Ellen Tarver ~ Line Editor for Barbour Publishing

Ellen Tarver does line editing for Barbour Publishing as well as her own business http://www.spitnpolishediting.com/.

What is a Line Editor’s job?

That depends on which Line Editor you ask! My definition of line editing is very simple: making sure every sentence is clearly understandable and free of spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors, and that the manuscript makes sense.

The manuscript makes sense if it has believable characters and dialogue, a realistic timeline, and a plausible storyline, with no loose threads or inconsistencies.

What do you wish an author/writer knew about the job of a Line Editor?

That line editing and proofreading are two different things. For example, a line editor doesn’t check to make sure you’ve used the right format for footnotes, or that you’ve chosen the right font for your manuscript. It’s also not developmental editing—I don’t talk about story arcs or dialogue tags with you.

How much interaction do you have directly with the author?

I have a great deal of interaction with authors who personally use my service—the ones who find me through word-of-mouth or my website. We may email back and forth dozens of times before I finish the final edit.

What books do you recommend to help an author sharpen their grammar skills?

I use a handy little volume written by Kathy Ide of The Christian Pen fame—Polishing the “PUGS.” It’s full of easy-to-find basics and puts the answers to those pesky questions about “punctuation, usage, grammar, and spelling” right at my fingertips. I never can remember whether it’s “compliment” or “complement”!

Do you have a list of the most common mistakes you see in a manuscript and would you share some?

Miracles happen in most authors’ manuscripts! It’s the funniest thing! Blue eyes become green, the day after Friday is Tuesday, July is seven weeks long, and people teleport from outside to inside without moving. Punctuation and spelling errors happen all the time, too, but they’re a whole lot less interesting.

Tell us about the process of line editing. How long does it take, etc.

I try to give my authors a fast turnaround time. Depending on the length of the manuscript, the time I work with it can vary from two days to about a week. I read slowly through a manuscript, outlining the timeline and making a detailed list of information about each character. I then read through it again, going over each sentence for grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors. It’s also on this run-through that I think about the beginning based on the end—I can make suggestions for character or plot development, I can catch consistency or timeline errors, and I pay obsessively close attention to the believability of the dialogue and storyline. I send the manuscript back to the author at this point; if they have independently contracted this work with me, that’s usually the end of it. If they send it back to me to go to the publishing house I work for, I will read it through one more time to make sure it’s an error-free copy edit.

Is there a standard you go by, or is that set according to publishing house?

I go by the Chicago Manual of Style, as does the publishing house I work for.