Welcome (back) to the Scarlet Quill Society!

This year at YeahWrite our free workshop focuses on everything BUT the writing, with an editorial series that’ll take the words right out of your mouth and put them on the page. Of course, we’re also including some tips on writing so that the eventual edits to your story won’t be the heartbreaking kind where you have to remove an entire character or plot arc and re-evaluate every interaction in your 300,000 word novel.

Check out the bottom of this post (and every post) for a roadmap to the year. We’ll be updating it with links each month as the posts go live, so that you can navigate through easily. And speaking of navigation, don’t worry: our Navigating Prompts workshop from last year hasn’t gone anywhere. You still have a handy tool to refer to when you’re stumped by a prompt or need help on how to approach it or what judges might be thinking as they read your story.

The biggest bonus of the Scarlet Quill Society is that there are actual club meetings. That’s right! Once a month (usually on the Second Sunday) we’ll get together with you and talk about that month’s subject, answer questions, and record the chat for posterity. So if you have an easier time taking in information that way, or if you’re left with lingering questions after a monthly topical post, you’ve got a chance to get the full picture! Check out the full description at the main Scarlet Quill Society page.

Ready, set, print

As I write this post it’s nearly Halloween (I don’t know what you mean, I never procrastinate) and I’m thinking about the most genuinely terrifying moment in writing: not a blank page waiting, but that second when you hit “print” (or publish, or convert to pdf or ebook format, or…). After that, it’s too late.

Last month we talked about line and copyedits. The last cleanups for your style and grammar. The “post” you mean when you say “I’ll fix that in post.”

This month we’re talking about your last chance to get it right: proofreading. The thing to remember about proofreading is that nothing–and we mean nothing–comes between it and what the reader sees. No more spellchecks, no more edits, no more changes. So put on your finicking hat and let’s get to work.

Improving your proofing

The first question to ask when you’re proofreading a story or essay or novel or brochure or… whatever… is “is this actually ready for proofing?” And what that means is that the author (you or someone else) thinks that this work is actually finished and perfect, and that it’s ready to publish. You’re just there to make sure that’s a correct assessment. So if you’re looking at a work with a bunch of spelling errors, that’s probably not ready for proofing. That should have been fixed in copyedit. Here’s a quick list of things that should have been done before you start your job:

• Spellcheck
• Spacing
• Font choices
• Design, including page numbering and any table or illustration layouts
• Possibly conversion to the final format for a document meant to be published electronically (provided there is a way to mark this format for errors)
• Grammar check
• Line and page breaks

If the author thinks all that is done and the thing is ready to publish, then it’s ready for you, proofreader!

The proof is in the proving

So the two questions you’re probably asking right now are, first, if all that’s been done, why isn’t this ready to publish, and second, what does a human reader bring to this process?

We’re glad you thought of asking! Let’s handle the second question first. A machine process can tell when words are broken across lines. It can tell when headers are separated from their body text, or when words with codified spellings are wrong. What it can’t do is tell you when the line break in your document makes your text unintentionally hilarious. I’d like to thank Back Bay Books for this example of why you need a human to look at your work.

I mean, maybe you’re reading the book because you want to hear about some spanking, we won’t judge. But we will judge the publisher for leaving this as a standalone line when it’s an issue that could and should have been caught, and is easily solved by moving one word to the next line. (The last thing is meant to be “spanking good writing” which means that the notion that spanking is a standalone word is reinforced by the fact that “good writing” stands alone as well.)

With that thought in mind, we’ve compiled a (nonexhaustive!) list of “things that humans can and should catch” in the proofing stage. As you read through, you’ll see why they might have escaped notice before–and why you should never ever be your own proofreader. You can use this as your proofing checklist, but remember to add to it as you find additional proofing errors in documents.

Mechanical issues

• Headers should be with a minimum of two lines of body text following
• No double spaces after periods (this should be solved as a layout/kerning/spacing issue, not with more spaces)
• Consistent indents on tab stops (and while we’re at it, use of tabs rather than a bunch of spaces)
• Consistent list punctuation and capitalization (no punctuation, commas, semicolons, etc.) (Just as an FYI this issue has been fixed three times already for just this list)
• Line and page breaks should make sense and not leave isolated text
• Spelling (yes, just run spellcheck again, sometimes you add a word after the last time you ran spellcheck and introduce a new typo)
• Capitalization (is it where it needs to be and nowhere else?)
• Punctuation (is it where it needs to be, is it the right mark, and is it not where it shouldn’t be?)
• Italics, bold face, small caps, etc. (is the right amount of text italicized? have commas or other punctuation that shouldn’t be italicized…been?)
• Chaptering (do chapters consistently start on a new page? are chapter bookmarks placed where they should be for electronic documents?)
• Styles (are styles used consistently for headers and chapter titles, or is the document brute-forced into visual consistency with a bunch of manual font changes?)
• Numbering (are pages, chapters, and lists numbered correctly and consecutively?)
• Numbers (are columns totaled correctly? is rounding consistent?)

The Human Touch

Don’t worry. We’re giving you examples for this one.

• Is a correctly spelled word used incorrectly?

You’re here for the words that spellcheck can’t catch, because they’re spelled right. Whether it’s using “plush” (velvety) instead of “lush” (rich, soft, yielding) or “flush” (wealthy) instead of “flushed” (red-faced), you can and should catch these errors. If you’re proofing for a writer with a vocabulary broader than yours, get ready to spend a lot of unbilled time looking things up, or maybe you can trade projects with someone with a larger vocabulary in the relevant language. Conversely, this is also the rule that reminds you to compare your thats and whiches, and make sure whiches haven’t turned into witches when the author wasn’t looking.

• Are idioms correct?

Not gonna lie, we’re probably going to spend some time talking about this one in the November meeting. Did you know that you run a gantlet, not a gauntlet, because a gauntlet is a glove and a gantlet is a physical challenge? Yes, that one’s slipping into obscurity because descriptivism is a real thing but… how about the fact that it’s “one and the same” not “one in the same” or “free rein” not “free reign?” This is another case where all the words are spelled correctly but the sentence is absolutely wrong and there’s a very real possibility that nobody noticed until you because the errors are so common. Worried that you might be the one with the error now? Here’s a couple lists to get you started on your way to idiomatic pedantry.

• Line and page breaks and hyphenated words should make sense and not leave unintentional meanings

Here’s another one with two lessons. First of all, many programs that automatically hyphenate text will do it at any old syllable, which is fundamentally incorrect. Trust your gut: epi-phany might be hyphenated there, but finish-ed should not be. Second, well, we’re back to the spanking. Make sure you don’t have hanging lines that would make a 12 year old laugh until they had to leave the room, or break words at hyphen points that create shorter unintentional words with obscene or offensive meanings.

• Is the layout clear and easy to read and follow?

If you’re confused, the reader will be. Check tables, columns, headers, and anywhere there’s flow of text on the page to make sure that it’s laid out in a way that leads the reader through the text in the way the author wants them to go.

• Repeated words

Can you spot the the error in this sentence? Then you know exactly what this list item means. Watch out for line breaks! Repeated words are harder to catch if there’s a line break between them.

• Consistent use of italics and bold text

If a work has font style choices to indicate, say, non-main-language text or character internal monologues, these should be used consistently throughout.

• Character names should be used consistently and not change

Without calling anyone specific out, let’s just say that even if you add character names to your spellcheck it’s fairly easy to accidentally start calling Mr. Kiper something like Mr. Kipur on page 100-something and to not notice for another hundred pages because they’re both perfectly valid names for the place and time your novel is set in. Be kind to your authors and fix that for them.

• Serial commas (or not, I guess, you monster) should be consistent

You know what the serial comma is and why you should use it. But if we can’t change your mind, we can’t–just be consistent one way or the other. And if we can change your mind, allow us to point out that it’s very very easy to proof a document and make sure there’s always a comma at the end of a list, and fairly difficult to proof a document and make sure that there’s a comma at the end of the list every time it’s needed for clarity and at no other time, because people have different ideas about what should be clear and what isn’t.

In conclusion…

When you’re done proofing, the work is done. There’s nothing else to do but publish it. That is a lot of responsibility, so don’t skip this step or take it lightly. Even if you’re just writing a blog post, having a friend check it for typos, etc. is a good idea (Hi Christine, thanks for proofing this post! You’re amazing, have I told you lately?). Just remember that your work really should be ready to go, because your proofer is checking everything down to the line breaks so they’ll need to be able to see exactly what the document will look like when it’s published. This is the step where printing the document out can be super helpful, or having it in a format like .pdf (if you’re an editor, know how to mark up pdfs). If the document will be in several formats, like an ebook or a blog post that will have a mobile or desktop view, line breaks can be less important but do remember to look at the thing in all possible formats to make sure the styles aren’t screwing one of them up. This is also why using styles instead of brute-forcing headings with boldface is important.

Once this is done the next person to read the document is… the reader. Just a reader, not an editor, not a proofer, not a sensitivity reader…. a person who wants to read this work. And that? That’s the exciting part. That makes every step in the process worthwhile. And while they might decide to put the book down because they’re not personally enjoying it, you’ll know that they didn’t put it down because it was unreadable, impossible to understand and full of typos that made them think the story in the book couldn’t be well-told or interesting. You’ve given the story its best chance to be read.

Your turn!

Got questions? Let’s continue this conversation in the Coffeehouse on Facebook or Discord. And keep an eye out for the next face-to-face (face-to-Zoom?) meeting of the Scarlet Quill Society. 

Join the Scarlet Quill Society!

Live Scarlet Quill Society meetings take place on the (usually; we’ll warn you!) second Sunday of every month at 2:00 pm U.S. Eastern Time. This month’s meeting will take place on Sunday, November 13.

Each month, paid Society members will receive an email with a link to the Zoom meeting. If not every topic interests you, you can also purchase one-time access passes to each month’s meeting via Ko-Fi. If you can’t make it to the meeting, or you don’t like to speak on camera, you are welcome to submit questions before the meeting that our editors will answer in the meeting.

• $5 one-time access to this month’s Zoom session
• $5 monthly subscription: Access to all the live meetings and recordings as soon as they’re uploaded, as well as a private Discord channel where your topical questions will be answered by YeahWrite editors!
• $3 monthly subscription: Access to the meeting recordings as soon as they’re uploaded, as well as a private Discord channel where your topical questions will be answered by YeahWrite editors!

A week after the meeting, recordings will become available to all at no cost, but if you find them useful we encourage you to leave a tip in our tip jar—it helps keep the lights on over here and allows us to keep bringing you the high-quality workshop content you’ve come to expect from us, as well as acquire some exciting guest panelists.

Rules of Order. Order of Rules. Something like that.

Wondering what the next meeting of the Scarlet Quill Society will be about? Here's our club agenda for the year.

September:

• Read: Editing nonfiction: how much is enough?
• Watch: September meeting

October:

• Read: Line- and copyediting: getting picky
• Watch: October meeting

November:

• Read: Finishing touches and final checklists: more than just spellcheck!
• Watch: November meeting

December:

• Read: DIWhy? what you can (and can't) do yourself
• Watch: December meeting

About the author:

Rowan submitted exactly one piece of microfiction to YeahWrite before being consumed by the editorial darkside. She spent some time working hard as our Submissions Editor before becoming YeahWrite’s Managing Editor in 2016. She was a BlogHer Voice of the Year in 2017 for her work on intersectional feminism, but she suggests you find and follow WOC instead. In real life she’s been at various times an attorney, aerialist, professional knitter, artist, graphic designer (yes, they’re different things), editor, secretary, tailor, and martial artist. It bothers her vaguely that the preceding list isn’t alphabetized, but the Oxford comma makes up for it. She lives in Portlandia with a menagerie which includes at least one other human. She tells lies at textwall and uncomfortable truths at CrossKnit.

rowan@yeahwrite.me

About the author:

About the author:

Rowan submitted exactly one piece of microfiction to YeahWrite before being consumed by the editorial darkside. She spent some time working hard as our Submissions Editor before becoming YeahWrite’s Managing Editor in 2016. She was a BlogHer Voice of the Year in 2017 for her work on intersectional feminism, but she suggests you find and follow WOC instead. In real life she’s been at various times an attorney, aerialist, professional knitter, artist, graphic designer (yes, they’re different things), editor, secretary, tailor, and martial artist. It bothers her vaguely that the preceding list isn’t alphabetized, but the Oxford comma makes up for it. She lives in Portlandia with a menagerie which includes at least one other human. She tells lies at textwall and uncomfortable truths at CrossKnit.

rowan@yeahwrite.me

About the author: