On copyediting…

Heaving a long sigh of relief, I dropped the freshly copyedited manuscript of SLEEPING DOGS into Bloomsbury HQ yesterday. The relationship between copyeditor and author remains something of a mystery to me. No one seems to refer to the copyeditor by name — they’re just ‘The Copyeditor’, like some dead-eyed Tarantino character played by an actor in need of  resuscitation (Val Kilmer? William Hurt?).  The work they do creates a sense of awe (how did they spot that?), irritation (no one likes to have their idiocies pointed out), and gratitude (they save you from looking like an ass — as much as is possible). An example — in SLEEPING DOGS there’s a drive-by role (literally) for an Italian man on a scooter; he appears on a Corfu road as a way of showing how Italians — who once ruled Corfu via the Venetians — still love to return to their former colony. On my most recent trip to Corfu, I observed an Italian-looking man driving a Vespa through Ipsos (a resort favoured by Italians). He was shirtless, and the girl behind him (both of them sans helmet) was texting as the scooter sped along at an insane speed. In the novel, I decided to up the ante by having the driver using a mobile, so chose to describe him as  ‘texting behind the wheel’. The phrase survived countless read-throughs, until ‘The Copyeditor’ nailed it with a simple note — ‘Steering wheel? On a scooter?’ So thank you, whoever you are — and have been — for your eagle eye…