Bothersome Words

You keep using that word…

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One of the reasons to hire an editor, even if you have run an automated spelling and grammar checker over your document, is to get that all-important second pair of eyes looking over your work. As a second reader, the editor will pick up if you have overused a particular word and they’ll see, where a spellchecker won’t, if you are using the word incorrectly.

Most of us have a particular “tic”, a preferred word that we use frequently. It might be different depending on whether we’re having a conversation (or even who we’re talking to), or whether we’re writing an email or a book or blog post. It may even be different every time. But it’s the sort of thing we are unlikely to pick up ourselves. And unless someone tells us, we may never realise that we’re repeatedly using a certain word incorrectly.

This is where an editor comes in.

Unlike Microsoft Word, your human editor will call you out on attempts to have your action hero bring his fighter jet in for a daredevil landing right inside a wardrobe (ie: on a clothes hanger) when it would be far more advisable to pull in to an aircraft-sized hangar.

If every one of your characters is described as having glowing eyes and skin, and you’re not writing a supernatural or sci-fi thriller, your editor may suggest alternative ways to highlight their features.

When a scene depicts someone in a suit with a separate bathroom, it’s your editor, not spellcheck, who will advise either adding an “e” to clarify that you meant “suite” or adding detail to explain how the catheter arrangement works with the pinstripe.

Often it is the way a character speaks or conducts him- or herself that gives away the tic. In an attempt to avoid overusing “said”, many writers will use action to keep things moving. This is an effective technique, so long as it is not overdone and as long as those tics are kept in check. Again, the editor is there to ensure that a character who “snorts” in response to every comment doesn’t come across as having a drug habit (unless he’s meant to) or that others don’t “shrug” their way through every exchange and seem disinterested.

Punctuation can reveal similar “tics” and it’s only during that close editorial read that it becomes obvious every second sentence ends with an exclamation point or ellipsis that lends the story a jumpy or disjointed flow. Your editor can help smooth these out so that the dramatic effect isn’t lost and the text stays even.

Of course there are ways to try and catch these things yourself. Letting your work rest before you read over it allows your brain to “reboot” and you become your own “fresh eyes”. And becoming friends with your dictionary (and thesaurus) also helps, although yes, that seems obvious. But editors use them all the time.* Even the ones who are themselves “walking dictionaries” use actual dictionaries. Probably even more than other people because they are paranoid about getting caught out. After all, if you’re going to spend your life nitpicking other people’s words you want to make sure you get it right!**

But when all’s said and done, there’s nothing like that second pair of eyes to pick up the things you don’t know you’ve missed.

Do you have any writing tics? Spotted any anywhere?  Let us know below!


* Apart from the editors I once met who refused to use dictionaries on the grounds that if a word needed to be looked up then a different word should be chosen. As a word nerd I am still troubled by this years later.

** Seriously, there is no sound like the tone of glee in someone’s voice when they believe they have found an error in an editor’s work. This is possibly understandable. But still…

Fact-checking across the universe

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One of the things I love about my job is the information-gathering aspect. I love snaffling up little factoids and random pearls of wisdom, which is just as well, because at times the task of editing falls squarely in the realm of fact checking.

In this case, it helps to love research.*

How much fact-checking a particular job may entail depends upon a great many things. Not least are the subject matter and genre, the style of publication, the expectations of author and publisher and, let’s not forget, the budget and deadline.

Different publications work in different ways and may have entirely different expectations. I have worked for magazines where the fact-checking portion of the sub-editing role could take days for a single travel article, such was the accuracy required. I would spend hours checking map books and atlases, perusing the internet, and finally on the phone to hotels overseas (in different time zones, speaking to people whose first language was certainly not English) confirming: the transfer vehicle was a coach and it was blue, the precise direction it took from the airport (including road names), the colour of the marble in the hotel foyer, the time at which the towels were put on the sun lounges around the pool, and the kinds of cocktails available in a bar.

And no, I am not exaggerating.

This contrasted mightily with a stint at a major newspaper, where I expected similar levels of checking would be necessary. Here timing was everything and journalists were assumed to have been correct in all details. In this particular department, sub-editors were not encouraged to check anything but major facts or obvious potential errors.

Books are different again.

The fact-checking element is slipped in wherever timing allows and is different probably for every book, never mind for every editor or publisher. And there are always facts to be checked, no matter how fantastical a tale the author has woven.

While non-fiction and academic works have obvious fact-checking requirements, I have edited crime novels that, for me, meant checking Tube stops and car park locations**, never mind murder techniques (and yes, I check those too, but not Dexter-style). I have researched Ninja weaponry on a surprising number of occasions*** as well as helicopter treads. I edit fantasy, which means ensuring that facts hold up within invented worlds – sometimes this means tracking back through an entire series to make sure the magic works as it should. And yes, I mean facts, as opposed to consistency; a subtle difference.

At the end of all this, my brain is usually bursting with information, none of which is any use to anyone, except possibly the author, who already knows far more about the topic anyway. I forget all of it before I can use it at a trivia night and nine times out of ten, everything was perfectly accurate in the first place.

But this is another one of those invisible jobs an editor does. Next time you pick up something to read, even if it’s just a quick flick through a magazine article, remember, not only did the author pour his or her heart and soul into the words on the page, but at least one editor probably spent countless hours double-checking the facts as well as the spelling.


*It is, admittedly, less helpful to get so involved in a topic that you veer off entirely and become, for one week only, a self-described expert on 16th century building materials when you only needed to know whether it was acceptable for an author to use that word once as a passing reference.

** All hail Google maps! (And, indeed, the interwebs in general.)

*** Seriously, when you combine some of the things I have had to research over time, I have to wonder if I am on a watch list somewhere. Although I am probably in good company, since I am checking other people’s work.


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