Hi everyone!
I am just coming to the end of a proofreading cycle on Era: The Consortium’s Core Rulebook and I thought, as a result, now might be a good time to write a Development Blog entry about all the stuff that happens after you fiNash the actual writing, so here we are!
When I started writing Era: The Consortium, with 3 other writers, I commented on their stories as they wrote them and showed them to me, right from the first draft stage. I don’t count this as editing personally, though I know others who disagree with me; I count this as part of the Creator/Lead Writer job – maintaining the integrity of the Universe, making sure that every story contained the right technology, the right characterisation and so on.
As time went on and we reached a final version, I started adding the stories into the book and, as I did, I gave them a “proper edit”. I was looking for things like sentences that didn’t quite make sense, places where the length was excessive or not quite enough (which became particularly important in some places – the page split for stories in a book and where they end up relative to full-page images can be crucial!), and places where I could improve the stories.
A good friend of mine told me once that editing is making sure that the whole book is written in the same voice. If that is the correct definition, I don’t think there was much editing in Part One of Era: The Consortium: The story is written as a timeline with short stories expanding on the different events. As these short stories are “written” by people who are involved and are from all kinds of individuals, different voices is almost a must! Of course, the timeline needed editing and I did that, but the main focus of the editing was on the Rules.
Rules in an RPG being consistently presented is absolutely vital! If the way they are stated changes every page, they can become very confusing. That was where the majority of my editing work lay. It is worth noting that it is most certainly possible to both write and edit your own work – that is not something you need to be concerned about.
I do, however, recommend that you edit the entire work within as small a number of continuous days as possible – if you are anything like me, your voice might change over time, depending on what else you are working on!
Which brings us nicely to proofreading. I strongly recommend that you do not try to do this yourself. Why? Because if you do, and you wrote and edited, you will skip over bits of text that should be fine, miss spelling errors and even miss some serious issues (as I did!).
I initially started by getting a number of friends to look it over. They turned up a number of errors, which we fixed.
However, it was not long after we released that we realised there were still significant errata in the book. We raised them on the website to advise people who had bought it, of course.
During this year, I have almost sold out of Era: The Consortium rulebooks. When I noticed, after Dragonmeet, how few I had left, I decided that I would do a full proofreading run and really bring the quality up another notch.
I was fortunate enough to find and hire two excellent proofreaders for Era: Lyres (not that it was easy – I hired five terrible ones before I found these two), and one of them volunteered to look over Era: The Consortium.
We are coming towards the end of the proofread now, and it has been a lot of work but the book is much better for it. Having a pair of eyes that is looking for issues rather than just enjoying the story is really helpful.
So, my advice on Editing, Proofreading and what they mean to you? Editing is making sure the material, whether it was written by you, others or a combination of the two, fits together with what is next to it and the rest of the book. You can do it yourself, and as a game creator, I personally wouldn’t have it any other way. Proofreading is vital if you want to have a high quality end product, but you should not try to do it yourself – it just doesn’t work.
If you want a good proofreader, let me know through the Game Creator section on the website – I will be happy to point you at one in your price range!
Thank you for reading my rambles, and I hope it provides a little more insight into this aspect of the creation and writing of books!
– Ed
