Lessons from Dead Matter

"Dead matter" refers to all of the paper left over after a book has gone to press: the original manuscript with editor's and copy editor's comments, the various rounds of revised manuscripts, etc.

It's always fun to take a look at the minutiae involved in getting a manuscript into tip top shape. And, alas, I often realize some of the mistakes I make over and over again. Sheesh.

You can see some past Lessons from Dead Matter HERE.

I just got my dead matter back for Wish and thought I'd share some of the mistakes I made - almost always involving hyphens and compound words. Minutiae, minutiae.

 Redheaded is one word, not hyphenated.

Bread-and-butter pickles IS hyphenated.

Ta-da is hyphenated. (I know, I know....I'm questioning that one, too)

Meat loaf is two words. (But, hey, meatloaf still looks right to me)

Lunch box is two words but tailpipe is one word.

Hot dog is two words but bottlecap is one word.

Popsicle is capitalized.

Jibber-jabber is hyphenated. 

Now, according to Yankee copy editors, barbecue is spelled with a "c".  I don't care what they say, in North Carolina, we spell it barbeque.

And after 26 years, I STILL don't get the correct spacing for ellipses.

So there you have it.

Dead matter..

 




 

Lessons from Dead Matter

I recently received the dead matter for On the Road to Mr.

Mineo's, so I figured I might as well continue my traditional "Lessons from Dead Matter" blog post.

[Note: "Dead matter" is the term used by the publisher for the stacks and stacks of the manuscript during various stages of production. It is, indeed, very dead.]

I wrote about my Lessons from Dead Matter for Greetings from Nowhere here.

And for The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis here.

And The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester here.

It's a little depressing to see that after writing lots of books, I'm still making the same stupid mistakes. But, hey, that's what copyeditors are for, right? Or is it copy editors? I can never remember.

So, here are some of my lessons from dead matter:

1. Why can I never, ever remember that the following words are one word? (I think I need an editor for that sentence.)

• backyard
• flowerpot
• shirttail
• cornfield
• toolbox
• pigsty
• streetlight

And the following are hyphenated:

• flip-flop
• hickory-nut
• chicken-wire
• run-down

 And that lawn mower is two words.

And it's screened porch, not screen porch.


For this book, it was suggested that we hyphenate gol-dern so as not to confuse it with the word "golden." (I know, I didn't get it either.)

It was also decided that this is the correct version of:

ding-dong doodlebrain

(And I am once again reminded of how good I am at insulting people.)

2. After much debate, diddly-squat won out over doodly-squat and hyphenation was required.

3. Sometimes you sit in a chair and sometimes you sit on a chair. 

For example:
"She plopped down in one of the lawn chairs" was changed to "on one of the lawn chairs."

But "How he longed to go back up there and sit in the lawn chair and play cards all day" was left as is. 

*scratches head and ponders this*

4. I'm forever disagreeing with decisions about commas - not because of correct punctuation, but because of the sound of the writing.

For example, there was a lot of discussion about the following sentence because of the doors of the van being left open (but that's a whole other thing....):

Luther took his fishing rod out of the back of the van, and he and Edsel went inside the restaurant to eat pork lo mein.

I don't like that comma there because I didn't want a pause in that spot. I wanted the sound of the words running on. But either I lost or I gave in, I don't remember which.

The same goes for the following, only it's the opposite situation:

But now, a little glimmer of sadness was starting to buzz around him like a pesky fly.

Copy editor took the comma out. I liked the pause it created, but I agreed to take it out. (See how agreeable I am?)

5. We had a great discussion about the phrase gold-ern criminy cripes.  Evidently, both criminy and cripes are euphemisms for Christ. (Who knew?) Would I get run out of town for using those words in a children's book? Well, the words are still there and I'm still in town, so there you go.

6. Some Southern expressions prove just too confusing for the average bear, so I give up and take them out. One of them is the expression pure-T, which means 100% or completely. Here's the original sentence from the manuscript:

I know she's pure-T red-hot mad at him.

The copy editor wrote in the margin, "purty?"

[Note: I think my Southern writer pal, Augusta Scattergood, says pure-D, instead of pure-T. The Dictionary of American Regional English actually has both. But it shows pure-T as being more prevalent in the Carolinas, which is where I'm from.]

7. Dear Copy Editor: Please leave the word hisself alone.

8. A giant hickory-nut tree casts shadows that move in the warm breeze, like fingers wiggling over the dandelions in the lawn.

Was changed to dandelions on the lawn.

I still don't like it.

9. Stamp her foot was always changed to stomp her foot.

10. And last, but this one is very, very important, there are no periods after:

Ploink

Ploink

Ploink

So there you have it: Lessons from Dead Matter

Lessons from Dead Matter

My editor always asks if I want the "dead matter" for my books or should they just toss it.

"Dead matter" is a great term for that mile-high stack of manuscripts, revisions, galleys.

I have a closet full of "dead matter."

But I always say, yes, I would like to have it.

It's fun to go back to some of the earlier versions of my work and see the revisions. I especially like to note how even the smallest revision sometimes makes a big difference. Writers are perfectionists and need the perfect word, phrase, rhythm.

I've shared Lessons from Dead Matter in the past.

Here are some of the revisions from The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester.

1. I'm particular about phrasing and the way words sound. I had written:

As soon as the words left his mouth, Owen's stomach clenched up into a ball of angry.

The copy editor suggested "a ball of anger."

Nope.

2. I read this manuscript 5,438 times. Every time, I couldn't decide if it should be "train tracks" or "railroad tracks." I know, I know..... I opted for "train tracks." Sheesh.

3. Repetitious words are easy to miss. Also, "echoes" - the same words repeated or words that sound the same (like "side", "inside" and "outside").

I had written:

Then he scrambled up the side of the slope to the edge of the tracks. Viola was way off in the distance, running along the tracks toward home.

Changed to "running toward home."

4. Naturally, the copy editor questioned:

"I thought you said she wouldn't never go down to the pond."

But, then, that's how Travis would talk, right?

5. "high five" is two words

"lawn mower" is two words

"Weedwhacker" is one word


6. I originally had: "I'm allergic to pine," she said. "And ragweed and goldenrod, and . . . "

Copy editor notes: "I thought goldenrod itself was innocent; ragweed and others were the culprits."

I changed to "pigweed."

(Copy editors are such know-it-alls.)

7. I remember going round and round about:

He reached in and scooped up Tooley.

vs

He reached in and scooped Tooley up.

(last one, of course)

8. Another repetition:

Owen picked up the biggest rock he could find and hurled it with all his might into the pond. It hit the water with a loud ploink, sending a spray of water into the air.

Changed to:

It hit with a loud ploink, sending a spray of water into the air.

9. On page 70, I wrote:

"You in or you out?"

On page 114, I wrote:

"Are you in or you out?"

Took out "are" in the second one.

10. Original version:
They were going to tell the reporter how Owen had found the submarine and how they had cleared the way to the pond and used the water pipes like the Egyptians had built the pyramids.

Revised to:

They were going to tell the reporter how Owen had found the submarine and how they had cleared the way to the pond. They were going to explain how they had used water pipes the way the Egyptians had used logs to move the stones when they built the pyramids.


So there you have it. Mostly little things. But to writers, they can be big things.

Lessons from Dead Matter

Remember my post entitled Lessons from Dead Matter?

I have just received the dead matter for The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis, so I thought I'd shared some more Lessons from Dead Matter:

1. I originally had the following:

They walked to the gas station down on the main highway where Popeye was never supposed to go without asking Velma first.

I hear it in my head as all run together like that.

But the copyeditor added a comma after "highway."

She explained that it is "nonrestrictive."

Okay, I get that. But it just doesn't sound the same, with that pause in there. (I added the comma anyway, but I still don't like it.)

2. I used a word that isn't in the dictionary! Yay, me:

"They don't call me the Royal Rulebreaker for nothing, right, Popeye?"

Copyeditor suggested hyphenated (Rule-Breaker), although not in the dictionary.

3. On one page I had several conversations with the copyeditor about "qm's". Huh? What the heck are qm's? I finally figured it out: quotation marks. Heh....

4. I had a floral easy chair and then four lines later, floral sheets. One of the "florals" had to go. (The easy chair went.)

5. Original version:

Gauzy yellow butterfly wings, tattered and dirty, dotted here and there with clusters of shiny gold sequins and attached to the girl by straps that slipped over her arms like a backpack.

At copyeditor's suggestion, this was changed to: "...by straps that slipped over her arms like those of a backpack."

Now, I understand that. But it still just doesn't sound right to me.

6. Copyeditors notice repetitions that authors often miss since we are so close to the writing. I'm always amazed at all of my repetitions:

"Y'all get on out of here," she said, throwing her arms out as if to sweep them all out of the house.

[I kept two of them and changed the second one to the word "wide."]

Her livid voice burst right through the metal walls of Dooley's trailer and slithered across the darkness of the backyard and right into the kitchen...

[deleted the second one, although I liked the sound of it]

Popeye looked down at his feet, the guilt stinging his face like fire ants. Silence. Popeye looked up. Velma was looking at him, her eyes narrowed into slits, her lips squeezed tight.

[What was I thinking?! Changed the first one to "stared" and the second one to "glanced."]

He took a piece of beef jerky out of his pocket and held it out for Boo, who gobbled it up and swallowed it whole.

[Changed "out of" to "from."]

...no longer hidden by the thick, overhanging branches of the trees. Tree stumps and boulders and dense, overgrown shrubs line the edges of the clearing.

When you read that out loud, you have "trees" at the end of the first sentence and "tree stumps" at the beginning of the second. Not good.

I simply reversed the order of "tree stumps and boulders."

7. Copyeditors have amazing memories. On page 3 of the manuscript (page three), I wrote that Velma couldn't find her reading glasses.

On page 112 (one hundred and twelve), I wrote: Her hand fluttered up and pushed at her glasses.

Copyeditor wrote in margin: Reading glasses as on p. 3?

Sheesh. [I changed to "pushed at her thin gray hair."

8. Now, get this - FOUR TIMES I referred to a character sitting "at the diner booth."

Copyeditor changed to "in the diner booth."

That is, of course, correct, but isn't it strange that "at the diner booth" was so embedded in me?

9. The following should be one word or hyphenated, instead of two words:

tinfoil
swearwords
toe-jam [you can tell I am a very classy writer]
cusswords
ding-dong [as in, "skinny-headed ding-dong"]
rainwater
country-western

But hot dog is two words.

10. I am forever getting that lie-lay thing wrong. One reason for that is because of the way I hear the writing. Since I hear even third-person writing with a Southern ear, the correct version just never sounds right. But I change it anyway. Example:

Then Popeye dashed home to lie on his bed and stare at the ceiling until Velma got home.

[I still don't like the way it sounds. I want him to lay on the bed.]

10. And last, thank goodness for smart copyeditors. The character of Velma recites the kings and queens of England in chronological order to keep her from cracking up.

James V, Mary I, James VI, Charles I...

Those are kings and queens of Scotland. Heh....

So there you go.....lessons from dead matter.

Lessons from dead matter

When Lisa Graff at FSG asked me if I wanted the dead matter for Greetings from Nowhere, I said yes.

Then I wondered why.

Why did I want more paper to add to all the boxes of other paper in my office?

(And don't you just hate that term "dead matter" anyway? It sounds so, well, um, dead.)

But after I received it, I sat down and took a look at it and realized that it's kind of a learning experience -

to read through past revisions and notes -

to see what a big difference little changes make -

and to wonder "what was I thinking?".

Here are some of the changes found in that dead matter:

1. Aggie shook her head. Harold would have fixed that old spotlight. He would have opened up his rusty toolbox [out back in the shed] and found just the right tool and gone straight out there and fixed it.

[We took out the phrase "out back in the shed." It wasn't necessary and it tightened the sentence. Fewer words = tighter sentence]

2. rose-covered envelope changed to rose-bordered envelope

[Just made more sense, really...]

3. her mother squinted her eyes and tilted her chin up ...was changed to... her mother narrowed her eyes

[Squinted? Eeeeyew. What was I thinking?]

4. a heart-shaped box lined with red velvet...was changed to... a heart-shaped box made of red velvet

[I have no earthly idea why I made that change. I think maybe it was because the character hadn't opened the box yet, so wouldn't know it was lined with red velvet. ??]

5. Now, this seems to be my personal writing boogie-man - the use of the word "of" following the word "off." [Geez, those copyeditors are so irritating.]

• she couldn't take her eyes off [of] all those things.
• couldn't take her eyes off [of] the photograph [on same page!]- This was changed to She stared down at the photograph.
• took the lid off [of] the heart-shaped box
• Burla's box off [of] the floor
• wiped mud off [of] it

6. Willow looked down at her shoes. The pink plastic sandals that Dorothy had bought. They were getting too small. They were starting to hurt her feet [a little]. But Willow didn't care. She loved wearing them, anyway.

Then a little further down on the same page:

Her father turned the radio on. That little vein twitched again.

[So I had two "littles" too close together. But I really didn't even need the first one. I mean, her shoes hurt. It doesn't really matter if they hurt "a little," right? So I took out the first "little."]

7. Now here's an example of one of those changes suggested by a copyeditor that is right, but that loses the rhythm of the writing for me - so I had to figure out a compromise:

Original version: Willow stared glumly out the window. She was a long, long way from Hailey, North Carolina.

The copyeditor pointed out that the characters are still in North Carolina, so we should delete "North Carolina." She's right, of course. (She's always right. SO irritating.) That would leave us with She was a long, long way from Hailey, which didn't have the rhythm I wanted.

Revised version: She was a long, long way from her little brick house in Hailey.

That seems like a picky thing, but those are the kinds of phrases and wording that is important to me.

8. Another one of my writing boogie men is the use of the phrase "every now and then".

I had to come up with various alternatives, such as "every few minutes" and "every once in a while."

9. On p. 91: Willow looked down at Aggie's canvas sneakers. They were wet and muddy. One of them had a frayed hole in the side and Aggie's little toe poked out.

The copyeditor wrote in the margin: See p. 189

On p. 189: Then she put on her canvas sneakers with the holes in the side and grabbed a hat.

The copyeditor wrote in the margin: See p 91; only one hole

She catches that little thang NINETY-EIGHT pages later!!!

I told you she was irritating, um, I mean amazing.

By the way, I changed the second one to " Then she put on her old canvas sneakers and grabbed a hat."

10. Changed dingy white wall to dingy gray wall - because can there be such a thing as dingy white?

11. "Echoes" drive me nuts. An "echo" is the repetition of words and/or words that sound alike):

He watched his mother march across the parking lot and disappear up the side of the road. When he went outside, the sun was just appearing over the top of the mountains. The air was cool and damp. He could hear the eighteen wheelers roaring up the interstate on the other side of the ridge behind the motel.

The echoes here are disappear and appearing; and side of; outside; and side

The copyeditor puts a little red check mark over those words.

This was changed to: He watched his mother march across the parking lot and disappear up the road. When he went outside, the sun was just peeking over the top of the mountains. The air was cool and damp. He could hear the eighteen wheelers roaring up the interstate on the other side of the ridge behind the motel.

12. I include this last one just because it seemed funny to me looking back at it:

For "Shut your trap" in pig Latin, I originally had rap-tay for "trap." The copyeditor corrected it to ap-tray.

And so, there you have it.

Lessons from dead matter.

Little things mean a lot, don't they?



P.S. I just realized that the subject heading of this post is similar to Lessons from a Dead Girl by Jo Knowles - so I'm sending her a shout-out.