What I’m reading: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
What’s on the iPod: Dream by Priscilla Ahn
The tickets are bought! Our official time away is now October 13-27. I can’t believe it. The itinerary is sketched in, and I’m getting the details sorted here at home before leaving. Paying bills, making sure instructions are left for the fish’s care and the plants, etc. We were smart this year – I asked him to buy trip insurance. Hey, you never know. And didn’t his summons for jury duty come yesterday….
Also, I’ll be looking for guest posts. Interested? Send me a note or leave a comment.
Yesterday was another slow day, which usually makes me somewhat nervous, but I’m enjoying the time to really explore new magazine markets and get some ideas out. For some reason, I’m feeling the consumer market lately – something that’s not been in my repertoire in the past. Follow the instincts, I always say.
Irreverent Freelancer Kathy Kehrli has a great post up about what it’s really like to be a copy editor. One point that jumped out at me is this – some clients will make very large cases out of very minor things, such as errant periods or what they deem to be grammatical errors. When it happens, good luck to you. It’s probably the most frustrating client issue, second only to nonpayment.
Why? Because in most cases, these grammar police aren’t correct. Worse, you can’t convince them that your grammar choices were correct without wasting time quoting from the style manuals and running the risk of insulting said client.
If it weren’t just utterly ridiculous to do so, I’d send out cheat sheets to clients detailing acceptable grammar and sentence structure usage. But if they hire me, they need to show me some trust in my abilities and judgment. Otherwise, we’re not going to make it.
If I were to make that cheat sheet, it might include:
You can start a sentence with a conjunction. Forget what your high school or college instructor said – that rule has been broken and effectively buried for a long time.
Grammar Check sucks. Just turn it off. A machine cannot under any circumstance understand context, tone, and proper usage. I don’t care what those squiggly lines say. They’re wrong. So stop yelling at me and trust that I’ve had enough education and experience to get this right, okay?
Different editors will give you different results. So if Buddy in the mail room who fashions himself a writer thinks I’m all wrong, consider why he’s in the mail room and I’m not. If I give your document to ten highly successful editors, you’re getting back ten different documents. That’s because there are variations in editing styles – one editor is a line editor, the other a context editor, the other a big picture editor. No one is completely right, nor are any of them all wrong.
Friends don’t always know best. Yes, they love you, but they have not met with you, discussed your project in detail, nor do they understand the market and audience you’re attempting to reach. They aren’t paid to do this, nor do they have any vested interest beyond showing you how smart they are or “helping” you so they can crow about it when your book sells. If you include them in the editorial process, you’ll either pay me per person per extra edit or I’m gone.
All time wasted explaining away what you think are grammatical errors will be billed And if you’re snarky or mean with me, expect to pay double. The bottom line is this: trust me to do what I do best. Otherwise, we’re wasting each other’s time.
What would you put on that cheat sheet?
I'd say, "Either you hired me because you want ME to do the job, or go hire your friend." Kinda what I say a lot. 😉
I'd add, "Understand that copywriting is often conversational writing. When people converse, they are more concerned with communicating, not with grammar. If you want copy to engage your audience, you're going to have to pry your clenched fingers off of Strunk and White." It's frustrating to work with clients who would sacrifice a smooth, powerful expression of a message on the altar of Grammatically Correct.
Eileen touches on a really good one. The conversational tone. Not everyone realizes what that is. Someone wants you to write material that's in conversational tone, but questions your use of words like don't and can't. They insist you should be using do not and cannot. If you're not emphasizing a certain message in a sentence then I would use don't and can't. They're more likely to be used in conversation.
I so agree with the grammar check. It's amazing how many people treat the Word's grammar/spell check as if it were God himself laying down the rules. Don't you just love hearing things like, “You're wrong about that, because Word says it's wrong.” Lord almighty. I'll be struck down now. All because I started a sentence with the word-And. Gasp!
I also wanted to say that I'm glad to hear your recovery has gone well. Hope you're back to 100% by the time your vacation arrives.
What I have run into is the client who does some editing on content-typically minor, but their edits contain incorrect grammar or misspellings. It's often painful to point out the errors – the biggies:
affect vs effect
their vs there
You're vs Your
I remember one editor who changed an intro of mine for a magazine. Yes, it was not a complete sentence. It was written for effect (not affect) :-)and changing it to a complete sentence, IMHO, ruined it. But, then I am perfect, you know. 🙂
P.S. Lori, I would be happy to help out with a guest post, if you'd like.
What a great reading choice. _Rebecca_ is one of my all-time favorite books! Nobody does Gothic British fiction like Du Maurier.
I teach high school English and it's hard to help them understand that grammar is not always black and white. There are many exceptions, more than one right answer, and multiple opinions about what is best. It's a hard call.
One of my clients calls me regularly to play a little game I call Grammar Referee. There's a pluperfect marketing VP in her office who is always finding fault with some grammatical thing or another (not just stuff I've written, EVERYTHING). So she'll call me and ask for an official ruling, with citation from the dictionary or CMS. The VP is wrong 99% of the time.
Re: the unspeakable tedium that is grammar checker…I was at lunch with a half-dozen freelancers yesterday, and several of them said they swear by it. I almost choked on my burger. Right after Annoying Mr. Paperclip, that's the first thing I shut off in Word. It's like driving a car with a crappy automatic transition — please, let me drive the stick!
LW, count me in as a relief pitcher if your bullpen isn't already full.
I hate arguing with people about grammar. It's especially annoying with people who "went to a workshop" and now think they are editors (or writers, or PR people, or whatever). For some reason, their two-hour workshop somehow tops my 10+ years' study and practice in this field. Strange, isn't it?
I'd love to provide a guest post if you're still in need, Lori. Have a great weekend everyone!
Cathy, I feel your pain! One really bad editor of mine butchered everything by trying to make it "fun" and including really bad puns. Another place I write for sometimes lets interns edit my pieces. I can always spot their edits because they "correct" things that were obviously written for effect.
Just this week an editor sent me feedback from a client who said they'd gone ahead and corrected a missing period. I scoured my original copy top to bottom and there was no missing terminal punctuation.
My dad (graphic artist by day, cartoonist by night) had a great approach to fussy clients. He would add tiny errors to jobs for clients that were never satisfied until they found something to complain about. Finding the flaw bolstered their egos. Dad quickly fixed the "mistake" and everyone was happy.
Here's another approach to dealing with the "I passed high school English, so I'm a writer" types who want to correct the pros: Talk over their heads. Ask if they're using MLA, AP or Chicago style books. Rattle on about subjunctives, gerunds and passive/active voices. Heck, make up some arcane rules and see if they pretend to know what you're talking about.
Anyone else notice that the people most likely to complain about proper usage tend to put everything into passive voice? Why? Because it's so stilted that they think it sounds more formal.
Ashley, Jake, and Cathy – send me an email. Thank you for helping!
Devon, that's exactly it. I now have a clause in my contract that voids it if I'm expected to work with people not named in that contract. It's only fair. If they want them involved, they'll pay for me to please more people. The idea being trust me or pay the price….
Eileen, exactly. If I'm writing blog posts or marketing copy, it's not going to be as formal as say a textbook. You don't want to sound stilted or like you're talking down to your audience. Love that phrase: " you're going to have to pry your clenched fingers off of Strunk and White." 🙂
Cathy, you are perfect. I think we've already discusse that, right? LOL I hate when my intentional fragments are edited, too. Sometimes the effect just begs for a fragment.
Sandra, you must have it tough. First, you have to teach them the rules verbatim, then you have to tell them they won't always be the best choice. I feel for you! Yes, I'm loving Rebecca. It's beautifully written!
Jake, around these parts my husband is the grammar cop. He's worse than I am, so he's upped my game a bit. And my daughter is now correcting everyone, too. Then she curses "Dammit! Look what he's turned me into!" 🙂
And don't knock auto transmissions – if you lived in this traffic, you'd not want to shift, either. Besides, mine's turbo. LOL
Ashley, that's a riot! I get a lot of "I went to a Marketing seminar and THIS guy says…." Then hire HIM, not me. If you hire me, I do it my way, which is usually just as good as whatever notion you've picked up in a workshop. Same goes for those who take recruiter advice on resumes – I'm certified to write them. Your recruiter is not.
Exactly, Paula! Passive voice drives me nuts. And I love the manual-related suggestion. Perfect!
I'm a copyeditor, so I especially enjoyed Kathy's blog post. Thanks for sharing, Lori.
I've been fortunate: no client has ever questioned my changes or challenged me to a grammar duel. My key to that success is working with "reputable," experienced clients who themselves are familiar with, e.g., the Chicago Manual of Style. And many of them have their own in-house style guidelines, we were are both, literally, on the same page.
If I did have to come up with a cheat sheet, I'd include:
– Use serial commas;
– Use a comma in compound sentence;
– It's okay to split infinitives
– Beware of "meaningless" and unnecessary words (for example, "very," "obviously," "that said," "this point in time");
and finally,
– Just because you or I say it's so doesn't always make it right. Language evolves. It's okay to break some rules sometimes. Be flexible.
Cassie, good seeing you here. I enjoy your blog, as well as Kathy's. 🙂
Another meaningless phrase to avoid: "At the end of the day…"
Oh, another: "value proposition". In truth, I think the proper term would be "value proposal" but they're so busy bandying this about they don't bother to check.
Paula-LOL!! I have to try some of those tricks.
How about: Adding visuals and using bullets instead of text does NOT necessarily make a document more readable. If you have to worry about people not reading a piece because there is too much text, maybe there's something else to worry about besides the text.
Amen to that, Amie!