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Did you find sub-editing hard when you first began writing?

AlanaAlana
edited March 2006 in - Writing Tales

Comments

  • AlanaAlana
    Did you find sub-editing hard when you first began writing?
    When I first began writing full-time I found it easier to sub-edit another person's work than my own.
    Even though it has taken me many years I am amazed today on how much I have improved sub-editing my own work.  I can now change sentences, pick up on mistakes and cut out words that is of no importance.
    It has certainly taken a lot of experience to improve on my work but I am definitely pleased with it!
    Alana
  • JanJan
    In short, YES.

    Still experience difficulty correcting my own work, yet spotting other folks "errors" is practically instant. (Your penultimate sentence; ".....words that IS of no importance" you meant ARE of course.) See? That old adage, "it's the easiest thing in the world to criticise others" sounds so true.

    My best efforts of self-editing are achieved when reading my words printed on paper.
  • Jay MandalJay Mandal
    Did anyone spot the missing apostrophe in the previous post?
  • BetsieBetsie
    after the s of folks
  • JanJan
    There you go!

    Told you I was rubbish with my own writing. On the other hand I did mean all types of folk, so why does it need an apostrophe?
  • neilneil
    The possessive form: the errors are possessed by folks
  • JanJan
    Sorry to be so obtuse but what happened to the apostrophe?
  • neilneil
    This is going to get complicated, Jan. Your expression - folks errors - requires an apostrophe after folks just as - the players' injuries - or - the ladies' room - do. The two nouns follow each other. In my sentence they don't, so no need for an apostrophe.

    There is, incidentally, a mistake in my sentence ( deliberate of course - just to keep people on their toes!!).

    Hands up! 
  • JanJan
    Thank you Neil and apologies to Betsie!

    I misread [terrible sin and my pet hate] thinking the apostrophe should have been placed folk's whereas everyone said and meant folks'.

    It's obvious now and I am suitably humbled at my error. Thank goodness you are all so tolerant, that's what sets this site so far above any other.
  • neilneil
    Not tolerant, Jan. Just downright bossy!

    Now come on, what about my 'deliberate' mistake?
  • Jay MandalJay Mandal
    Not a mistake, but the apostrophe in ladies' room may be overdoing it (not for me, though). Every time I write gents I never know whether to put one, and my editor has said not to bother. I hasten to add that I write romance and not porn!
  • neilneil
    No, no, Jay. It was my sentence further up that begins; the possessive form etc.

    Regarding ladies' room: it's an example given in the Penguin Guide to Punctuation.

    You wouldn't, I'd have thought, need the apostrophe for the word ladies on its own, as in 'going to the ladies'. Any more than you would for the word gents in 'he went to the gents. But for gents' socks or gents' underpants of course, you would - two expressions which I'm sure you're using all the time in your romantic fiction!
  • Jay MandalJay Mandal
    The full stop has gone walkabout.

    I still remember my English teacher telling me about black men's socks (whoops, typo, can't possibly explain in a family forum like this one!).
  • Jay MandalJay Mandal
    Or maybe a Freudian slip.
  • CarolCarol
    To me it's the Ladies room, to hell with an apostrophe! And for most public conveniences, the prospect of getting the powers that be to put the apostrophes in the correct position, well that's asking for trouble (excuse the cliche).
  • DEEDEE
    Erm... Can I have a go at the original question, please?

    The amazing thing I've found about sub-editing is that when I look at someone else's work to cut out what's unnecessary, it ends up shorter; when I do the same to my own work, it ends up longer.

    Does anyone else have this problem, which hasn't diminished over many years?
  • neilneil
    For the full stop, Jay, you can give the pencils out. But for the other bit you can stand in the corner.
  • Jay MandalJay Mandal
    Perhaps Webbo has a hat with a D on it.
  • Jay MandalJay Mandal
    My current w-i-p novella was 30,000 words until I edited it. Then it went down to 25,000. Not that this involved the wholesale removal of scenes. What it was was me having to make up my mind on my '&/or' sentences. This is where I put, say, decisive or positive or certain or sure in the first draft. (I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.)
  • Jay MandalJay Mandal
    But, Neil, it'll go nicely in the novella I'm editing!
    I really must find something to do. Sounds like Catholic guilt. Probably Protestant work ethic.
  • JanJan
    Yes Dee,

    The reason, of course, is that we know what we mean and need to be certain our readers fully comprehend our intended interpretation. When editing other work we are purely analytical of the words before us.
  • BetsieBetsie
    Re the ladies' room - the crux of the matter is that it is plural and possessive.  It needs an apostrophe because it is possessive and it goes after the s because it is plural.  As opposed to the lady's room (the room belonging to ONE lady). 
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