In Case Anyone Worries...

[lydamorehouse]

I went through my comments/replies to the copy editor and made SURE they weren't snarky. These days at my publisher the comments are all using Word's track changes features and are electronic. They used to come in paper, and were far easier, IMHO, to just shrug off and make corrections or not. But with the ease of a click I can fire back a pretty snarky comeback.

I held back. Where I couldn't, I allowed myself a rant and then made sure to change it to a simple "stet" or "OK" on my next pass through. Oh... but it was difficult to restrain myself on a couple of points. I understand people get bad matches, these things happen, but I actually had to respond regarding my use of "Spidey Sense". S/he asked: "I don't understand the referrence. Why is 'Spidey' capitalized?"

Erm, in reference to proper noun, "Spider-Man". (Note, I TOTALLY RESISTED adding "D'uh!!!!")

Which, frankly, I think was pretty damn big of me.

Because, you know, there were a couple of things where I realized that maybe my language could stand clarity, even if it meant sacrificing voice. As naomikritzer pointed out yesterday when I ranted a bit about this at the coffee shop, "there are people who would be fine without a copy editor, but you, Lyda, are not one of them."

So true.

My dyslexia prevents me from noticing a lot of my atrocious misspellings, not to mention the fact that sometimes, I just plain misuse words. I have my moments of malapropism. And my gasp of English grammer is often, shall we say, quirky at best. I am inordinately fond of the comma and the paraenthtical phrase. I drop verbs and nouns when I'm writing fast, too. So, really, it's no joke. I NEED a copy editor.

I'm a funny sort of writer that way, I think. I'm nobody's grammar snob, yet there are parts of the English language that make me giddy. I get wound up about the plural of octopus. (Yes, "octopi" is in many dictonaries under "usage" heading, but octupuses is most correct, dang it! Really, listen to it. It actually sounds better.) But most of the time I never use "lay" and/or "lie" correctly. I couldn't tell you for certain if English has a pluperferct verb form, though I suspect we do. Yet I never forget to capitalize English, and my resume has accents on both "e"s and tells you that I majored in history and English. It is known in some local writing circles that I once nearly got in a fist fight (and lost a friendship) over, yes, verbs.

Most of that stuff, however, I leave to the experts, like the copy editor.

I *will* fight passionately over the things like characters and plots and politics. Anyone who has sat next to me on a media panel knows that I take Star Wars, Captain America, and Battlestar Galatica so seriously I may seem a bit deranged at times. Because in the end, I consider those things an extension of my job, my vocation, my calling. Other writers wrote those things and, thus, I feel perfectly comfortable critiquing them with colleagate passion and righteousness.

Anyway, I need to go stuff folders at Mason's school right now, and get ready to take up the good fight at Wyrdsmiths tonight.

Comments

Verbs

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is something you simply don't discuss, but I would be very interested to find out how "verbs" could lead to a very near fist fight and to the loss of a friendship. (By the way, a little bit above that, you mentioned your "gasp" of English grammar -- am I getting this right? The rest of the sentence, not the word "gasp".) I have come within inches of losing writer friends over what I consider to be English language tradionalist psychosis, and reached the point where I simply don't want to discuss it any longer; but I don't think verbs have ever been an issue for me. I do remember cakmpls at one point raising the question of "whether it is legitimate to verb nouns."

Nate

*gasp*, see this is what I mean!

[lydamorehouse]

Of course, I meant "grasp," and, even though, my dyslexia trains me to re-read everything I write twice, I still didn't see the mistake.

The fight which began the dissolution of a writers' group I belonged to called Karma Weasels was actually about whether or not a sentence needs a verb. I made a rather emphatic point that, they do. In fact, they need a subject AND a verb, though the subject can be implied in an imperative sentence.

My colleague, who knows who he is, however, is a poet. Poets have, I think, a singular relationship with English that has more to do with how things sound and the prettiness of the whole affair.

The argument came down to a science fiction/fantasy short story my poetic colleague was writing in which he wrote an entire paragraph without ever using a verb. I told him, quite seriously, that I thought his art had made him lazy. I understood his desire to avoid repetitive use of the "there were" construction, but I told him that "Trees with fruits the size of house cats" was lovely, but, in no uncertain terms decidedly NOT a sentence. I suggested the verb "to bear," as in "Trees bore fruits..."

However, I was far less tactful than even what I wrote above. I had a grammar snob moment and, in retrospect, I was far, far ruder than I needed to be. I eventually apologized, but when the group was floundering over whether it could successfully critique novels or whether it should focus on short stories, I took the opportunity to take my leave of them.

They've since transformed into the rather successful "Rat Bastards" and my poet friend will be reading from his second, newest published novel at Uncle Hugo's later this month.

So, really, there's room for all of us.

Re: *gasp*, see this is what I mean!

[lydamorehouse]

I should add a bit of the subtext to the argument. Karma Weasels always had this big divide between those of us who were commercially oriented and those who were poets and artists first. I was very much in the commercial camp. So I think a lot of my argument for its backbone that it was important for me to be clear and readable (see original post.)

Also, fragments can be okay. I use them. Even Strunk & White agree that the odd fragment can be used to great effect. Not a whole paragraph, though. My colleague was, in his defense, writing an Arabian Nights type story, and was using his poetic license for effect.

It didn't work for me, alas, and, instead of being professional, I got wonky about it. Like I say, I have some regrets about how all that went down in the end. I'm not sure my poetic colleague and I can say we're friends, but we've since had a pleasant dinner out at WisCON. I've always respected him as a writer and as a human being.

We just agree to disagree about verbs and their usage. :-)

Re: *gasp*, see this is what I mean!

[lydamorehouse]

See and I forgot a verb myself, unintentionally.

I meant to say, "... a lot of my argument HAD for its backbone..."

And while we're at it....

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

My eighth grade English teacher, Mrs. Hudson, once informed us that "octopus" pluralizes as "octopuses," "octopodes," and "octopi." I suspect the third made it into the dictionary with a touch of "if you can't lick 'em, join 'em." But then my father and I were discussing strange plurals. He told me of a zoology professor who sent a letter to a local zoo that he had been using for supplies, "Send me two mongeese." That didn't look right, so he wrote, "Send me two mongooses." That didn't look right either, so he finally wrote, "Please send me a mongoose. While we're at it, please send me two of them." (Apparently "mongooses" is correct. Who'd a thunk it?) Dad had been a language and linguistics professor, and this kind of conversation was in so many ways par for the course.

Nate

Re: And while we're at it....

[lydamorehouse]

The mongoose story is AWESOME. I'm so telling Mason that when I pick him up!

[jenwrites.livejournal.com]

Wait...how come this copy editor is working on a genre book if she doesn't know what Spidey Sense is?

[seawasp]

I must disagree with you on octopuses. Octopi all the way. Octopodes is acceptable. Octopussy if you're talking to James Bond, I suppose.

I love using the -i ending anyway. Virii! Mongoosi! Fanboii!

[g33kgrrl]

I once made an lj poll to see how people pluralize octopus, even though I know octopuses is correct. I just find it fun!

And of course I love the octopodes construction so much, correct or not, that I use octopodey as an alternate screen name. It's just so much fun to say.

Anyway: I feel you? I guess was my point. :)

[(Anonymous)]

Asimov had a great take on writing. He purposefully adopted a simple, straightforward style. His metaphor was that of glass in windows. Stained glass windows can be beautiful artwork (like a poetic style) but you can't see through them. Clear glass windows aren't ever going to be great artwork, but they reveal things to us we can't otherwise see.

And, he argued, stained glass is actually easier to make than clear glass--which is why cathedrals had stained glass in them--because they didn't know how to make clear glass. Clear writing is similarly difficult to achieve.

jpj