Copyediting fiction is like being the continuity director for a film, watching for little mistakes that pull readers out of the story. In this session, we’ll discuss (1) language bloopers: pet phrases, sound bloopers, danglers, redundancy; (2) action bloopers: Chekhov’s gun, drop-in characters, bad scene breaks, remembered elements, “As you know, Bob…”; and (3) factual bloopers: physics, body position/parts, anachronisms, geography, deliberate obfuscation, and just generally How Things Work.
Instructor
Amy J. Schneider (www.featherschneider.com), a freelance copyeditor of textbooks, trade nonfiction, and best-selling fiction since 1995, has created articles and sessions on editorial topics for Copyediting, An American Editor, EFA, ACES, Northwest Editors Guild, Editors Canada, and CIEP Toronto.