I'm finishing up copy edits on Guardians of Stone and I have to say I'm very impressed with the copy editor. I think all CEs are uber picky, but this guy really did find the things I tend to get lazy with. For instance, I'm forever using "it" when I should be specifying exactly what I'm referring to. He found several places in the manuscript where I had "used pronouns without antecedents."
For instance in this sentence:
She was trembling but he didn't know if it was from anger or fear.
The CE did not like that "it". Technically I suppose the sentence should have read:
She was trembling but he didn't know if her reaction was from anger or fear.
Here's another one:
It wasn't a come-on but the need for warmth and human contact in a place of death.
He didn't like that "it" either, so I changed it... (Oops, just did it in this sentence too. Geez! And I did it again just now!!!) Ack!!!! Okay, I've changed the SENTENCE to read:
His move wasn't a come-on but the need for warmth and human contact in a place of death.
So I need to pay more attention to my "its" from now on.
Do you guys have weird things like this that you don't catch?
5 comments:
Along with 'it' two other words I use but catch myself, most of the time, are 'that' and 'just'.
Along with 'it' two other words I use but catch myself, most of the time, are 'that' and 'just'.
Lindsay, I also have to be careful of "That" and "Just". Actually there are several crutch words I have to watch out for.
Somewhere I have a list of "ugly" words to do a spell check for after I think the manuscript is finished.
Catch words are a problem for me as well. I have created a list (too long to post here) of those words I do a search for and then try and figure out how I can replace them. I include "that", "just", "maybe" and so on. As I said, the list is long. When my family have read my scenes they say they sound like me. So, errrr, I must have to also think about my speech!
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