But it’s more than that, involving checking for consistency, fact-checking, and formatting text for clarity.
It looks at the mechanics and presentation of your writing to ensure it communicates what you want to say to readers as clearly as possible.
Copyediting isn’t about enforcing arbitrary “rules” or making a manuscript “correct.” Many grammar and punctuation “rules” are more like guidelines—especially in fiction—and they should serve to help the author clearly express their thoughts and intentions.
This is why copyediting comes after developmental and line editing, which are about making sure you’re saying what you want to say and deciding how you want to say it. Determining where the commas and quotation marks go and which words to hyphenate or close up shouldn’t happen until you’re sure of what those commas, quotation marks, and hyphens are trying to help you convey to the reader.
But make no mistake: Copyediting is a crucial part of the fiction editing process because the little things like comma placement can, deliberately or unintentionally, change the meaning of a sentence. (“Let’s eat Grandma” vs. “Let’s eat, Grandma” is the classic example.)
Ensuring consistency of things like spelling, capitalization, and formatting is one of the most important parts of copyediting.
They may seem minor, but glaring inconsistencies in these things can pull a reader out of a story. Even for a reader who isn’t a copy editor that needs to take a Xanax every time she sees a misplaced modifier, inconsistencies can act like subliminal messages that tell her something isn’t quite right.
You can head these potential problems off at the start by making decisions about things before you start copyediting, so you don’t find yourself backtracking to change things you’ve already reviewed.
Record your choices on your style sheet, which will become your reference for things like your preferred spellings, capitalization, and other mechanical elements in your fic. (See my prior post on creating a style sheet.)
The following are the most important decisions to make before you dig into the copyedit:
color or colour
center or centre
traveled or travelled
If you select British English, will you use -ize/yze or- ise/yse endings? (Either is acceptable in British English.)
organize or organise
analyze or analyse
Once you’ve decided what flavor (or flavour) of English to use, select a dictionary to guide your spelling. When there are alternative spellings, you’ll generally want to use the first choice listed. (When you don’t, be sure to record your choice on your style sheet.) The most common dictionaries used in publishing fiction are Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary for American English, and the Oxford English Dictionary for British English, but you can use any dictionary you like.
And because grammar, punctuation, and usage are often a matter of choice, you’d do well to select a style guide to use as a reference. The Chicago Manual of Style is the most popular one for American publishers, while New Hart’s Rules: The Oxford Style Guide is a standard for British English. Again, jot down in your style sheet where your choices differ from your main style guide’s.
Fanfic Tip: For fic, you may also want to choose a definitive source for canon information, especially if there are various and sometimes contradictory source materials (as with the Harry Potter universe).
Will you use periods between the letters of initialisms and acronyms of two or more capital letters?
V.P. or VP
B.B.C. or BBC
N.E.W.T.s or NEWTs
American English uses double quotation marks for quotations and dialogue, with nested singles for quotes within quotes. British English uses both double and single quotation marks as a base for quotations and dialogue, although singles (with nested doubles for quotes within quotes) are more common in fiction. Either one is fine, but if you’re using British English, pick a style and stick to it.
Harry said, ‘As Dumbledore told me, “It is our choices, Harry, that show us what we truly are.” ’ [singles with nested doubles—common British style]
Harry said, “As Dumbledore told me, ‘It is our choices, Harry, that show us what we truly are.’ ” [doubles with nested singles—common American style]
Also, in British English, final punctuation that isn’t part of the quotation is usually placed outside of the closing quotation marks, except for commas, question or exclamation marks in dialogue.
Why did Draco always call Harry “Potter”? [British English]
Why did Draco always call Harry “Potter?” [American English]
“Draco always calls me by my surname,” said Harry. [American and British English]
“Why do you always call me by my surname?” asked Harry. [American and British English]
Do you want to use an en dash or an em dash to set off parenthetical statements? British publications tend to use a spaced en dash, while Americans are partial to the em dash, spaced or unspaced, depending on the publication, but you can use any version that appeals to you as long as you’re consistent. Here’s how these look in use:
Draco – that is, my husband – is a twat. [spaced en dash]
Draco — that is, my husband — is a twat. [spaced em dash]
Draco—that is, my husband—is a twat. [unspaced em dash]
(More on using the different kinds of dashes in my next post.)
Will you use the series comma (also known as the serial or Oxford comma) for items in a series? (Where there is a chance of ambiguity or confusion, you should use the series comma.)
I like oranges, apples and lemons. [no series comma]
I like oranges, apples, and lemons. [series comma]
I love my parents, John and Susan [I love my parents, who are named John and Susan.]
I love my parents, John, and Susan. [I love my parents and two other people named John and Susan.]
While the possessives of most singular common nouns end in ’s and plural common nouns end in s’, proper nouns are more complicated. A style guide will give you the general rules, but you’ll need to decide how to style the possessives of those proper nouns that end in the pesky s sound.
These can be styled with either an added ‘s or by simply adding an apostrophe to the end: s’.
Some folks style them differently depending on whether pronunciation would be hampered by adding the ‘s, but you can decide if the extra work is worth it for you. Compare the following, all of which are technically correct:
I borrowed James’s broom.
I borrowed James’ broom.
Hogwarts’ professors are the best.
Hogwarts’s professors are the best.
Decide when you want to spell numbers out and when you want to use numerals (fifteen or 15). And what are the exceptions (e.g., long numbers, dates, times)?
In general, fiction editors advise spelling out numbers in text (especially in dialogue) unless doing so would introduce awkwardness or confusion. You’ll want to create some general guidelines for how you treat numbers, but you should also remain alert to the rhythm and appearance of numbers in text and make exceptions where warranted. Here are some examples of how numbers might be styled:
“I owe you six hundred dollars.”
“No, you owe me $594.34.”
Snape was born in 1960.
Snape died back in ’ninety-eight.
The Hogwarts Express leaves at eleven a.m.
It arrives in Hogsmeade at 7:34 p.m.
Ellipses can be styled in several ways, so you should decide which looks best to you and stick with it.
One choice is to use the ellipsis character, which has the advantage of always keeping the three dots together, but can look a bit squished.
Or you can use three spaced periods, but make sure to use a nonbreaking space (Ctrl+Shift+Space on Windows; Option+Space on Mac) between each period to ensure they don’t break apart at the end of a line.
If you’re really fancy, you can use a narrow nonbreaking space (google how to do this in your system) between the periods.
However you style them, you should put a space before the first period and after the last. Yes, you’ll see lots of works that omit those spaces, but it looks terrible. If you want the spaces (and you do), use a nonbreaking space before the first period so the ellipsis doesn’t inadvertently end up on the next line like a sad little lonely blorbo.
If you are using a nonbreaking space or a nonbreaking narrow space, when you post online, you’ll need to insert the HTML code between the periods ( for nonbreaking space and   for the narrow nonbreaking space).
If you use song lyrics, poetry, letters, text messages, or in-world documents, decide how to style them to indicate that they differ from the surrounding text.
For short bits, italics are a good choice, but for longer bits, you might prefer to set them off with extra line spacing or indentations and use roman (non-italic) typeface. (Long bits of italics tend to be wearying to the reader’s eye.)
Snape sang, “L-O-L-A. Lola. Lo-lo-lo-lo-Lola,” as he brewed.
Snape sang as he brewed.
“I met her in a club down in old Soho
Where you drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca-Cola.
C-O-L-A, cola.”
Your choice.
A note on flashbacks and dreams:
If you’re writing a flashback or dream sequence, I’d advise setting it in roman unless it’s very short. In general, I think it’s best not to attempt to set it off, format-wise, in any way (such as italics or indentation) unless you need to draw attention to the fact that it is a dream or a flashback. Most flashback sequences work better when they are integrated into the narrative via a smooth transition rather than an abrupt change of format or (shudder) an interpolated author’s note like Begin flashback. (Same goes, BTW, for viewpoint changes if you’re going to make them.)
Likewise, for thoughts or other internal or nonspoken dialogue, decide whether to italicize, enclose in quotation marks, or leave plain.
I don’t care, thought Harry.
“I don’t care,” thought Harry.
I don’t care, thought Harry.
The traditional advice is to set in italics any non-English word (other than a proper noun) that isn’t in the dictionary of choice, to alert the reader that the word … isn’t English. The idea is to prevent readers from becoming confused and paging (metaphorically) through their dictionaries, vainly searching for the unfamiliar term.
More current thinking is that italicizing non-English words risks “othering” characters who speak languages other than English. It also calls attention to such terms when the author has no reason or desire to do so. Copy editor extraordinaire Benjamin Dreyer has an elegant suggestion that relies on context and intention, and I think it makes for a good solution:
Let’s say you’re writing a novel in which the characters shimmy easily between English and, say, Spanish. Consider not setting the Spanish (or what-have-you) in italics. Use of italics emphasizes foreignness. If you mean to suggest easy fluency, use of roman normalizes your text. … On the other hand, if you’re writing a novel about, say, an isolated young Englishwoman living in Paris who is confounded by the customs, the people, and the language, it would certainly make good sense to set all the bits of French she encounters, in narration or dialogue, in the requisite italics. You want that French to feel, every time, strange.
Fanfic Tip: What about words you’ve invented or are using in an unconventional context?
J. K. Rowling and her editors were notoriously capricious about using capitals for her invented words and for existing words she used in the context of the magical world. Why Muggles but wizards? Why Mudblood but pure-blood? Why Quidditch but football? Why capitalize Boggart (a word that has existed in folklore for centuries) but not banshee (likewise)?
There is a similar challenge with verbs that are used to refer to both magical and nonmagical activities. (Do you Summon your broom or summon it? Rowling does the former, but your characters might not.)
As I see it, fic writers and editors have two (okay, two and a half) choices:
The advantage of choosing upper- or lowercase across the board is simplicity. Also, if you lowercase everything, you run less of a risk of pulling a reader out of your story with an unexpected capital letter.
The advantages of approach 2.5 are nuance and avoiding potential confusion.
If you want to emphasize the … magicness … of the magical world, you could do worse than to capitalize magical words as Rowling did. Moreover, no one will wonder if you’ve stunned Draco (“Darling, I’m pregnant!”) or Stunned Draco (“Stupefy!”)
Fanfic tip: This is related to the prior entry.
In canon, Rowling uses italics for the incantations of various spells. This is likely partly to emphasize their magical nature and partly because most of them are in (or vaguely derived from) Latin and thus covered under the conventional “italicize non-English words” guideline.
You, however, can decide for yourself how to treat incantations, based on the factors I mentioned above for non-English words and capitalization.
Next up: Copyediting Part II
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