You might be a copy editor if . . .
Our upcoming Beginning Copyediting for Fiction class will educate anyone wanting to fix the errors seen on a daily basis in the real world!
Over the past week or so, I’ve caught the following typos and grammatical awkwardness in major news media:
USA Today: “publically released”
USA Today: “could cause driver’s to crash”
USA Today: “exasperating the problem” (should be “exacerbating the problem”)
Yahoo Entertainment: “Affleck has three children with whom Lopez has become the stepmother to.”
People: “A college student is dead after falling to his death.”
CNN: “Crossed first paths”
ABC News: “preventing recruiters from meting with students”
If you, like me, have a tendency to spot errors like this, then you, too, are either a copy editor or could be one.
Tips for Editors & Writers
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Editing Quest Novels
Authors often struggle to create compelling plots. They try to hit plot points (“turning point” “black moment” and so on) but without a solid sense of how structure works, their stories can feel formulaic and lifeless. It helps if you understand story patterns so that you can see where the story might be getting off…
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Effective Scene Construction
A common structural problem you’ll encounter in fiction development is ineffective scene construction: A good scene includes the meat of a plot event – whether that event is an emotional discussion over coffee, a decision to take a certain action, or a foot chase across town – but not a whole lot more. Problems with…
