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[randomsome1.livejournal.com]

I know we all like to grouch about the slipshod editing in LKH's recent books--but how much of it is really the editor's fault? Yes, it's their job, but there're only so many typos a poor soul's brain can handle before it melts down. Imagine trying to correct hundreds of pages of text that looks anything like her "sneak peeks." Now imagine doing so within a relatively short period of time, all while knowing that this crazy woman has an ego the size of Micah's wang and that she, the super-speshul Big Name Author, isn't good at taking crit/rejection. Scary as hell, isn't it?

Likewise, this was recently posted at the Writer Beware blog:

Editors are congenial souls, for the most part, who don't mind taking a pen and fixing the occasional typo, or incorrect tense usage, or subject-verb agreement. Anyone can make a boo-boo from time to time. Writers are expected to make such boo-boos RARELY. They're expected to use spell-check, and to proofread their work with great attention. But nobody is perfect, and editors understand this.

That said, editors just don't have time to give your manuscript a close read and red-pencil every line. Getting your manuscript relatively error-free is YOUR job as the author. It's NOT the editor's job.

So in all likelihood, it's not so much that the editor's shitty, it's that dear Laurell has broken them. It may be a miracle that the books come out as error-free as they do.

*isn't excusing "diety," but still wonders how bad the sex scenes were before editing*

Comments

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I know when I was editing, we were told time and again to do soft edits - correct spelling mistakes and the odd bit of punctuation - but leave the rest alone, because we needed to get back to the author for permission to really hack into it.

Thus, if a piece of work looked like it needed us to break out a chainsaw, it went into the rejection pile.

And then there were the words so incredibly bad, most of the editors just could not be bothered reading all the way through.

But here's a theory for you: the actual publishing process can put mistakes into a book.

With the book that my uni recently put out, we had our cheif editors go over the proofs twice and word for word, and the finished product still had spelling/grammar mistakes in it. Somewhere between them and the printers, errors crept in and oh good lord, if the printer didn't offer us such a competitive price for the books - we would go elsewhere. It's kinda disappointing because the previous edition we released had no errors in it at all, and that went through the same process.

So between LKH (and I SO DO NOT BUY the "OMG SHE'S DYSLEXIC!" schtick), putting things off until the last minute, her editors/copyeditors needing to handle her/not getting a chance to deal with things/not caring, the actual printers etc. - I am no longer surprised by the sheer amount of technical errors that these books now have.

But I still want to bludgeon someone to death with my hardcover copy of DM for the sheer nonsense that this woman has been belching out. OMFG, nothing Anita says/thinks makes any kind of sense - logical, or grammatical. And the funniest part? The other characters seem to realise this and make fun of her/pick fights with her for it.

The crazy, it's gone to a scary place that crazy just shouldn't go.