People have asked me how I can stomach proofreading and editing. It’s a fair question. They can seem monotonous, nit-picky, rote, tedious… pick a synonym that works for you. “How could I possibly do that all day long?” they wonder. Sure, it can get tedious after the sixth hour with the same text. BUT (and you knew that was coming), it’s also a little bit like exploring and I LOVE exploring. Think about it. You’re going on a trip to the author’s world, their creation. You’re wandering through, tentatively at first, trying to get your bearings. What’s it like “here”? What’s this place all about? The vibe? Who’s talking? Who’s the audience? What’s the tone, the style, and the feel? Is it a dense place… teeming, lush and vibrant? Is it a thin place… mysterious, hallowed and hushed? What’s going on? Is it tense? Guarded? Liberating? Why? What’s causing the dynamic? So. Many. Questions.

At first, you’re taking it all in – no judgment, just curiosity and awe. There’s so much to see, hear, feel, and learn. If you’ve ever read The Magician’s Nephew, the penultimate book in the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, you may recall a place called “The Wood Between the Worlds”. It is an interesting and somewhat odd place because while it is indeed a location, it functions more like a portal to “other places.” One site describes it like so: “… very much alive, having a large number of trees that grew so close together, with so many leaves that one could hardly see the sky. Despite this, though, there is a bright green light that shines through the leaves, creating a warm climate for the Wood. It is very quiet, with hardly any inhabitants, and no wind. You can apparently almost feel the trees growing, and there are pools everywhere, which the trees' roots drink up the water from.”[1]

When was the last time you were so physically, mentally and spiritually connected to a place that you felt the trees growing? Fascinating.

These wide pools dotted between the trees were the key to travel between dimensions. Jumping into a pool transported you to other worlds such as Narnia, the Land of Humans or Charn. Whereas the infamous Narnian wardrobe is a single passage from the professor’s country estate to a single point in the snowy, Narnian forest, the Wood Between the Worlds has several pools of water that each transport you somewhere different. Maybe you can think of it like an other-worldly subway stop… it’s not necessarily a destination in and of itself; it’s more like a conduit. If you’re more familiar with the Harry Potter book series, think of it like a place with several Portkeys that can transport you almost anywhere.

Now that we’re more clear on the Wood Between the Worlds, let’s come back to how proofreading is like inter-dimensional travel. You’re in a pool, a world, and say you’re finishing up the project you’ve working on—editing and then proofreading a professor’s personal statement for a dossier to apply for tenure. This pool is one hell of an academic world. You had to ensure to stay within the university’s guidelines, stick to the APA style guide, and most of all, ensure the author was representing himself and his work comprehensively, yet succinctly. Smartly, but not so stuffily you could puke. Now you’re done. You pop back up through the pool and you’re back in the Wood Between the World. You’re kind of disoriented, trying to snap back into the reality of your new but familiar surroundings. It feels a lot like stepping back into your elementary school as an adult. It feels like it’s been half a lifetime since you were ever this small and used a desk, chair or toilet so low to the ground. When I’m in this re-entry period I have to get up and move around, pet my dog, and reacquaint myself with the sunshine. I basically have to reintroduce myself to my physical world before I can jump into another pool. When I do make the next leap into another project and pool, perhaps I’m proofreading a food blog. It’s delicious, sassy, light and fun—the complete opposite of what I was just doing. (I hope I can eat in this pool.) This is the nature of the work. Not so boring now, is it? Not when you get to explore different worlds with each project.

Exploration is key to proofreading. Then, there’s a bit of a puzzle aspect to it that can be challenging, fun and occasionally ridiculous. Benjamin Dreyer describes it in a way that cracks me up: “It’s endlessly working on one of those spot-the-difference picture puzzles in an especially satanic issue of Highlights for Children.”[2] Brilliant. You’ve got to have an eagle eye, a ridiculous ability to focus and stay focused, and a sense of humor so you can remember to laugh at the notion of satan being the evil overlord editor of an issue of Highlights Magazine for Children.

Editing can be quite a bit more involved than proofreading. You pop into a pool, you wind up in someone’s world, and after you’re acquainted and have identified and repaired some inconsistencies, you’re strategically thinking about the author’s intent and how you might rearrange and reword elements so you can deliver it in the best way possible. You’re almost co-creating in this new world. It’s fascinating and exciting. Think about it... how often do you get to help create the reality you’re in and the reality that you’ll show to others?

I want to run from complex math problems, but if math is your go-to, then you actually get excited about tackling a new and challenging problem. I shudder, but I get the sentiment because that’s how I feel about editing. It’s not just about identifying “what’s wrong in the picture” a la Highlights magazine — it’s re-arranging, removing, and adding parts of the puzzle to create this kick-ass finished product that once complete, makes you sit back and go wow! Maybe the puzzle started out as a flatline, one-dimensional drawing of an airplane in pencil; now it’s a space rocket blasting off to the great beyond in 3-D with color and life exploding from every angle! The folks at the International Space Station are going to love this; t’s right up their alley.

Once again, I’ll lean on Benjamin Dreyer because he’s hilarious and spot on. Just like math may be your jam, Dreyer recognizes that editing “is a craft whose knowledge can only be built on some mysterious predisposition.”[3] Some curios predisposition, you say? Yes, there’s something innate in you, I’d argue down to the DNA or cellular level, that makes something “your thing.” Throughout my schooling, I quickly found out that it was not math but languages. I had “an ear” for them—whatever that means. They intuitively make sense to me on some level and I love to dig in and understand what makes them tick, their personalities, etc. Dreyer quotes a colleague who says this about editing: “You’re attempting to burrow into the brains of your writers and do for, to, and with their prose what they themselves might have done for, to, and with it had they not already looked at each damned sentence 657 times.”[4] Read that again, out loud and more carefully, until it makes sense to you.

Hire a proofreader or editor today, before that 658th time through your own text kills you. We like this stuff and we have great insights to offer. Even better— we’re not offended if you don’t some take some of our suggestions because we know at the end of the day, it’s your pool.

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Sources

[1] https://narnia.fandom.com/wiki/Wood_Between_the_Worlds

[2] “By Way of Introduction” pg. XIV. Introduction to Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Style and Clarity by Benjamin Dreyer. New York: Random House, 2019.

[3] “By Way of Introduction” pg. XVI. Introduction to Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Style and Clarity by Benjamin Dreyer. New York: Random House, 2019.

[4] Idem.