Hi everybody!

Editing is very much on my mind at the moment. I’m in the middle of a very interesting editing commission, and, at the same time, I’ve been working on the copyedits of my own book – A Bitter Remedy – which is now out for review as an uncorrected proof. (It’s also available to pre-order, by the way. To understand why pre-orders are so important to a book’s success, click here.) Meanwhile, here’s the cover to whet your appetite:

Anyway. Copy-editing. What is it?

It’s the process by which an expert copy editor goes through a book with a fine-toothed comb once the author and their development editor have finished work and all agreed changes have been made. The copy editor is looking for errors – typos, spelling mistakes and inconsistencies within the story – that need to be weeded out before the book goes for typesetting.

You’d be amazed at how many errors there are for a copyeditor to spot, even after you, the author, have read the book countless times, your editor’s read it at least twice before handing it back to you with suggested rewrites, you’ve been through it again and made changes, followed by the editor reading it again, line-editing to remove small errors. You’d think there wouldn’t be a missed comma or a single inconsistency.

If only…

So why do errors of all kinds just hang on in there?

It’s all to do with the way the brain pays attention. When you’re writing, and subsequently editing, a book there’s such a lot to give your attention to:

– the plot and pacing: it is exciting enough, does it move at the right pace, will the reader be engaged enough…?

– the characters: do they act in ways which are believable, given the way you’ve drawn them, are their interactions believable, do they sound consistent in the way they speak throughout the book…?

– the dialogue: is there enough, too much, is the way your characters speak sufficiently different that the reader will know who’s speaking…?

– the narrative style: are you getting your point across in the best possible way, building your world and your plot efficiently and effectively?

Paying attention to all those elements simultaneously is very difficult. If you’re looking for plot holes, you’re less likely to see issues with characters, if you’re looking to make sure your dialogue is as smooth as possible, you’re less likely to spot grammatical errors. And that’s before we’ve even thought about keeping an eye on typos and inconsistencies which are the copy editor’s main prey.

Errors remain in submitted manuscripts not because you’re a lazy author, or because your editing of your own work is sloppy or self-indulgent; it’s just the way brains work. Because as well as finding it difficult to see one thing while concentrating on another, the way your brain pays atention is affected by what it expects to see. You, as the author, know what you’re trying to achieve, which can make it difficult to see beyond that to the truth – that you’re not actually hitting the mark.

This is all related to a psychological concept called inattentional blindness. Being blind to something you’re not looking for, even if it’s completely obvious once you are looking for it. One very famous – and funny – example is shown in this video (afer the ad, obviously!)

Once you’ve seen it, what I’ve said about editing will make a lot more sense.