Demon copy editor

This week I've been copy editing a friend's book.  It's a strange process sitting down to read straight through a story I know well in separate chunks.  But that's just why a demon copy editor is needed.

When you read chunks of manuscript out for critiquing over several months to people you lose the benefit of continuity.  I run a manuscript critiquing group that has been together for several years now.  One of my students has been working on the same novel for five years.  It's a historical time travel based around real events, and he's had to do a lot of research for it.  But now he's finished the first draft and is rewriting.  And the story is getting honed and tightened and is much more readable.  

But I'm hearing it in weekly chunks so I can't judge if the continuity is right.  I'm forever asking my students if the reader already knows some fact because I can't hold the information in my mind over several weeks. And that's one of the big things a demon copy editor can do, find the lapses of continuity.

I'm just about to get my proofs for Panthera : Death Song.  I will sit down and line edit these, but I will also give a proof to Carol Westron to edit.  Between us I'm confident we'll find everything that needs fixing.  In the first book, Death Spiral, I've only spotted one comma in the wrong place in the final version. I can live with that, and it's a better hit rate than many professionally produced books.

When Carol, Chris and I set up Pentangle Press we were very determined to publish books to as high a standard as any mainstream publisher.  We were out to get noticed, but for the right reasons, as damn good writers with well-produced books.  And I think that's the only way an indie author can build credibility.  You have to work to the same exacting standards as if you were working with a mainstream publisher.  And it really helps to have access to a demon copy editor.