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A tale of your or you’re

Red apples on a branch Once upon a time there was a word and the word was “your”. Or maybe it was “you’re”. And each of these words had the same sound but neither carried the same meaning, and thus were the people confused. And the writers of English did wail and gnash their teeth, and their teachers did sigh and some rolled their eyes, and the proofreaders hastened to fix every glitch, and the editor took a deep breath and said, “It’s ok. I can explain.”

So here goes…

The words “your” and “you’re” are homophones. This has nothing to do with their sexual preferences or mode of communication and everything to do with the fact they sound alike when spoken. The “homo” part of “homophone” means “same”, while the “phone” bit refers to sound.

Homophones such as “your/you’re”, “whose/who’s”, “to/too/two” and the infamous “their/there/they’re” are often confused or misused when written, which can be annoying. Fortunately, it is also avoidable. We do want our story to have a happy ending, after all.

The simplest way to choose the appropriate version of such words is to learn the distinctions between each and then pause before using them to consider which spelling is correct for the meaning you intend. Likewise, when looking over your own or someone else’s work, take particular note of these terms and check make sure they are right. If necessary, consult a dictionary, grammar checker or cheat sheet until you feel confident about which (but not “witch”) word to use.

For our currently unfolding fable, the difference is easy to pick.

To avoid muddling your “your” and your “you’re”, just remember that the apostrophe in “you’re” indicates a contraction.

It marks the place where something has been left out, which in this case is the letter “a” from the word “are”. If you can substitute “you are” for “you’re” without unraveling the sense of your sentence, then you’ve chosen accurately. If not… Well, you’ll probably want to address that.

The word “your” is the possessive adjective that relates to the pronoun “you”. It signifies ownership, as in “your thoughts”, “your words”, “your magnificent wishes”, and so on. You’ll usually find it hanging around in front of a noun (a person, object or concept).

To test if this is the homophone you really want, try switching “your” for another possessive adjective, such as “my”, “her” or “his”, just to see if your phrase is still meaningful. At this point your syntax is likely to wrinkle, but you will have a sense of whether (not “weather” or “wether”) you’re on the right track.

All clear?

But wait! There is a twist in this tale. It comes in the form of two additional homophones for “your” and “you’re”, although these characters appear more rarely. The word “yore” refers to a time long past, while “yaw” (as a verb) means to waver or deviate from a set course, or (as a noun) describes the action of such deviation.

Perhaps the lesson in the story is this: provided you know your “your” from your “you’re”, you’re less likely to yaw. If you know what I mean.

Maybe it’s just better to say that homophones can be confusing if used without care. Give them a little consideration, however, and we can all live grammatically ever after.

The end.

Now it’s your turn…

Do you get confounded by homophones? Is there a technique you use to choose wisely? Are there other areas of grammar that would you like to understand better? Feel free to continue the narrative…

Building beautiful bridges through structural editing

I have been thinking about metaphors to help explain structural editing. As the name suggests, this kind of editing aims to create a strong framework for your ideas. Poised between developmental editing and copyediting, its focus is on arranging the text in a way that is logistically and aesthetically pleasing.

The first image that came to my mind to describe structural editing was the construction of a building. Certainly, there are some similarities between the two. Each begins with a wealth of raw material that must be assembled into an effective composition. Books, like buildings, need to be well made, with a design that reflects their purpose. They require solid foundations and easy navigation, and are at best functional, accessible and inviting. Ideally, both will also look and feel good when you’re in them.

I was enjoying this little analogy when a friend mentioned the idea of a bridge. My imagination engaged in the implications of this image and I found that it too works well as a metaphor for structural editing.

It is true that I don’t have the first clue about how to build bridges. What I can do, however, is structure a document so the ideas within it interlink to form an effective piece of textual architecture. This could, of course, be thought of as a building. But the bit that fits so neatly with the image of a bridge is the way it connects two points on a journey.

Structural editing, as noted above, takes place between developmental editing and copyediting. More significantly, however, it is the process through which a chaotic collection of words transforms into a coherent manuscript.

Structural editing bridges the distance between a rough draft and a refined document, enabling you to communicate more meaningfully with your reader.

It also provides the firm footing upon which your readers may traverse your writing from beginning to end. Or, if you like, it is what lets them cross easily from one place to other.

The practice of structural editing occurs when a text is still flexible and may be crafted into interesting new shapes. As with all forms of editing, it starts with attentive reading. There is a technique of seeking, almost sensing, patterns, recurrences and themes. Particular attention is paid to repetition, which may reveal the importance of a certain concept, or could highlight areas to consolidate, condense or cut.

The skill lies in finding the best way, among many alternatives, to guide readers to their destination.

When I edit this way, I often find one particular form or organising principle will emerge most strongly. Even so, I still see other possibilities and encourage myself to come up with more. I present all of these options to my client, who has the final responsibility for deciding what shape the work will take.

Then, I make a plan. I assemble the elements. I begin to build.

What may have started out as a provisional arrangement of materials can, through careful engineering, become a thing of grace. Picture the elegance of a suspension bridge, the sturdiness of a truss bridge, or the simple dignity of an arch bridge hewn from stone or wood.

All of these allow travellers to venture from a place they know to somewhere as yet undiscovered.

Your words, artfully structured, can do the same.

Now it’s your turn…

Have you ever had a document structurally edited? What was the experience like? And, just because I’m wondering, do you have a favourite type of bridge?

Strike your note:
A new year’s admonition

It stretches before us, crisp and unsullied. Poised as we are at the start of this bright, shiny year, we are free to imagine without hint of disappointment all the wondrous things we might experience, witness, learn and achieve in months to come.

Although I do not make new year’s resolutions, I do try to hold a hopeful approach at this time. Perhaps that is why the following lines felt so resonant to me. They are from ‘Station Island’ by Seamus Heaney.

‘…The main thing is to write
for the joy of it. Cultivate a work-lust
that imagines its haven like your hands at night

dreaming the sun in the sunspot of a breast.
You are fasted now, light-headed, dangerous.
Take off from here. And don’t be so earnest,

let others wear the sackcloth and the ashes.
Let go, let fly, forget.
You’ve listened long enough. Now strike your note.’

These words are spoken by the ghost of James Joyce to an uncertain Heaney who is here both poet and protagonist. In the poem, he makes a pilgrimage to Station Island, a site on Lough Derg in Donegal that is sacred to St Patrick. Along the way, he encounters and engages with the spirits of a number of significant figures in his life, with writers like Joyce among them.

This injunction, to “write for the joy of it” and “Cultivate a work-lust”, is found in the concluding section of the twelve part poem. It is a final, fierce denial of the poet’s disquiet that reads to me like a rallying cry for all those who quaver before the page. The words urge a certain audacity and a readiness to accept both the role and responsibility of being a writer, despite any lingering misgivings any of us – Heaney included – may have.

Later in the poem, Joyce speaks again, telling the poet:

‘… it’s time to swim

out on your own and fill the element
with signatures on your own frequency,
echo soundings, searches, probes, allurements,

elver-gleams in the dark of the whole sea.’

I am indebted to David Fawbert, whose excellent website on Heaney’s poetry not only gave me some insight into ‘Station Island’, but also advised me that an “elver” is a young eel. It is a bewitching image, and an apt one too. Those glimmers of movement, the flash of something beneath the surface. That’s what writing is like, with words and ideas flickering somewhere, perhaps in reach, “in the dark of the whole sea”.

As we enter this new year, I add my own plea to the voice of Joyce in this poem. I invite you to decide it is time to swim. Find your frequency and seek out those subtle gleams. Then, equipped with grit and grace, with courage and wonder, “Take off from here”.

Go and strike your note.

Now it’s your turn…

Do you set an intention for your writing at this time of year? Do you have a favourite poem or quotation that inspires you to write? What feelings do Seamus Heaney’s words stir in you?

“We never finish books”:
Wise words from Dani Shapiro

Detail of a white flower against a pale sky It is a reminder I gave to the research students who I advised at university. It’s an assurance I give to the writers I work with today. And it’s something I heard author and memoirist Dani Shapiro say recently.

“We never finish books.”

She doesn’t mean that we never read all the way to the final page (although sometimes that can be the case too.) Rather, it is the books we write that we never really finish. What happens instead, according to Dani, is this:

“We reach a point where we have made them as good as we can with the tools we have at the moment we have them. And so could any book benefit from being put in a drawer for another year and then pulled out again and looked at with cold eyes? Probably. But at a certain point you say, ‘It’s time for this to go into the world. I’ve taken it as far as I can.’”

Writing can turn into a endless process if we let it. There are always more tweaks to make, more details we could add, and more words we might shuffle, shift or discard. It is devastatingly easy to come up with reasons why our manuscript is still not yet ready and to justify our inability to finish it. If we just had a bit more time, if we just did a little more research, if we just keep working on it then surely we will get it right. Eventually. Won’t we?

Allow me to tell you, as gently as I can, that your book will never be perfect.

Despite your heartfelt efforts, it will never be definitive, never conclusive nor complete. All it ever can be, and all it really needs to be, is a reflection of a moment in time, crafted with the best tools you have.

Of course you will do everything you can to make your book as good as possible. Yet even so, you may find that after taking the brave step of sharing it with the world, you will suddenly see a whole other way you could have done it. There’s a decent, if disappointing, chance that after all your labours, you may still look back on it someday with a sense of dissatisfaction or even embarrassment.

Friends, that happens. It is part of being a writer. Sure, it’s not the best part. But neither is it a compelling enough excuse for us to not to write and not to publish.

We are never really ready. Or we are already ready. Either way, at some point we must just trust – closing our eyes first if necessary – that we have taken our writing as far as we can and to realise that it is time to let it go into the world.

That can be a scary moment for any writer, yet it is one that we must face and embrace again and again, for it is only in the world and in the minds of our readers that our words truly come alive.

Now it’s your turn…

Do you struggle to finish writing your books? Is it hard for you to send them into the world? What holds you back from sharing your writing and what helps you decide when it is ready?

Copyediting and proofreading:
Five things you should know

The inky nib of a silver fountain pen writing on paper The first thing you need to know is that copyediting and proofreading are not the same thing. While both focus on making your document as clear, consistent and free of errors as is humanly possible, they do so in different ways.

The second thing you should know is that, done correctly, copyediting and proofreading happen at separate stages of the publication process. Technically, proofreading only occurs after a document has been copyedited and when it is fully formatted. It is the final step, prior to publication, when all the tiny details get checked.

In practice, however, the boundaries between copyediting and proofreading are becoming increasingly muddy. A certain amount of proofreading is done these days when a manuscript is still in the form of a word processing document. This is not necessarily a problem, but nor is it quite what the practice of proofreading has traditionally been. That’s the third thing you should know.

In my view, the distinction between copyediting and proofreading is found less in the format of the document and more in the approach to it. The simplest way to explain it is this:

A copyeditor’s role is to suggest changes to a text, while a proofreader’s job is to correct it.

As your copyeditor, I want your words to be as effective and poetic as possible. That means I will correct any mistakes I find in your grammar and punctuation, but I will also advise you about the tone and style of your writing. I will point out areas where your reader might get distracted or confused and will offer you options for addressing these.

My way of working is to include you in this process. I respect your views and acknowledge that you are free to ignore my suggestions if you choose (even though they are made with the best interests of you and your readers in mind.)

Proofreaders, in contrast, often have a more distant relationship with writers. Some who work in the publishing industry have no direct contact with the authors of the words they examine so scrupulously. Their task is not to ponder the writer’s wishes or intentions, nor to propose methods for embellishing the expression. Instead, the expertise of the proofreader is in identifying and correcting those inconspicuous but still existent errors and inconsistencies that can mar an otherwise exceptional document.

With that in mind, it is advisable to accept any alterations made to your text by your proofreader. This is about technicalities, not taste. If a change has been made at the proofreading stage, it is because it was necessary.

The fourth thing you should know about copyediting and proofreading is that I am happy to do either, according to your needs. Sometimes you might not know which is required and that’s ok. I can help you with this and provide examples if appropriate.

Finally, it is worthwhile knowing who can benefit from a proofreader’s keen eye. Such fine folk include:

bloggers who are seeking to maintain a professional image by having someone check their posts for errors before they are published
entrepreneurs and website owners who send out email newsletters
creators of ebooks or online courses (because it is disappointing to find mistakes in material you’ve paid good money for)
artists who are applying for grants or access to exhibition spaces
fiction writers who have had their manuscripts copyedited and formatted prior to publication
non-fiction writers who have lots of headings, references, captions, figures and so on in their text
researchers and postgraduate students who are submitting articles for publication in journals
writers of all kinds whose attention to detail is less than ideal.

Really, anyone who has written a document that is subject to the scrutiny of others could consider asking a proofreader to peruse their work. (And just so you know, that includes editors who write too.)

There are, of course, many deeper mysteries to explore in the realms of copyediting and proofreading, and some of these will be covered in future articles. For now, I hope this brief guide has given you some idea of a few important features of these two related but different arts.

Now it’s your turn…

How do you understand the distinctions between copyediting and proofreading? What more would you like to know about the way each one works?

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