Editing 101

So when you are editing a document for someone else, it is standard practice to do it with track changes "on." (For those of you who have never used this feature it is located in the "tools" section of MSWord.) This is a very valuable tool, because sometimes the author wants to keep certain items that are not grammatically correct. Consider these examples:

"You should be careful who you go to bed with." is not a grammatically correct sentence because it ends in a preposition. However,

"You should be careful with whom you go to bed." may not sound right to the author of the piece.

Track changes allows the editor to edit and the changes are marked in a color such as red, and then the author can accept or reject those changes (en masse or one-by-one). Another feature of MSWord allows you to add comments. This is also helpful for beginning writers, because they can have their work critiqued directly in document.

So, as you can imagine, I had a person hire me to edit their document. When I edit, I have a process that effectively checks the document three times. But in this case, there was a lot of red by the time I had done the second check (a line edit). So, I sent it to the author and asked her to accept or reject the changes so I could do the final edit. She was in shock. Instead of getting a nice complete document back, she opened it to find a sea of red. She quickly asked me to "just edit it" because it was due. So, I accepted all my changes for her. It was very odd for me.

Although I am not obligated to do it, I will probably teach this person how to use this function. It creates an atmosphere of teamwork that any ghostwriter should have with their credited author.

Blogging break

So, I had to take a blogging break for a week or so. I would like to say I went to some exotic local and forgot my computer at home, but the truth is far less luxurious. In truth, my husband and son went on a trip together.

I might have been able to hang on to everything I was doing and continue with my blogging, but a series of unfortunate events not dissimilar to the books of the same names converged upon that week. You see in the beginning of May, I ran a week's worth of Teacher Appreciation at my son's school. This put me a little behind, but the next week, I knew I would catch up. Unfortunately, the Broadway Musical "Wicked" was in town and even more unfortunately, a local dresser broke her foot creating an emergency situation that I was called in to take care of the week after Teacher Appreciation. So another week was spent working on that and I fell further behind. Then the principal quit to retire in Florida, and I spent a week dealing with PTO elections, passing a card for students to sign, and taking care of the 8th grade awards ceremony and dance. And the very next week, my husband left and I had to deal with book check in which did not move smoothly.

I would like to say that the worst casualty of this was that I let my blog go for a little more than a week. However, that is only the second worst tragedy. The worst tragedy is that during this past month I have been unable to make it to the library, so I just had to pay $94 in overdue fines. Ouch!

Screenplay

So, I just finished a screenplay on a very difficult subject. If you want to write screenplays, I recommend several things. First, invest in Final Draft. Final Draft is very expensive but impressive. It automatically formats your writing to industry standards. It also autocompletes everything you want to write such as character names, locations, and standard directions. It also automatically saves every five minutes and will automatically open the last project you were working on. It allows you to click a menu option to register your script, and you can save it in a PDF file.

Final Draft, like any software, makes scriptwriting easy, but it also needs to be learned. It is not idiot proof. If you decide to go in and edit margins or other formatting, you may find yourself in a heap of trouble with a non-standard (read non-sellable) script.

No writer should become too attached to their work. This is especially true with a screenplay. To give my client the best service, I submitted mine to a professional reader. These people are paid to read scripts and give production companies a thumbs up or thumbs down. Paying one to read your script is a great way to get good feedback, but you have to be careful. The difference in price is great. Some are around $60 (I would cringe if anyone charged less than this) and some can cost thousands (again I would cringe at this price but for different reasons.