✨ avoid these copyediting mistakes and make your manuscript shine
and an exclusive book update!
Hello!
It’s been a second longer than I’d have liked but here we are now! The first six months of this year were more stressful than I like admitting to myself, and the best way I can explain it is that I felt like I could juggle ten eggs at once and then I looked around and the floor was covered in yolk and I was cleaning everything up with a single paper towel.
So I stopping trying to juggle so much.
The release of Cancelled was good stress, and I am so grateful to readers who have picked up the book. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Truly. I cannot understate how much your support means. So many of you have enjoyed the story and it makes my heart eternally happy because I had such a fun time writing it. I miss those characters like old friends.
But I’d like to introduce you to some new ones…
Writing Update
I’ve been mostly heads down working on another book coming out with Penguin next year, and I’m excited to share more with you soon! For now I’ll reveal this: It’s another young adult novel—unrelated to Cancelled—with big speculative and rom-com elements. (Yes, romance is at the forefront of this one!) It’s been a huge challenge but an incredibly fun one. The official title is RIGHT WHERE WE BELONG.
That’s all I will say for now, but there will be more soon!
Common copyediting mistakes
The bulk of today’s newsletter is going to revolve around the nitpicky formatting and grammar rules when it comes to publishing. I worked in digital media for eight years and have been a published author since 2018, so I like to believe I understand a few things about grammar, punctuation, and general copyediting rules—though I’m also sure there are ten thousand other things I don’t understand.
I’ve found that digital media style guides are pretty similar to publishing style guides, so if you’re looking to polish your manuscript and avoid common mistakes, I’ve got a few useful tips! At the very least, I hope it helps give you that extra professional shine to your manuscript.
Let’s dive in.
Dash, em dash, and en dash
John Green just made a video on this and I have to say that I, too, am a fan of em dashes and prefer to use them in lieu of a semi colon. Em dashes indicate pause. (The shortcut on Mac is SHIFT + OPTION + DASH.) Em dashes can also be used for interrupting: “Hey, watch ou—”
One thing I’ve learned with em dashes is that publication style guides are different from online media style guides. Back when I was writing articles online, style guide rules stated there should be spaces around the em dash: He likes all kinds of soda — Sprite, Pepsi, you name it — because that’s his jam. Whereas publishing closes those spaces: He likes all kinds of soda—Sprite, Pepsi, you name it—because that’s his jam.
Dashes or hyphens—as you might remember, she said with her em dashes—are used to link compound words: father-in-law or one-way street or high-tech. They can be used to s-p-e-l-l out every single letter of a word. Two dashes in a row does not equal an em dash.
En dashes are less common and are typically used to show a range. Example: I wrote Cancelled between the years 2020–2023.
Starting sentences with pronouns
For every rule that’s out there is a rule that’s broken, but if you want to avoid repetition then make sure you’re switching up sentence variation, especially if you’re starting every sentence with pronoun + verb: She went to the mall. She decided to first hit up the food court. She was ordering tacos when he approached her. She jumped, spooked.
This reads a lot better with some variation: The mall was crowded at three in the afternoon, which caught her by surprise. That didn’t stop her from hitting up the food court. She was ordering tacos, in her own little world, when he approached her from behind. Heart racing, she cried, “Don’t do that, you scared me!”
Using italics and quotes to reference songs, movies, etc.
This is another common copyediting mistake I’ve come across, so it’s easier to try and memorize it. When I worked in media, the general rule was LONGER works like books, TV shows, movies, albums, plays, newspaper titles, etc. are italicized: I love the movie Ten Things I Hate About You.
SHORTER works like song titles, poems, television episodes, individual pieces of art, etc. should be in quotes: One of my favorite Olivia Rodrigo songs is “Love is Embarrassing.” I’ve found this to be true in publishing as well, though each imprint may have their own specific style guide.
Oxford comma
It’s always a good idea in my professional opinion. I rest my case.
Ellipsis
One thing I learned during proofreading and formatting was that if you have an ellipsis (aka three dots), it will often go from looking like this … to looking like this . . . (zero space between each dot versus spacing). This isn’t anything I’d necessarily worry about since your publisher will ensure it’s formatted correctly either way, but I thought it was interesting!
Alright, All right
Both are correct, but all right is the one you should use in publishing (at least in my experience. I was partial to alright!)
Indenting
Don’t indent the first paragraph of a new chapter. Also, don’t indent the first paragraph following a time break within your chapter. These are things your editor will fix anyway, but it’s better to make a habit of doing it right!
Formatting errors
Listen, human error happens and when it does, it’s out of your control. Despite myself, my editor, copyeditor, proofreader, etc. reading through Cancelled in its final stages, I was flagged by readers about a formatting error. A line of dialogue that comes in a later scene was accidentally pasted in an earlier scene, and we don’t know how it happened. It wasn’t there during my final read through, and it’s disappointing that happened at all, but it’s been fixed for later editions. So if you’ve read the book and though, huh, weird! Just know you’re not the only one, it’s a mistake, and I’m very sorry!
Speaking of common mistakes…
I guess mistakes is the theme of this newsletter and since we’re on the topic, a lot of people have mistakenly believed Cancelled is my debut novel. And I understand why! It’s been six years since I’ve published a book. However, my debut novel is called Twelve Steps to Normal and it came out in 2018 through Jimmy Books/Hachette. If you’re just now discovering I have a second book, congratulations! I hope you enjoy it if you decide to check it out!
My debut experience was wonderful and emotional (my dad passed away two years prior, six months before the book sold). It’s a quieter story I started when I was 24 that I thought would die on submission like the two books before, and to this day I am shocked it sold. I’m extremely grateful—please find me forever shouting this from my rooftops—to continue to work with my same editor at Viking Books. Next year, the third book we’ve worked on together will no longer live within my head and on draft pages, but instead it will belong to you.
I will never take writing for granted, mostly because it feels fragile. As though it can be taken away unexpectedly. So if you’ve preordered my books or requested them from your local library or checked out the audio versions or ordered them from your local indie or shouted nice things about them on the internet, please know I’m so grateful for your support. You’re the reason I’m able to do this.
What’s to come
I’m hoping to write another newsletter around the cover design process and another one focused on more intently on plot! I’m also brainstorming how specific worksheets might be beneficial to your writing process. I always think: do I find this helpful and if do, would it help someone else? But I welcome any requests or suggestions in my comments or messages!