Perils of Proof Reading
I was reading a blog post by Rick Riordan, the author of the Percy Jackson series, and came across one of his blogs extolling the ‘Perils of Proof Reading.’ It gave me some insight into the editing process that goes into publishing a book. It is quite extensive to say the least.
What I found interesting was that it’s not much different than what goes on in the betaing process for fanfiction - well at least for those that really put a lot of effort into presenting the fandom with their best effort. The fandom is littered with stories that are not edited and authors who make no effort to edit before posting. That’s not what I am referring to, even though that is part and parcel to fanfiction.
Whenever I see a review that complains about typos, spelling errors, etc, in a story that has been heavily beta’d I think about the effort that I and other authors and betas have gone through to catch errors before a story is posted. While the catch is always appreciated some reviews are rather condescending or critical of the process and how the author/beta could have let such a glaringly obvious error through. I assure you there is nothing farther from the truth.
Trust me, it’s a fairly arduous process. For example I’ll do an initial read-through of Matt’s [fakeasmile - Taking Control and Free Life] latest chapter, that first read is for pleasure and to get a feel of the chapter. Then I do my initial beta. Then I’ll read it again and do another beta. I may read the chapter ten times or more before I return it to Matt for revision. Missing something in the process is rather easy at this point. The same goes for Matt. He’s read and re-read the chapter several times before giving it to me and several more after I've gone through it before giving it to Christine to edit for grammar, spelling, plot, etc. It then goes through one final revision by Matt, and as you can see it’s gone through several readings, edits and three pairs of exacting eyes before posting.
At the end of his blog Rick wrote: “So next time you come across an error in a book and are tempted to blame a lazy editor or lazy author, just remember us toiling away in the land of comma splices and hyphenated words. We try, dear reader. We really do!”
Ditto!
Here is a link to Rick Riordan’s blog if you care to read about the editing process involved. I found it quite enlightening.
http://rickriordan.blogspot.com/2011/10/perils-of-proofreading-redux.html
If you haven’t read the Percy Jackson series, you should; it’s a very enjoyable and satisfying series. You can read Matt’s review on the series here on his site under Recommendations for Published Fiction.
What I found interesting was that it’s not much different than what goes on in the betaing process for fanfiction - well at least for those that really put a lot of effort into presenting the fandom with their best effort. The fandom is littered with stories that are not edited and authors who make no effort to edit before posting. That’s not what I am referring to, even though that is part and parcel to fanfiction.
Whenever I see a review that complains about typos, spelling errors, etc, in a story that has been heavily beta’d I think about the effort that I and other authors and betas have gone through to catch errors before a story is posted. While the catch is always appreciated some reviews are rather condescending or critical of the process and how the author/beta could have let such a glaringly obvious error through. I assure you there is nothing farther from the truth.
Trust me, it’s a fairly arduous process. For example I’ll do an initial read-through of Matt’s [fakeasmile - Taking Control and Free Life] latest chapter, that first read is for pleasure and to get a feel of the chapter. Then I do my initial beta. Then I’ll read it again and do another beta. I may read the chapter ten times or more before I return it to Matt for revision. Missing something in the process is rather easy at this point. The same goes for Matt. He’s read and re-read the chapter several times before giving it to me and several more after I've gone through it before giving it to Christine to edit for grammar, spelling, plot, etc. It then goes through one final revision by Matt, and as you can see it’s gone through several readings, edits and three pairs of exacting eyes before posting.
At the end of his blog Rick wrote: “So next time you come across an error in a book and are tempted to blame a lazy editor or lazy author, just remember us toiling away in the land of comma splices and hyphenated words. We try, dear reader. We really do!”
Ditto!
Here is a link to Rick Riordan’s blog if you care to read about the editing process involved. I found it quite enlightening.
http://rickriordan.blogspot.com/2011/10/perils-of-proofreading-redux.html
If you haven’t read the Percy Jackson series, you should; it’s a very enjoyable and satisfying series. You can read Matt’s review on the series here on his site under Recommendations for Published Fiction.