Copyediting sample 23:
Brice Prairie

An editor needs to pay attention to the logical (and arithmetical) ramifications of every one of the author’s assertions (for example. if it takes five minutes to drive a half mile, how fast is the car going?). Also, an editor needs to hone in on vague statements, rendering them more concrete, more precise.

Skip this sample and advance to the next one in the series.

This sample is presented here with the author’s permission.

Original
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I wanted to detour through Brice Prairie. At County Z, I dipped down into the bottomlands that had once been the swamps and backwaters of the Mississippi. After crossing the railroad tracks, I reached the thicket of subdivisions where the Oneota, Ho Chunk, and other American Indians once lived. Houses lined both sides of the road, built in an impressive range of styles: A-frames, Prairie-style, 1950s ranch. They were bigger and fancier on the water side of the road, where many of the original ranch houses had been torn down and replaced with homes that thumbed their noses at the modesty of earlier generations. I drove on, past acres of restored prairie, a small park with a playground, and a Ho Chunk Indian graveyard where victims of the 1918 influenza epidemic rest in peace. Further down the road, I got to the road where Ted lived. There weren’t any cars behind me, so I stopped in the road and looked toward his house. Yellow police tape stretched across the driveway. Two cops stood guard. I drove on. Five minutes later, I pulled onto the shoulder and parked in front of the old farmhouse where my family had lived when I was a kid. It looked smaller than I remembered. I thought about knocking on the door and asking for a tour but wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone at that moment. I drove on past another playground, past some fields where corn had just been harvested, and past a house with a sticker on the mailbox that read “Obama sucks.” And I thought I had trouble moving on. The Brice Prairie I was driving through was different than the Brice Prairie of my memory. It looked less like a community and more like a collection of subdivisions, each one an island unto itself. Maybe it was that way when I was a kid. I wasn’t sure. I just knew that wasn’t how I remembered the place. A little further down the road, I arrived at the small cemetery where my parents and sister were buried. I parked in one of the two gravel spaces and got out of my car. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a minute, letting the sun warm my face. When I opened my eyes, I scanned the small burial ground that I hadn’t visited since my mother died nearly fifteen years ago. A few trees grew among the fifty or so headstones. Leaves piled up in one area, giving the otherwise flat ground some elevation. I walked over to the headstones and stood in front of them. Each was made of gray granite, polished on the front and back but rough along the top edge. Tina’s was beginning to show some wear. The lines spelling out her name and vitals weren’t as sharp as they used to be. My parents’ headstones—James and Sandy Dodge—looked as fresh as the day they were carved. They died just six months apart from each other; separated in life, reunited for eternity.

Markup
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I wanted to detour through Brice Prairie. At County Z County Highway Z, I dipped down into the bottomlands that had once been the swamps and backwaters of the Mississippi. After crossing the railroad tracks, I reached the thicket of subdivisions where the Oneota, Ho Chunk, Oneota, Ho-Chunk, and other American Indians once Indians had once lived. Houses lined both sides of the road, built in an impressive range of styles: A-frames, Prairie-style, A-frames, Prairie style, 1950s ranch. They were bigger and fancier on the water side of the road, where many of the original ranch houses had been torn down and replaced with homes that thumbed their noses at the modesty of earlier generations. I drove on, past acres of restored prairie, a small park with a playground, and a Ho Chunk Indian a Ho-Chunk Indian graveyard where victims of the 1918 influenza epidemic rest in peace. Further down the road, I got to the road where Ted lived. Farther down the road, I got to Ted’s road. [Change okay? Not only does Ted not live there anymore; since he is now dead, he doesn’t live anymore, period.] There weren’t any cars behind me, so I stopped in the road and looked toward his house. Yellow police tape stretched across the driveway. Two cops stood guard. I drove on. Five minutes later, A couple of minutes later, I pulled onto the shoulder and parked in front of the old farmhouse where my family had lived when I was a kid. [Change okay? in chapter 28, there was this about Ted’s place: “I was sitting in my car in the driveway of a ranch house not more than a half mile from the old farmhouse where I’d grown up”; presumably Frank was driving a little faster than ten miles per hour (five minutes to drive a half mile).] It looked smaller than I remembered. I thought about knocking on the door and asking for a tour but wasn’t tour, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone at that moment. I drove on past another playground, past some fields where corn had just been harvested, and past a house with a sticker on the mailbox that read “Obama sucks.” And I thought And I’d thought I had trouble moving on. [As the narrative present has been established as October 2016, Obama was still the president; the sticker must have been from either the 2008 or 2012 campaign against him—right?] The Brice Prairie I was driving through was different than the different from the Brice Prairie of my memory. It looked less like a community and more like a collection of subdivisions, each one an island unto itself. Maybe it was that it had been that way when I was a kid. I wasn’t a kid, I wasn’t sure. I just knew that wasn’t how I remembered the place. A little further little farther down the road, I arrived at the small cemetery where my parents and sister were buried. I parked in one of the two gravel spaces and got out of my car. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a minute, letting the sun warm my face. When I opened my eyes, I scanned the small burial ground that I hadn’t visited since my mother died nearly fifteen years ago. fifteen years earlier. A few trees grew among the fifty or so headstones. Leaves piled up in one area, giving the otherwise flat ground some elevation. I walked over to the headstones the Dodge headstones [insertion of the surname “Dodge” okay? (an alternative could be “family”)—“the headstones” was vague, because in the preceding paragraph was this: “A few trees grew among the fifty or so headstones.”] and stood in front of them. Each was made of gray granite, polished on the front and back but rough along the top edge. Tina’s was beginning to show some wear. The lines spelling out her name and vitals weren’t as sharp as they used to be. My parents’ headstones—James and Sandy Dodge—looked as fresh as the day they were carved. They died They’d died just six months apart from each other; separated in life, reunited for eternity.

Result
Click to go to the next sample in the series.

I wanted to detour through Brice Prairie. At County Highway Z, I dipped down into the bottomlands that had once been the swamps and backwaters of the Mississippi. After crossing the railroad tracks, I reached the thicket of subdivisions where the Oneota, Ho-Chunk, and other American Indians had once lived. Houses lined both sides of the road, built in an impressive range of styles: A-frames, Prairie style, 1950s ranch. They were bigger and fancier on the water side of the road, where many of the original ranch houses had been torn down and replaced with homes that thumbed their noses at the modesty of earlier generations. I drove on, past acres of restored prairie, a small park with a playground, and a Ho-Chunk Indian graveyard where victims of the 1918 influenza epidemic rest in peace. Farther down the road, I got to Ted’s road. There weren’t any cars behind me, so I stopped in the road and looked toward his house. Yellow police tape stretched across the driveway. Two cops stood guard. I drove on. A couple of minutes later, I pulled onto the shoulder and parked in front of the old farmhouse where my family had lived when I was a kid. It looked smaller than I remembered. I thought about knocking on the door and asking for a tour, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone at that moment. I drove on past another playground, past some fields where corn had just been harvested, and past a house with a sticker on the mailbox that read “Obama sucks.” And I’d thought I had trouble moving on. The Brice Prairie I was driving through was different from the Brice Prairie of my memory. It looked less like a community and more like a collection of subdivisions, each one an island unto itself. Maybe it had been that way when I was a kid, I wasn’t sure. I just knew that wasn’t how I remembered the place. A little farther down the road, I arrived at the small cemetery where my parents and sister were buried. I parked in one of the two gravel spaces and got out of my car. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a minute, letting the sun warm my face. When I opened my eyes, I scanned the small burial ground that I hadn’t visited since my mother died nearly fifteen years earlier. A few trees grew among the fifty or so headstones. Leaves piled up in one area, giving the otherwise flat ground some elevation. I walked over to the Dodge headstones and stood in front of them. Each was made of gray granite, polished on the front and back but rough along the top edge. Tina’s was beginning to show some wear. The lines spelling out her name and vitals weren’t as sharp as they used to be. My parents’ headstones—James and Sandy Dodge—looked as fresh as the day they were carved. They’d died just six months apart from each other; separated in life, reunited for eternity.