Description

This webinar presents a general approach to copyediting fiction. First is the fiction copyeditor’s mindset: supporting the author’s voice and knowing when and how to break the “rules.” Second is a discussion of workflow: manuscript intake, setting up the style sheet (covered in detail in Part 2), editorial passes and rounds, and querying. The third section covers grammar and usage topics that are common in fiction, including language bloopers (and when or whether to “fix” or query them) and conscious language. Fourth, we will discuss dialogue: dialogue tags and action beats, punctuation, numbers, and unspoken and electronic dialogue. The webinar closes with a discussion of fact checking in fiction for both real and fictional elements.

Amy J. Schneider, owner of Featherschneider Editorial Services since 1995, is a full-time copyeditor and proofreader of trade nonfiction, university press books, and best-selling fiction in a variety of genres. Amy has written articles and presented in-person and online sessions, both solo and on panels, on editorial topics (including fiction copyediting, editorial style sheets, macros, templates, the business of freelancing, and mastermind groups) for the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA), ACES: The Society for Editing, Editors Canada, the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), the Institute of Professional Editors (IPEd), the Northwest Editors Guild, and Copyediting.com. When she’s not working in the soft glow of her four-monitor desktop, she enjoys running, singing, and teaching her springer spaniels to do silly tricks (not all at the same time). Her book The Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction is forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press in spring 2023.

This webinar originally aired on April 14, 2022.