Category: Susan VanHecke

Saying Goodbye to a Five-Year-Old Friend

10/15/2021

2017-2021 Highlighter team drawn by AMY MULLEN, mintparcel.com

HIGHLIGHTER
Ezine Serving the Mid-Atlantic Region of SCBWI

After five years of curating the content for the Highlighter, the ezine serving the Mid-Atlantic region of SCBWI, I've decided to hand my precious baby over to another caretaker. It was a hard decision. I so enjoyed discovering (and uncovering) all the amazingness that belongs to the collective of kidlit creators that live in my neck of the woods.

Each quarter there were so many amazing books being published! So many awards being won! So many industry professionals to learn from! And I attempted to capture it all in our SCBWI newsletter! A maddening thing to attempt for a volunteer, but I tried. Hearing our members express appreciation and gratitude many issues over, made it worthwhile.

I was blown away when as a thank you the amazing Meg Medina had her publisher send me a copy of her lovely book EVELYN DEL REY IS MOVING AWAY, and when the talented Jacqueline Jules did something likewise! How cool is that!

Curating the content for an amazing SCBWI publication for five years!

Honestly, I won't miss spending all those tremendous amount of volunteer hours obsessing over every feature, every article, every iota of member good news. But I will miss working with my amazing coeditors, Susan VanHecke (who rocks socks with her red pen), and Tami Traylor (who rocks all things layout and design). They are simply FANTABULOUS.

If you're a member, you won't regret logging into SCBWI and checking out our not-so-little newsletter. You'll find our final one--the Fall 2021 Highlighter--on the Mid-Atlantic SCBWI website.

On its pages you'll discover:

a fun article about school visits with Tom Angleberger
a partnership piece with coauthors Wendy Shang and Madelyn Rosenberg
an author spotlight on Kathryn Erskine
a Meet-the-Artist segment with Robert Meganck
an article by Gabriella Aldeman about our members' books being produced for the stage and screen
a craft article by me about lessons learned from watching the reality show Chopped, and so much more!

Click the Highlighter tab on the right. Every issue produced by our team from 2017 through 2021 can be found THERE.

Goodbye, HIGHLIGHTER, my five-year-old friend.
Every one of your issues took my breath away.
Live long & prosper in the hands of another!

34 Comments

Welcome, Susan VanHecke, copyeditor extraordinaire!

6/13/2019

0 Comments

Salutations, Susan! Thanks so much for stopping by to share with us the ins and outs of what you do as a copyeditor for publishers of books written for younger audiences.

Hi, Dionna! Glad to be here. What do you want to know?

Once an author sells a manuscript, when does a copyeditor step in with his or her red pen?

The minute a contract is signed, an author is welcomed to the editorial process, where the manuscript will be honed and polished to its greatest shining potential, most likely with help from a copyeditor.

But what, exactly, does a copyeditor do?

Once the author and editor have ironed out the big-picture components of the story—plot and character development, structure, pacing—most likely through a few rounds of revision, the manuscript heads to copyediting. Here the focus on the text goes from wide-angle to close-up. The copyeditor puts the manuscript under the microscope, correcting errors, querying questionable passages, and preparing a style sheet, a record of editorial choices that's used throughout the production process to keep everyone on the same, well, page.

Through several reads, the copyeditor will scour the manuscript word for word, sussing out errors and inconsistencies. He or she will correct faulty spelling, grammar, punctuation, and usage and ensure consistency in spelling, hyphenation, numerals, fonts, and capitalization. The copyeditor will track continuity of plot, setting, and character, keep on top of chronology, and fact-check people, places, and events for accuracy. He or she may also eliminate wordiness and clichéd writing, smooth out transitions, and revise sentences for flow and readability.

WOW! I had no idea a copyeditor did so much! Is there more?

Whenever the copyeditor comes across a confusing or possibly incorrect passage in the manuscript, he or she will flag it with a query. Just like it sounds, the query is the copyeditor’s question to the author on behalf of the reader. If a phrase, sentence, paragraph, or turn of events doesn’t seem to make sense, instead of revising the passage directly, the copyeditor will ask about it in a query, leaving the tweaking up to the author. The helpful copyeditor will often suggest a possible revision in the query.

The copyeditor will also format the manuscript to comport with the publisher’s in-house style guide. The style guide is a compilation of editorial preferences specific to that publisher. For example, some publishers like signs, labels, and words on T-shirts to be set in SMALL CAPS. Others prefer ALL CAPS. Or Initial Caps. Or “Initial Caps with Quotation Marks.”

But what if editorial changes are made, and the manuscript evolves?

To keep track of all editorial decisions made while working on a manuscript, the copyeditor will create a style sheet. This document lists character names and info, unusual words not in the dictionary, treatment of words and numbers, story timeline, and other issues specific to the manuscript. This helps all those working with the text at the publishing house—editors, copyeditors, proofreaders—keep things consistent. That way, green-eyed Tasha Clark of 212 Erie Place who turned fifteen on page 6 doesn’t become brown-eyed sixteen-year-old Sasha Clarke of 221 Eerie Court on page 206.

When the copyeditor is finished, the manuscript will be returned to the author's editor, who might add more comments before forwarding it to the author.

Do authors sometimes get overwhelmed by all the corrections and suggestions?

An author can, understandably, feel overwhelmed by the copyeditor’s corrections and queries. All those marks! My advice to them is don’t freak—the copyeditor’s working in your best interest. However, the book is, of course, the author's—so the author shouldn't think every correction or revision must be accepted. There’s a magic word in copyediting: stet. It means “go back to the original.” The author can override any of the copyeditor’s marks with that simple word (though the editor may disagree and discuss with the author why).

Remember, the copyeditor’s always got the author’s back. Your copyeditor’s mission is to help make the book its absolute best. Once all the issues spotted in copyediting are addressed and resolved, the manuscript will be ready to move to production, continuing its transformation from words tapped out on the computer to that gorgeous book in a reader's hand.

Authors should feel privileged to have your red pen and sharp copyeditor's mind keeping watch over their manuscripts, Susan! I know I'm honored to have your trusty red pen upon the Highlighter, the newsletter serving the Mid-Atlantic SCBWI, of which I am the content editor!

How might publishers contact you?

They can find me at SusanVanHeckeEditorial.com, my copyeditor's website and thanks again for having me, Dionna!

The pleasure's all mine!

Susan VanHecke is a copyeditor for some of the top publishers in the industy. Writing as Susan Wood, she's also the award-winning children's book author of ESQUIVEL! SPACE-AGE SOUND ARTIST, AMERICAN GOTHIC: THE LIFE OF GRANT WOOD, and ELIZABETH WARREN: NEVERTHELESS, SHE PERSISTED. You can find out more about Susan's books and her red pen at
SusanWoodBooks, SusanVanHeckeEditorial, and @SusanWoodBooks.

0 Comments

Saying Goodbye to a Five-Year-Old Friend

HIGHLIGHTER
Ezine Serving the Mid-Atlantic Region of SCBWI

Curating the content for an amazing SCBWI publication for five years!

Goodbye, HIGHLIGHTER, my five-year-old friend.
Every one of your issues took my breath away.
Live long & prosper in the hands of another!

Welcome, Susan VanHecke, copyeditor extraordinaire!

About Me

Archives

Categories

Saying Goodbye to a Five-Year-Old Friend

HIGHLIGHTEREzine Serving the Mid-Atlantic Region of SCBWI

Curating the content for an amazing SCBWI publication for five years!

Goodbye, HIGHLIGHTER, my five-year-old friend.Every one of your issues took my breath away.Live long & prosper in the hands of another!

Welcome, Susan VanHecke, copyeditor extraordinaire!

About Me

Archives

Categories

HIGHLIGHTER
Ezine Serving the Mid-Atlantic Region of SCBWI

Goodbye, HIGHLIGHTER, my five-year-old friend.
Every one of your issues took my breath away.
Live long & prosper in the hands of another!