Comments on: Geras on Copyeditors (revised)

By: Joanne Jacobs

Joanne Jacobs — Wed, 29 Oct 2003 09:38:00 +0000

The hyphen in “painfully crafted” is incorrect. I’d advise “carefully crafted” since there’s no particular merit in the pain suffered by the writer. When I was a copy editor, my favorite saying was: “There is no joy on earth greater than changing someone else’s copy.” As a writer, I make it a point of pride not to whine about copy editing.

By: Netwoman

Netwoman — Tue, 28 Oct 2003 15:16:22 +0000

Hilarious! (now can someone do this for my dissertation?)

By: Stu Savory

Stu Savory — Tue, 28 Oct 2003 07:25:16 +0000

How true. How very true. How very very true. Having been on the receiving end of – often seemingly arbitrary – copy-editing of the manuscripts for my books, I can confirm that it is often a subjective process (although sometimes helpful) and causes disagreements in which the author (ego) invites the copy-editor to go pound sand up his ass. Conciliation has its limits! Stu Savory

By: sidereal

sidereal — Mon, 27 Oct 2003 18:35:19 +0000

Classic!

By: Doug Muir

Doug Muir — Mon, 27 Oct 2003 09:31:06 +0000

“Painfully crafted”, forsooth. Nice one, Kieran. Doug M.

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Mon, 27 Oct 2003 03:03:09 +0000

Why did you let “will grant” pass the second time? You’ll have to shape up if you want more work from this publisher, Kieran.

By: Jorge

Jorge — Sun, 26 Oct 2003 23:41:50 +0000

I agree I mean jack kerouac never used editors in fact he just let the prose flow freeform and right off the tip of his pen punctuation be damned. Personally i think jack transferred all his punctuation to Allen Ginnesburg durring a peyotee ritual back in the fifties. Who needs all those comas.