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: Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
2008-11-30 11:55:00

Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
2008-11-30 11:55:00

Mood: chipper
Music: Dar Williams, 'The World's Not Falling Apart.'

Gems from the proofing mines.

From the Wanlorn:

"Your love of colons is disturbing and bad."

(The Wanlorn also tends to tag my more dramatically twisted sentences with 'LOL' and 'FAIL.' Everyone should have a proofer like her. After going through one of her edit files, I am immune to all future editorial cruelty. How I adore her.)

I also have an enormous file of logic problems from Vixy, who basically attacked the entire manuscript with a giant stick marked 'this makes no sense.' Sometimes I wonder why I let her live. And then I remember that I'd be sad if she were gone.

Ah, the joys of editing.

Tags: i love my editors, proofreading, vixy

in defense of the colon

tigertoy

November 30 2008, 23:30:34 UTC 8 years ago

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Since I'm not one of your proofreaders, I have no idea about the specific colon usage under discussion, but I would just like to say that I get a bit of a warm fuzzy when I encounter a sentence in a novel where a colon is used correctly. I also get a bit of that feeling when there are semicolons used sensibly. It is possible to get your point across and even be technically grammatically correct with no punctuation beyond commas and periods, but it is to writing as arranging a song with only three chords is to music.