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Editing woes

Eternal Robin

Eternal Robin

Certified Helionite.
Author
Good day all, Comin' back at ya with more gripes. (I promise I'm not a bitch, really!)

I've been going over my work, bringing it in line with the recommended changes. I've made it to the end of Chapter four and I'm noticing some rather... annoying edits have previously been made to the work. Namely, censoring the word shit to read sh*t and changing Pussy to Pussycat. I'm not sure if these changes were made because someone thought it would be funny, or if they were just right-clicking the little squiggly red line under the words and YOLO'ing it, but I find it rather distasteful to make those kinds of changes to other peoples works. Especially so when a certain tone or mood is being set by the text. Pussycat is not fucking sexy, I don't care who you ask.

Secondly, I've noticed full-on changes in tense from past to present and visa versa. It makes for a jarring redirect in how sentences read and how the narrative comes across.

Thirdly, 'correcting' truncated words. Things like: yo' or jus' are changed back to 'you' or 'you're' and 'just'. For the most part, I've typed these words short-form to add an accent to dialogue and reversing it just ruins the effect.

Fourth(ly?) Straight-up adding whole-ass words that just weren't there in the first place. This one is more of a nit-pick since I know for a fact I've missed some words, or otherwise misspelled them. But having them added when they weren't necessary is, again, a jarring experience when reading. Things like "Francisco Fucking Dellenworth" being changed to read "Francisco IS Fucking Dellenworth" is stupid. Francisco is not fucking his last name...

I'm mostly annoyed that some of the edits made to my work seem to have drastically reduced the quality of the writing. And I know that comes across as self-important, but I know what I'm about, I know how the writing should look. Editors... please... I know there's, like, two of you, but please try to make actual improvements to the work you're editing.

I thought I would just need to fix a few typos, correct the dialogue like requested and wham, bam, thank you ma'am. But it's been two hours now of me referencing the original text because some paragraphs are so mangled by changes I can't tell what I had originally written.

I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed.

Thanks for your time and hard work, genuinely.
 
Eternal Robin said:
Good day all, Comin' back at ya with more gripes. (I promise I'm not a bitch, really!)

I've been going over my work, bringing it in line with the recommended changes. I've made it to the end of Chapter four and I'm noticing some rather... annoying edits have previously been made to the work. Namely, censoring the word shit to read sh*t and changing Pussy to Pussycat. I'm not sure if these changes were made because someone thought it would be funny, or if they were just right-clicking the little squiggly red line under the words and YOLO'ing it, but I find it rather distasteful to make those kinds of changes to other peoples works. Especially so when a certain tone or mood is being set by the text. Pussycat is not fucking sexy, I don't care who you ask.

Secondly, I've noticed full-on changes in tense from past to present and visa versa. It makes for a jarring redirect in how sentences read and how the narrative comes across.

Thirdly, 'correcting' truncated words. Things like: yo' or jus' are changed back to 'you' or 'you're' and 'just'. For the most part, I've typed these words short-form to add an accent to dialogue and reversing it just ruins the effect.

Fourth(ly?) Straight-up adding whole-ass words that just weren't there in the first place. This one is more of a nit-pick since I know for a fact I've missed some words, or otherwise misspelled them. But having them added when they weren't necessary is, again, a jarring experience when reading. Things like "Francisco Fucking Dellenworth" being changed to read "Francisco IS Fucking Dellenworth" is stupid. Francisco is not fucking his last name...

I'm mostly annoyed that some of the edits made to my work seem to have drastically reduced the quality of the writing. And I know that comes across as self-important, but I know what I'm about, I know how the writing should look. Editors... please... I know there's, like, two of you, but please try to make actual improvements to the work you're editing.

I thought I would just need to fix a few typos, correct the dialogue like requested and wham, bam, thank you ma'am. But it's been two hours now of me referencing the original text because some paragraphs are so mangled by changes I can't tell what I had originally written.

I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed.

Thanks for your time and hard work, genuinely.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your input, Eternal Robin, or just Robin, if I may?

Some changes are evidently on some sort of automatic scripting in various word-editing programs. Mine flags words and sentences, and I read them before approving or modifying, or outright rejecting the system's suggestions.

Regarding tense changes. One thing I have noticed is that people will change tense within the same sentence or paragraph. In the literary world, that is what is known as a no-no. So yes, if I see it, I will make the edit for proper grammar. If it alters the intent of the Author, then the paragraph should be re-written. Since we cannot see inside your vision for your works, it becomes a sticking point, and I would rather have the Author resubmit with advisements.

Truncating, or to use "slang" as speech can be difficult to work on, as sometimes the word can be interpreted as a typo. As an Author myself, this one I get. It can be frustrating, which is why I use care to ensure proper punctuation on those. For example, "Yo' bitch!" could have been input as 'Yo bitch!" or was supposed to be "You Bitch!" and they are at times hard to discriminate the intent. If we do not have the correct punctuation to remove all doubt, we are likely to aim for proper spelling and diction. Due to the high volume of submissions to edit, and the length of some of these stories, we do not always have the time to properly read each and every suspected 'typo' to make the correct decision. It may seem dumb, but a missing apostrophe ( a ' mark) can really screw things up!

*A note here. For some reason, it has become a trend for Authors to only use one (1) space between sentences. This is not only grammatically incorrect, but also makes sentences look like either a run-on, or a paragraph with horrid capitalization and punctuation. Use two (2), and save yourself a lot of returns.

Regarding 4. An interesting point. I don't think I have made this problem, but if so, I will strive to do better. Context is key for these, and again, if we are missing something, it is just human error. A longer series, such as yours in this case, may make context more difficult, especially if referring to scenes from earlier chapters that a particular editor has not read.

I know it comes across that some of your work gets mangled. Please accept that first, it is not our intent, second, we are doing our best, and third writing quality is our goal. In my case, my very first paying job was as a proofreader. It was my job to hunt down mistakes and put them into proper English grammar, as defined in the United States. I know what I am doing, and I know our other Mods are working hard to do their best, too.

Quality of writing is also subjective. What the Author deems great is a mix of intent, style, and grammar, but it may not be for everyone. What a publishing house deems great will also include readability, interpretation by the common man, and usability. I am published, in my career field, with 6 books. The hoops I had to jump through were enormous, and that was after my own proofing, and the proofing and editing by an editorial staff. Darkwanderer.net is a publishing house, and a free one at that.

We DO appreciate your efforts and contributions, as well as your willingness to work with us as we share a common goal. To put out great works that everyone can enjoy!
 
The use of a program to edit large portions of the text makes more sense with how the errors were reoccurring. I didn't want to believe that someone was sitting there, individually changing instances of "pussy" into "pussycat". Obviously this was/wasn't meant to be a specific callout thread. My chapters have passed through a few different hands prior to being approved and I haven't been very good about going back to check what changes were made.

You can imagine my shock when I started going through posted chapters only to find sweeping changes to the original work in several different places. We're all just human, mistakes get made, but being told to fix my work, and coming back to see it in worse shape than when I'd uploaded it touched a nerve.

Once again, I appreciate yours and the other site staffs time and effort. I do hope we can continue working to improve collectively.
 
lol I was pretty sure we weren't censoring the word shit or pussy ;) Be patient Robin, it takes a little time for a new editor to really get into the swing of things and work out their system. Your story is excellent, very ambitious and I really enjoyed it.
 
Suzi said:
*A note here. For some reason, it has become a trend for Authors to only use one (1) space between sentences. This is not only grammatically incorrect, but also makes sentences look like either a run-on, or a paragraph with horrid capitalization and punctuation. Use two (2), and save yourself a lot of returns.
Click to expand...
I fought this battle myself but ultimately gave it up. This is just the way things are heading now.

 
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