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Gwyn Cready
©Garen DiBartelomeo
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Judy Steer Interview
Judy Steer is a copy editor with more than thirty years' experience. Name a type of book, she's edited it. She works with publishers all over the world. She's saved my sorry bacon any number of times, and I'm thrilled to have her here with me today.
Q. Judy, what made you want to become a copy editor?
A. I'd always been good at spelling and grammar, and I majored in English in college. When the time came to choose a career, I vacillated between library work and publishing. After working one summer in textbook publishing and one in a library, I decided I wanted publishing. I started work in the public relations office of a large corporation but found I preferred working on books. My first book publishing job was as a proofreader in a trade house (fiction and nonfiction), and I was lucky and got trained in copyediting while there by a thorough and exacting coworker.
Q. What's your favorite part of the job?
A. I love fact-checking-it's like detective work. I also learn a lot in the process! I'm not so fond of sitting in my chair for long periods of time.
Q. How long does it take you to copyedit a book?
A. The length of time for copyediting is contingent on the size of a manuscript and what kind of shape it is in, so every book is different.
Q. Have any books ever come to you with few or no errors?
A. Reprints have few errors just because they've already been through the process, and there are a few authors who need little copyediting assistance-or have had good hands-on editors working with them before the book was submitted for copyediting. I like to work on something that uses my skills but isn't so frustrating I can't enjoy it.
Q. What's the thing people would be most surprised to know about copyediting?
A. I find people are surprised that copyediting is not just correcting spelling, grammar, and punctuation but also being alert to factual errors, tracking characters' physical descriptions, ages, and personality characteristics (it doesn't work if "Jane" is blond on page 10 and brunette on page 79, "John" is twenty-five years old on one page and thirty-one on another, etc.), and keeping track of time (How many days have passed between this situation and that? Does it really take ten hours to travel from point A to point B? If the drive to the hospital took fifteen minutes on page 15, how can it take forty-five minutes on page 235?).
Q. What's the funniest thing that's ever happened to you as a copy editor?
A. I really can't think of anything funny that's happened to me as a copy editor, unless it was finding my work on your blog-query tags and all! But that was a more fun experience that funny. It is always nice to be named in Acknowledgments because we copy editors are usually taken for granted (thank you, Gwyn!). The most astounding thing that ever happened to me was an author sending me a gift for doing such a good job.
Q. Are some writers--not me, of course--hard to deal with?
A. Most copy editors do not have direct contact with writers-communication is accomplished via manuscript notations and queries, and the editor acts as go-between.
Q. What are three tools every writer should have on their desk?
A. And use! That's easy: the latest editions of The Chicago Manual of Style, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, and The Elements of Style (Strunk and White).
Q. You must read a wide range of manuscripts. Do stories ever draw you in or make you laugh out loud or cry, etc., or do you have to tune all that out in order to do your job?
A. Oh my. I do have the great luck to copyedit or proofread a wide variety of books, from romance and detective novels to erotica to nonfiction books on such varied subjects as medieval European warfare, the opening of Japan to the West, mad cow disease, and immigration issues in the U.S. I do have emotional responses to the work sometimes. You're probably the author who most makes me laugh out loud! Irish novels are more prone to evoke tears; detective novels are entertaining.
Q. How about romances? Does anything ever shock you?
A. No. I don't think anything ever shocks me. I've been doing this for a million years and I think I have read it all-as copy editor or general reader. (Then, of course, I have a personal life like everybody else!) But I suppose I am inured to situations that might shock others. When I'm working I'm looking for specific things and am often somewhat detached in my point of view. As I remember, you once laughed at some comment I made because I seemed to be unaware of the heat of the scene-but I was simply doing my job checking the trees during your steamy description of the forest.
Q. You've been in the business a long time. What trends do you see in the quality of manuscripts over the years? Said another way, are writers today making more or fewer mistakes?
A. That's an interesting question. Writers are creative people who draw a big, sometimes complicated picture-a story. Copy editors and proofreaders are detail people who work to ensure the pieces of the picture fit to make a "perfect" whole and that standards for the details of the picture are met-that spelling and grammar are correct and consistent. I don't think mistakes are so much due to the writers, who may or may not be good grammarians or spellers, as to the production process itself. It is the copy editor's and proofreader's job to fine-tune the details. Sometimes there is such a rush to get a book to market at the most profitable moment that final reads are rushed too much and more mistakes are retained in the end product. Copy editors and proofreaders need to be given enough time to do their jobs well.
Q. Thank you, Judy. Any last words for our readers?
A. Just keep on reading and encouraging others to read. We learn something from every book we read, and the more we know and understand, the better people we will be.
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