The Next Best Book Club discussion

I have a serious pet peeve about things that could have and should have been corrected by editors. Mis-spelled words, poor punctuation, inconsistancies.

A perfect example is a book I read recently by a first time author. Because she was a first time author, I feel it was up to the editor catch the little things. Like the fact that a man travelled west from Rome to India and China on foot. My sense of direction isn't great, but really...I know east from west! The same book referred to a character that had been "crused".

Or when a dialog between two characters suddenly includes a third person?

Or books like Hannibal that just should have had a good third of extraneous text cut.

I guess my problem is that if I can catch it, someone paid to do this should have caught it first.

I second that — I always find myself picking out grammatical & other editorial errors. (This is helpful in my job since I work in marketing communications, and sometimes I think I should become an editor at a publishing house to help these people out!)

To me, errors like that are glaring, and it drives me crazy when my reading is interrupted by such an intrusion.

I agree with you both! I'm not sure if it's the auditor in me that finds the mistakes, but it is very frustrating when I find them. I agree with your comment Brenda, if someone is paid to find them, how did it get missed?

It is definitely distracting.

Alas, sometimes mistakes are inserted by the very copy-editor who is paid to fix them, at other times, portions of the text are cut in order to save a page. It could be that the paragraph where the third person joined the group was cut, and no one noticed.

I once read a book where butt was used instead of but!! Um... hello :)

My copy of Grapes of Wrath is missing some ten periods. I guess it is not just a modern or new author thing!

It is usually a second-rate publisher thing.

Outside of a cheap Hemingway reprint that I picked up used, which was riddled with errors, I think I've found only one error like this in recent memory.

I completely agree! There was a James Patterson book (I think 3rd Degree) that had a glaring error in someone's name -- the character wasn't even involved in the scene at all. That one sticks out in my head the most, but I know pretty much every book I have read lately has had some kind of grammatical or punctuation error.

Last year my daughter checked out a bunch of Nancy Drew books from the Library most of them were printed in the 50's they had tons of mistakes she kept bring me the book pointing out mistakes to me. I laughed & told her she was brilliant (she was 11 at the time). I told her to write the publishing company & ask for a job. Jokingly. But she has something to aim for.

I recently read a book with a lot of puncuation errors.

Funny that we are all noticing this.

I'm so glad that I'm not the only one who is irked by these errors! I thought it was just because I used to be an editor (and I miss it!) Thank goodness I don't have a red pen on me when I'm reading. I recently found a ton of mistakes in my copy of Breaking Dawn...I had to restrain myself from making the corrections on the page and force myself to just keep reading! *L*

I thought it was because I would like to be an editor and don't really know where to start!

I recently read a fun book with absolutely terrible editing. In fact, I think I really harped on the editing in my review. The Fairy Godmother

I have noticed that my favorite author has many mistakes in all of her books. Mis-spelled words, incorrect punctuation, missing words, and other grammatical errors. It bugs the heck out of me every time I read one of her books.

Amen to that Brenda! Sheeeshh, I'm so glad I'm not alone in my OCD *lol* It's really awful when you find mistakes of this sort, especially mis-spelled or mis-used words; I always have to fight the urge of taking my pencil and correcting them right then and there *lol* I know! But you are right: if normal readers can catch these mistakes, then a paid editor should have no problems with them. All I want to know is who was the editor for "Breaking Dawn"? Cause he/she did a very poor job. I mean I noticed the multitude of mistakes and English is not even my first language. It's disrespectful to the readers, especially in cases of high-profile books such as that one.

I'm curious: I never read 'Harry Potter'. Were there numerous/annoying mistakes in them too? (I'm taking this book as an example, because it also has the fame and high-profile that BD has)

I had a very interesting conversation with the editor of my second book. This was back in 2001; the publisher was AMACOM. My editor did some WONDERFUL work that improved the MS immensely. When I thanked her for it, she told me that she personally knows editors who have to do "stealth editing." They get chastised for doing what is supposed to be their job, so they literally sneak around to do it! When I asked her why, she said: "The industry has found that good writing doesn't sell books these days."

I know what she means. Not to snark at another author, but look at RICH DAD, POOR DAD. It's horribly written (I was stunned when I read it), and it's a best-seller. That's just the first title that comes to mind; there are many other examples, as many people have mentioned above. It seems worse in non-fiction, but you also see MANY works of fiction that badly needed an editor's hand.

Typos are a somewhat different matter. Those little buggers are hard to find, as everyone knows. But the better publishers definitely rout them out more assiduously.

It is such a joy to find writers who can really write, and publishers who care about that. Bless them!

Doni Tamblyn

I don't remember very many errors at all in the HP books, someone check me? It's been a little while since I've read them.

My little sister always finds errors in the Stephanie Meyer books and complains about them. I don't really notice, since I kind of rush through the story.

Come to think of it, someone had hand corrected 2 errors in my library copy of Oscar Wao.

I don't recall any glaring errors in the HP books. If they were there, Rowling did such a wonderful job of keeping me involved that I didn't notice.

Doni--thank you so much for the author's perspective!

I always thought I missed my calling ... I hate seeing misspelled words in novels. They pop out at me and are glaringly obvious... Ive also been reading, and get hung up when they double print a word (its usually the word "the". It will show up as "the the"...grrrr...) or use the wrong spelling for the defintion that they were intending. Thier for there. or than for then.

Im not perfect by any means, but isnt that the purpose of the Editor?

I would love to work at a publishing house... I wouldnt even know where to start tho!

Jeremy -- It was me! *L* I corrected your Oscar Wao! *LOL*

For those who mentioned the HP books, they did have errors. I remember watching an episode of Oprah in which the editor was interviewed. She said that fans would write in telling her of the mistakes they caught. Sometimes it was small things like punctuation, grammatical errors, but other times it was errors in scenery. One was something about the type of bush that was in the scenery...the fan pointed out that the bush wouldn't be able to flower in the particular season Rowling described because that wasn't it's peak season.

The editor had said that it was one of the hardest books she ever had to edit not only because of the secrecy involved, but because so many fans read the books over and over they are bound to catch something and they are not afraid to write in. lol.

Glad to know I'm not alone with this peeve.

Puncuation doesn't bother me so much but a misspelled word drives me crazy.

I recently read a book where they mixed up the character names~thought I missed something and reread the chapter a few times to be sure. yeesh!

Bad editing drives me up the wall, and makes me want to grab my red pencil.

And when "principal" is used for "principle" (or vice versa), I can hear my fifth grade English teacher, the great Mrs. King, getting out her pencil to poke somebody in the hand!

I find it funny when I find a spelling error. I am a bad speller and have been all my life. The more time I spend reading the better I am. But again if I can see a spelling error I think that that is pretty bad and funny. :)

Just found this thread... better late than never...

Shannon wrote: I agree with your comment Brenda, if someone is paid to find them, how did it get missed?

Another part of this problem is that someone isn't paid to find them any more. I worked for a year on a bilingual scientific encyclopedia, as proofreader and editor, paid for by a major hydrocarbon company (and you know they have a lot of money). We were told in no uncertain terms that we were being paid to check and correct the big things and not to sweat the details, there wasn't enough time or money.

I used to edit and copy edit PhD mss. It seems that some people can spell and others can't and doesn't depend on either the level of intelligence or subject area. However, it was a trying experience and now I do not edit anything if I'm not paid for it and that includes my own writing. Luckily I'm a good speller.

But not always: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/8... (comment 7)

So I agree there is no excuse for the east/west thing. But I will say this...I used to write software for a living and if you write a 100,000 lines of code there will be bugs. Same thing with writing if you have 100,000 words then there is bound to be an error here and there. I'm proofing my husband's second book right now and 3 editors missed a "rights" to "rites" problem as in - giving last rites. In that many words there are going to be some mistakes.

As for Harry Potter - there was a website where people could post errors they found and the site had hundreds of postings maybe thousands - now of course some are repeats etc - but that is a book book by a book publisher and if it has issues then it is indicitive of not being able to get rid of them all.

I recently had a list of errors come back from someone who was reading the ARC (Advanced Reading Copy) of my husband's book - They had listed 26 errors - I immediately went to the "released copy" and none of them were there -- Whew! I breathed a sign of release. But that being said - When working on the Kindle book I found a few things - most were hugely minor - like a missing quote but still I get insane whenever I find a mistake in something in print.

Wife of GR author: Michael J. Sullivan | The Crown Conspiracy (10/08) | Avempartha (04/09)

... and 3 editors missed a "rights" to "rites" problem as in - giving last rites. In that many words there are going to be some mistakes.

I'm not so sure that's a missed mistake. Maybe one missed it, but the other editors prolly didn't know the difference between last rites and last rights, which is unfortunately very common and in my book far worse.

I'm working now for Project Gutenberg, proofing public domain books often from texts that are very difficult to make out in many different languages and fonts. The time, effort and care that we put into these works is amazing. And we're all volunteers, doing it because we love books. The poor person who is getting paid to do this kind of thing isn't getting paid enough (I know, becasue often it's me...) and has a deadline that is ridiculous.

Honestly, spelling and grammatical errors irritate me so much more than any other type of error. I mean, don't they have spellcheck? I don't feel it's the authors fault at all. Yes they need writing skills, but I think what we all wait for is the talented storytelling. I think some authors (Meyer, Rowling, King) have such a following, and so many are anxiously awaiting their next novel, that a rush job is done. Not an excuse, but my theory, anyway!

I have been biting my tongue on this thread, refraining from pointing out that "mis-spelled" in the original post is, in fact, a misspelling, and so on....

I've written (for money) for 16 years. My first "real" job was as a technical writer; after a year I was a team lead, and was responsible for editing all the work of my team before it went in for editing. So I know exactly how much editors miss, no matter how careful they are. There are deadlines; there is also the matter of staring at words on a page until you go cross-eyed. Every editor misses things.

Also, the author shares responsibility for mistakes. If you have poor writing skills, you're a poor writer -- period. Words, sentences, and punctuation are the writer's tools. Your great idea for a house amounts to squat if you can't use a hammer. Writers need to be able to edit -- it's part of the job.

Sure, they need to be able to write with skill, but as far as the house analogy goes- ARCHITECT!!!!! I'm not trying to be argumentative, but if a writer was that responsible for technical mistakes, there wouldn't be a need for such an extensive editing process. Sentence structure, spelling, definitely author's fault, semi-colon placement... not so much!

I didn't say writers were solely responsible. I said they shared responsibility. Remember, the author of the book is also (usually) the author of the errors.

We're all architects. Writers work with hammers.

JK Rowling is a good example of this: Harry Potter isn't built on any big, original ideas. On the broadest level it's all been done before. The story arc of the HP books is far from new.

Harry Potter is built out of smaller bricks, bits and pieces that together make a convincing and detailed fictional world. In Rowling's case, the sentences don't matter -- she's no good there. Her genius is in all the fanciful details that create the wizarding world.

So let's ask, whose responsibility is it to keep those details straight? Hers, or a copy editor's? Keeping the details straight is part of the copy editor's job description, all right, but the ultimate responsibility lies with Rowling.

Anyway, this is getting away from the topic. Point is, editors will miss things. It's harder than you'd think. John Steinbeck couldn't spell; that didn't make Pascal Covici responsible for his mistakes.

Always looking for a logical answer, it seems to me the explanation for errors in books is partly down to neuroscience.

Fiction authors can overlook typos and missing words because they've drafted and revised the manuscript so many times, the errors that remain become virtually invisible. The brain sees what it expects: visual inference through context is processed beyond the primary visual cortex. The proofer and editor hopefully 'see' punctuation and spelling mistakes but they too, have a similar brain:)

Andrew wrote: "I have been biting my tongue on this thread, refraining from pointing out that "mis-spelled" in the original post is, in fact, a misspelling, and so on....

I've written (for money) for 16 years. M..."

Andrew-
I am a lead technical editor and I agree that deadlines play a huge role in editing. Mistakes can happen when you have a poorly written document with very little time to put into it.

What M.C. says is so true - I've been away from the group the last 5 days because we are in final edit of my husband's 2nd book. I was reading out loud while he followed along and he stopped me.....

Read that sentence again ... I repeated exactly what I just said.


Read it again but read what is there and not what you "think is there" -- sure enough I was inserting a word that was suppose to be there but was not.

Wife of GR author: Michael J. Sullivan | The Crown Conspiracy (10/08) | Avempartha (04/09)

Ok I'm going to jump in here, sensative subject but I'll try to keep my statements reasonable and not get worked up.

I'm not thrilled about the statement a writer who makes errors is a bad writer. I am horrible with certain aspects of grammer, spelling (love spell check though) and sometimes I get so lost in my idea and in the actual story that sentences run long and silly mistakes are made. I don't over sweat it though because as many writers i've spoken with the worst thing you can do while trying to let out the flow of ideas is start editing while you write. Your writing will come out jilted and the creative angle is stiffled. I am an artist, a story teller and in my opinion getting a good editor is along the same lines as a painter having a good paint provider. If the paints no good then no matter how good the painter is the painting won't be as perfect as it could be. I know the logic must be used in reverse but I see it this way. Almost any proffectionist with the right training can be an editor...but how well can they write? Would their stories be riviting and pull you in, making you ignore that it's should be its or maybe to should be too?

I'm sure some with disagree but to me the muse isn't the least bit concerned with the fact that I tend to wander rather then wonder. ;) I spend years of my life writing a good, solid story. I'll let the editor figure out that my commas are off by a word.

I never assume the fault is with the author or the editor, but with the publishing house who takes the "easy" route or feels the need for speed.

I think I'm more bothered by the fact that editing is not being done, not with editors in general.

I am not a writer, but agree, wholeheartedly with what Natasha says!

As long as there aren't too many grammatical errors in a book I can deal with it, but what I can't deal with are plot errors and hypocritical information.

One example is in a book I am currently reading, the chapters alternate between two different characters and their adventures. In one chapter they are talking about character A but accidentally put character B's name in one sentence. When I first read the sentence I was sooo confused and had to read over it at least three times to make sure I wasn't misunderstanding and it was in fact an error.

Natasha wrote: "Ok I'm going to jump in here, sensative subject but I'll try to keep my statements reasonable and not get worked up.

I'm not thrilled about the statement a writer who makes errors is a bad write..."

I could not agree with Natash more --- She is IMHO 100% correct. The ability to "write" - to create characters, weave plot, engage readers is a talent - plain and simple - I don't think it can be taught - it can be improved upon over time and new techniqus can be learned to make a good writer better...but either you can do it or not - Not everyone, unfortunately, can do this...just as not everyone can paint a beautiful painting.

Editing - is a difficult and demanding job and takes a completely diffent skill set. The focus of the editor is "attention to detail" - they are the ones doing the fine polishing. They can make a good work great will never be able to "fix" a poorly written book. And my poorly written I mean one that lacks basic elements of style, plot, mood, character development etc..not one that has a sentence that is poorly worded, or a manuscript that violates some basic grammar rules.

While writing is very left brain "creative" I think editing is more "right brain" analytic.

Wife of GR author: Michael J. Sullivan | The Crown Conspiracy (10/08) | Avempartha (04/09)

Bianca wrote: "As long as there aren't too many grammatical errors in a book I can deal with it, but what I can't deal with are plot errors and hypocritical information.

One example is in a book I am currentl..."

That example is a mistake pure and simple - and both the author and the editor are equally to blame - one or both of them should be catching something like that.

I'm pretty sure it was the result of a "late hurried" edit that was not properly proofed more than something that was in the book for months and was simply overlooked.

Wife of GR author: Michael J. Sullivan | The Crown Conspiracy (10/08) | Avempartha (04/09)

I have no problem with a good writer who can't spell -- Andrew mentions Steinbeck as one example, and apparently F. Scott Fitzgerald is another one. But both writers knew what words to choose, and how to string them together into beautiful sentences that shot the images straight into your heart and stayed there. Part of that IS done through grammar, and punctuation as well. A good editor is priceless in helping with this, but I believe a real writer should be fascinated with ALL aspects of the process, including grammar and punctuation. They may break the rules, but they should only break them by choice, not because they don't know any better. A real writer should be a wordsmith, in love with words.

Sorry for the "should"s. I really do feel strongly about this: Good writing is the hardest thing in the world, and requires the finest focus. There are people who write -- maybe even quite well -- and then there are real writers. The first group are craftsmen (of greater or lesser skill), and the second are artists.

I think you are right about the FIRST draft. But I think it is the author's responsibility to run through it for spelling, grammar checks and so on before it goes to an editor. I think that like painting - craft is PART of art. And I will tell you from a reader's perspective, no matter who entertaining the story, factual errors, serious grammar errors etc... will definitely decrease my enjoyment of the story. So what might have been a 5 star book becomes a 3 star book. And I would argue that a "beautiful sentence" cannot shoot an image into my heart if I am disgusted by bad grammar. For a sentence to in fact, be beautiful, it needs to be grammatically correct. Language is not just words, it is grammatical rules that string them together.

As for breaking them by choice - yes a truly gifted writer can do it. But the kind of mistakes I think we are talking about here are careless mistakes or mistakes because the writer doesnt know the rules. AND if you know you are not good at grammar, spelling etc... then you MUST hire a good editor to make up for your weaknesses.


Natasha wrote: "Ok I'm going to jump in here, sensative subject but I'll try to keep my statements reasonable and not get worked up.

I'm not thrilled about the statement a writer who makes errors is a bad write..."

Robin wrote: "Bianca wrote: "As long as there aren't too many grammatical errors in a book I can deal with it, but what I can't deal with are plot errors and hypocritical information.

One example is in a boo..."

Oops. I wanted to say that I read a vampire book, where the author kept describing the time period as Victorian and then talked about the powdered wigs etc... This is TOTAL fact error. Completely different time periods. This is a person who actually REQUESTED the book NOT be edited according to the front pages. Absurd. Maybe the book might have a good story, but this is ALL I really remember.

I've just finished Brisingr, the latest instalment of the Eragon series and well, allow me to point this out :

Christopher Paolini has the imagination. The plot has its twists and turns, and really, for a fellow his age, the story he paints is quite stunning.

However, where on God's earth are his editors? He promised an Inheritance Trilogy but then Brisingr was published as the 3rd instalment of a four-book saga. Fine, I thought, maybe there's much more to the story than one last book can handle.

And then I read Brisingr and find that two thirds of the darned book is dedicated to Paolini waxing lyrical about anything and everything. He describes anything and everything to it's zenith that the book became tiresome. Finishing it became a chore of plodding thru much tautology and not much plot.

So there. Editing is not just about beautiful sentences. No amount of correct grammar and words-that-stab-you-in-the-heart is forgivable for the dithering that comes with this book. His editors should've told him to keep it simple. His audience is YA after all!

Sorry. Long rant. :)

Kataklicik wrote: "I've just finished Brisingr, the latest instalment of the Eragon series and well, allow me to point this out :

Christopher Paolini has the imagination. The plot has its twists and turns, and rea..."

It does seems that as authors get more successful they "listen less" to the editors and tend to get "long winded". I heard similar complaints with the later Potter books when JK refused editing on them - I still liked them and was not upset by the lack of editing, though I did notice a difference between the two.

You bring up an important point...there are 2 kinds of editing.

1 - technical edits (making sure the commas are in the right place, no typos, no run-on sentences or fragmetns.

2 - content edits that make sure the characters remain true to character, the pacing is appopriate, there are no plot wholes etc.

-- Wife of GR author Michael J. Sullivan: The Crown Conspiracy (10/08) | Avempartha (04/09)

I believe that's exactly true -- when an author becomes successful their writing sometimes starts to slide. I remember this with Gore Vidal's books. The writing was SO loose and sloppy in his later ones. I presume this is what you mean in the second kind of editing, "the pacing is appropriate." "Yo boy, tighten that paragraph up, it drags like an unmilked Guernsey's udder." I wish I knew whether it was because the editors back off or because the authors no longer listen. Why would anybody who cares about their work NOT want it critiqued?

Tecnical editing is something all books need, in my opinion. Content or pacing editing... that's harder. I enjoy the writing style of some authors so much I am really disapointed when their newest book is short. I think I would read anything they chose to describe.
Other authors have the greatest story ideas, but I feel they just use too many words. I guess a lot of it is opinion. You can't please all the people all the time.

I'll never forget a book I read by an author in a neighboring state set in Tennessee. The protagonists walked 175 miles thru the mountainous wilderness in 3 days.

I never read her again. I figure if you can't look at a map, you're done for.