writer or editor, heheheh.)
This bugs me as someone who’s edited and proofed (and occasionally written) on a professional/paid and amateur/volunteer basis. I’ve never worked for a publishing house. But I’m familiar with the tasks, and the ethical responsibilities (at least as I see them). I know my strengths and weaknesses. I’ve learned over the years too. I’ve worked with newbies and amateurs, whether they were nearly pro level or complete beginners. The writing and storytelling talent always showed through beyond any “English class” skills (or lack). I rarely stepped over the line, unless it was plain that author didn’t know something, or might need to improve something. But those were always worded as comments back to the writer. “What about…?” Or, “Consider rewriting…” if it was a paragraph or so. But NOT ever to simply rewrite it myself. That needs a margin note so the author can do or do not, or to explain to me as editor why, if I don’t follow something, what the author intends. When an author had real talent, about the only thing I needed to markup was spelling and mechanics, the typos, omissions, transpositions; to become a glorified proofreader. (I also proofread, paid work. I’m good at it.) I’ve worked with a couple of authors who didn’t need much “editing” besides that. They were good storytellers and used a distinctive and varied voice per story. (And a few, IMHO, should be published professionally, but I have no say in that.)
Rewriting your work into Standard Textbook / Business English? Arrgh and LOL both. :: shakes head :: Rewriting perfectly grammatical English by a language teacher, for heaven’s sakes! Hahahah! — Besides, that’s like changing the English of Melville’s sailors, or George and Lenny from Of Mice and Men, or Mark Twain’s narrative and dialogue…or “fixing” e.e. cummings’ poetry typography…. It – just – isn’t – needed.
I’m not the world’s gift to editing, but dddaaannnggg, I wouldn’t have done that. — And I’m familiar with your storytelling voice, I like it.
Sigh. And here I am, with probably a couple of months to close out things for my grandmother, get my own things in order again, and find a job locally meanwhile. (Starting with updating an old, old resumé.) Or I’d be sorely tempted (I am) to submit my resumé to DAW.
Yarrgh. It smacks of towering ego and arrogance, or else a severe lack of training in just what an editor’s job is, or perhaps a lack of skill at hearing a writing style.
Please accept my profound condolences. I’m still astonished. Almost (LOL) beyond words. (OK, clearly not, but 😀 you get that!)
I suggest a pot of gfi. Or perhaps something stronger from that overly enthusiastic mahen trader, haha. Hmm, surely hani have something quite nice in that niche.
Sigh. People. Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em.
Unless, you know, you’re perhaps Sandor or Tully or Bren. In which cases, you still have rather different people around….
Be it noted, I can never seem to manage conciseness in my own posts…. And I seem to have found that soapbox again. Would anyone else like to borrow it? I think I’ve got that out of my system.
lol. Send it over. My teachers always described my writing as ‘concise’. And they didn’t mean it as a compliment (2000 word essay? Here’s 800. 😉 )
I think I’d being filing Intent on that editor and whoever decided hse was competent at hir job.
To heck with filing Intent, can we all go Occupy this editor’s office a la Wall Street? I think she’d get the idea…
Now, back to giving a paper on my Masters work one last read through before it gets submitted to IEEE for publication.
Best Wishes for IEEE publication, thegelf. Way to go! Also, best wishes on the Master’s degree.
Thanks!
…Business English? What did the c/e do, put the manuscript in MSWord and believe the little squiggly lines?
And do we know this person is a ‘she’? Asking, because I missed the reference saying so.
On the previous comment page, http://new.wavewithoutashore.cwgservices.org/?p=3335&cpage=1#comment-21726
Ah! I did miss that. Thanks.
Having read the rest of the comments, I am now wondering if a) the c/e outsourced the book to an uncredited subcontractor (or a trainee), or b) was switching between different projects, at least one of which was Business English based. No meltdown required, just inattention to what was intended due to over-scheduling oneself.
If the latter, one hopes this serves as a learning opportunity for the c/e, and she recognizes it as such!
I am still just reeling at the idea of someone messing with your prose. I just can’t imagine it.
Got lot bad, terrible thought. Mahen pidgin translate into Business English. Number one not good, a? Think now I go stick head in book. More safe. Hahaha, lot amuse, wonder what that editor do with “gtst” then. Hahaha, lot funny. A, how many nail you need, ker Cherryh, a? 😉
Occupy station offices, a? Lot interest, this idea. Lot amuse. They got cozy furniture? Big chair comfy? A….
giggling … wish I could write Mahen pidgin – that’s very good, BlueCatShip … 😀 *offers a hammer too* …
Nogood HAMMER! NAILGUN got more nails, a? Got number one big nailgun, you want? Got number one good nail too, RINGSHANK! Put in, ringshank STAY in good good. Editor not get away, a? Bah, hammer more fun, maybe.
Lol!—well, the good news is that both my editor (Debra) and my publisher (Betsy) are standing behind me, and we may end up starting with a clean file and going from there. The c/e is not an in-office employee, but someone who works from home, as most c/e’s do… and must have just had a meltdown. She has some really good points: she has an excellent vocabulary—she made a few nice suggestions, a couple of good catches, as when I typed ‘mani’ instead of ‘Mother’ (hey, they both start with ‘m’, and I was typing fast)—and she does understand some fine and obscure points of grammar—but then how does she blow it and cause a sentence to change meaning, or insert a passive verb for an active one, or change a required subjunctive to indicative? Not to mention taking sentences that are deliberately in inverse order [for variety, and yes, rhythm, because I pay attention to such things] and playing fruit basket upset to convert them into Business English order.
Meltdown, I say.
I’ll admit, it could be a meltdown. Probably a good thing she didn’t see the coms chatter in the Battle for Gaohn. 😀 You could always try running some Chaucer by her. Or Anglo-Saxon. Norman French? *Old* French, l’ancien? Sorry. Then again, that nail gun…OK, no, better reserve that in case Lt. Ripley drops by. Jirl might need to borrow it. 😉
Kidding aside, astonishment notwithstanding, I’m sorry for your sake and for the copyeditor’s sake. Seems she won’t be a happy woman for some time. (Possibly, she may repent and wonder why on Earth she did that, too.) Er, I can remember a few times I later wished I hadn’t suggested some change that was wrangled over or accepted. Major fiddling across an entire manuscript? Ouch, that’d have to be one major meltdown. I hope the C/E does OK on her next ms.
I’ll be marking MSc dissertations written in Business English this Christmas. Business English for me is Chinese (or some other non-IE language) written using a limited English vocabulary. My head hurts even thinking about it.
I hate when that happens! Besides being disrespectful to the author, it’s so unprofessional!
Some “reviewers” will just never stop until they find something to pick on. Back in the say when I was doing “design reviews” for DOD customers on software projects, we’d sometimes leave in a trivial little flaw or inconsistency relatively early in the presentation, that we already covered in the real thing, just to make that sort of person happy.
“back in the DAY”
I really do sometimes wit^Hsh we had a “modify” function. sigh…
The old wisdom used to be, back in the days when we used to get actual physical papers to mark, don’t do anything to make a copyeditor pick up a pencil, because they’ll feel the need to go on using it until they take their next sip of coffee.
And similarly with printers—if you can live with an error in the galleys, let it slide, because if you ask a printer to make a correction, he’ll make two more mistakes while doing it.