Commas & Periods & Dashes, Oh My!

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I just ate some spicy Thai delicious food. (Or was it delicious, spicy Thai food?) Because of that large meal, I can’t comfortably zip my black small dress. (Or is it my small black dress?)

This is one of the linguistic rabbit holes into which we writers often fall. And with the recent increased fascination with Royal Family news, it’s timely.

What I call “adjective confusion” has a formal name: the royal order of adjectives. It doesn’t have anything to do with Harry and Meghan, though—unless you’re writing a sentence like this: Harry and Meghan are attractive, intelligent, famous people who live in the sunny, warm, celebrity-studded American city of Montecito, California.

The so-called proper order of adjectives calls for the following placement, although variations do exist: opinion-size-age-shape-color-origin-material-purpose noun. The official rules are often unknown to native English speakers; many of us employ them by instinct honed over time. Teachers may encourage English language learners to memorize the proper order of adjectives, undoubtedly causing headaches and eye rolls.

How about this? “I bought a lovely small old rusted green metal frying pan.”

Granted, we don’t write sentences like this, and that’s for the best. We do, however, employ the royal order in shorter sentences: He has short black hair. We stayed at a drafty little lake cabin. My grandmother has an impressive antique silver jewelry collection.

Discussion of adjective order invariably leads to a discussion of commas, specifically comma use with adjectives. Here, we find a new and enjoyable rabbit hole: cumulative and coordinate adjectives and how to punctuate (or not punctuate) them. But we’ll leave that one for another time.

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Amy, a caucasian woman with brown hair and glasses, smiles facing the camera. Behind her is a large tree.

Amy Cecil Holm is Allegory Editing’s resident Copy Editor and Proofreader. As a copy editor and proofreader, Amy draws upon more than three decades of teaching college English to help authors polish their prose. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s degree in creative writing and has worked as a journalist, technical writer, and educator. Amy has taught courses in English composition, literature, creative writing, journalistic writing, business writing, and developmental reading, among others. She has a keen understanding of grammar, punctuation, and diction and uses her careful attention to detail to help prepare manuscripts for submission and publication.

When Should a Writer Use an Editor?

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We’re so glad you asked! We get this question a lot here at Allegory. The truth is, writers can use editors anytime during the writing process, but here are a few suggestions to help you determine when it might be right for you.

Working with a developmental editor usually starts after a writer has completed a first draft. Keep in mind, this may take several passes through your manuscript, so “first draft” is more like “first complete and partially-polished draft.” Listed below are some checkpoints to use when deciding if your draft is “done.”

• Clear beginning, middle, and end.

• No big jumps in plot.

• Reasonable formatting. Chapter headings are clear, material is double-spaced, and the author has proofread to the best of their ability. (Stay tuned for a handy-dandy formatting guide from Allegory coming soon!)

• Author can’t identify any other places to rewrite or make changes. You may have a good idea of some “problem areas,” but if you feel like you’ve gone as far as you can to fix things on your own, it’s usually a good time for another set of eyes.

How is developmental editing different from copy editing?

Great question! A developmental edit focuses on story structure, character arc, dynamic dialogue, and other big picture issues. Depending on what level of developmental editing you hire us for, we may focus on sentence-level details as well, but it is all done with the goal of supporting the issues listed above. This is a distinct process from a copy edit.

So, when does a writer need a proofread or copy edit? Are those the same thing?

Another excellent question! The terms proofread and copy edit often get used interchangeably, but they are two different things. A copy edit is to make sure the writing is clear. This encompasses things like passive voice (“. . .the book was read . . .” Wait, read by whom?) and timelines glitches (“George drank a glass of water, he went over to the sink and filled it.” Wait, shouldn’t he have filled the glass first? Or did he just get a second glass of water?)

A proofread is that final, careful read to check for typos, punctuation errors, grammatical errors, or specific mistakes, such as changing a character’s name from Bill to Stan halfway through.

Both of these types of editing are very important, but only matter after you have a solid manuscript. So how do you know if you’re ready for a proofreader or copy editor? Below are some identifying factors.

• You are ready to query agents and editors, but you are not good at catching grammatical errors or typos. No shame in this! You may want to have a solid proofread and copy edit done before you send your material out. If you’ve worked with us for a developmental edit, we will mark any grammatical errors and typos that we catch, but it is up to you to fix them. And of course, after you address the structural issues that we point out, additional grammatical errors, typos, etc. are bound to pop up. This is totally normal. After you rewrite to address the feedback from a developmental edit, your manuscript will need a very thorough read through specifically for these details. If you aren’t confident in your own ability to catch these types of errors, (again, no shame!) then a professional copy edit & proofread is a good option.

• You plan to self-publish. Self-published authors should have both a copy edit and a proofread prior to uploading—potentially even more than one round. No matter how strong a writer is at proofreading, we rarely catch all our own mistakes.
  

An outside eye is so important for writers and hiring a professional editor is the best way to get high-quality feedback on your work. We hope this article helped clear up some of your questions on when (and how) to utilize editors. If you have additional questions or want to find out if your project is ready for an editor, reach out to the team at Allegory Editing.

Hyphens and Compounds and Copy Edits, Oh My!

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If you’ve ever pondered a hyphen situation, inserting and deleting that pesky hyphen to see “what looks right,” you’re not alone. Incorrectly hyphenating is one of the most common proofreading (proof reading?) and copy editing (copyediting?) errors we writers make.

One might say it’s a lifelong problem.

Or is it life-long? Life long?

Our best answer—as with many word-related challenges we face—is the dictionary. At Allegory Editing, we use Merriam-Webster, though there are other options out there. No matter what dictionary you use, consistency is key. Still, it’s good to be on the lookout (not look-out, according to Merriam-Webster) for compound words. At times we might breeze past them, so add this to your list of proofreading (yes, it’s one word, not two) tasks.

It’s important to know the three basic options for compound words. Sometimes they are one word (the adjective lifelong); other times they’re two words (the noun copy editor); and we also see hyphenated words (the adjective off-limits).

I recently came upon a questionable compound word and asked a couple of Allegory Editing team members what they thought. We decided we weren’t sure about Merriam-Webster’s answer:

The author complained of a stomachache, so her agent suggested a weeklong vacation to Hawaii.

The author complained of a stomach ache, so her agent suggested a week-long vacation to Hawaii.

The one-word version of stomachache is correct, according to the dictionary. We thought it looked funny. After some further digging, we discovered both ways are considered acceptable. At that point, we made the choice that felt right for the material. Hyphens can be a tough call because the reason for hyphenating most compound words is, in fact, ease of reading.

By the way, the dictionary also says weeklong is correct.

What’s your gut feeling about the word stomachache?

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Image ID: Amy, a caucasian woman with brown hair and glasses, smiles facing the camera. Behind her is a large tree.

Amy Cecil Holm is Allegory Editing’s resident Copy Editor and Proofreader.As a copy editor and proofreader, Amy draws upon more than three decades of teaching college English to help authors polish their prose. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s degree in creative writing and has worked as a journalist, technical writer, and educator. Amy has taught courses in English composition, literature, creative writing, journalistic writing, business writing, and developmental reading, among others. She has a keen understanding of grammar, punctuation, and diction and uses her careful attention to detail to help prepare manuscripts for submission and publication.