One woman in the media
Bringing new writers to the publishing table.
Book Editing
Editing classes
The task was unthinkable:
Developmentally edit a 600-plus page fantasy manuscript that the author had written for NaNoWriMo. While at first the project dismayed my first-term publishing student’s expectations, I rolled into the editing and ended up supplying Guido (the author) with feedback that Linda Meyer said this of:
"Mary, I knew your paper would be good, and I wasn’t disappointed. You maintain a respectful, appreciative tone even as you make the tough calls. Your strong writing skills and solid editorial judgment have served you well herein, and will continue to do so when you write developmental revision plans for clients."
You can read a section of my editorial letter to Guido here. As you look at my other editing work, you’ll see similarities in how much I simplify my suggestions for the author. I’m a writer of fiction as well and I really think that a clear outline of edits is essential to the author in the early stages of the manuscript.
This class had more of an emphasis on fixing a manuscript’s grammatical and punctuation errors.
For the final project, we worked in a group that I cheerily annoyed with my requests that we double-check even the smallest fixes before altering an entire manuscript. You can view some of my individual copyediting of a short story by Ooligan Press author, Geronimo Tagatac, called “The Center of the World.”
I wrote my copyedits for Vinnie Kinsella’s copyediting class with the same supportive tone I gravitated toward through during previous instruction from the champion of developing writers, Linda Meyer. Vinnie had this to say about my copyedit of “The Center of the World”:
"This was an outstanding edit, Mary. You did a wonderful job with both the language and the content. You offered up many excellent suggestions for change, but none that would require extensive developmental work or were out of line with the author’s vision. What’s more, your comments were written with a supportive tone that any author would appreciate. I found no big-picture problems with your work, just a few nitpicky items (which I pointed out to you using the comments feature). I would have no problem handing you this manuscript and saying, 'Get to work.'"
I provided the same supportive and encouraging feedback to the developing writers I worked with in Leni Zumas’s class in Winter 2013.
From the feedback I gave to Writer 1 and Writer 2, you can see that no matter my preference for fiction, I can adhere to a professional—albeit, jovial—editorial philosophy. Even after the class ended, two other writers sent me their revisions and requested feedback. I feel very certain that anyone who has ever communicated with me perceives that I am a kind human being and that I will edit their work respectfully. Anyone who has ever worked with me knows that I am very dedicated and thorough. In essence, this class was a rehash of my editorial philosophy.
Leni called my story, “vibrant, inventive, multi-layered, and entertaining."*
* I did submit that story from the Winter 2013 term to the Kellogg fiction-writing awards and heard back from Tom Bissell, via Leni, that my story was his second favorite. Always a bridesmaid, yet I remain sunny in my writer's temperament.
Just find the heart of the story, Kate Sage told us. Then, summarize. Interpret. Evaluate.
(OY, thought I.)
When I started reading The Pale King, preparing to developmentally edit the unfinished novel of David Foster Wallace for our class's final project, I clung to this adage.
I wrote a multitude of notes, handwritten, as I read, reread the notes, and finally understood what the outline of the story was to be. I loved this guy as a reader, but The Pale King was no Infinite Jest.
Kate told us to focus on just a few issues for the purposes of this developmental edit, and so I did, hoping to clarify what-was-to-be the plot of the story, along with eliminating those shallow characterizations of women and minorities that had so distracted me in my reading.
In the end, I suggested that novel be published as a historic text with side-by-side examples of Wallace’s writing and his own revisions. If the novel was not completed by the author (or even close to) before its publication, I did not think the publishers ought to have marketed it as “an unfinished novel.” The novel’s marketing implied that it actually had a central plot.
Advanced Fiction
Advanced Editing
Copyediting
A gripping book about boredom.
A gripping book about boredom.
Click on the slide show at the right to get a glimpse of what my editorial letter to DFW had in store for him.
No condescension