Copyediting sample 24:
First contact

When an author revises text from one draft to the next, occasionally he or she will commit an unintentional error (here the author apparently wanted to change an earlier draft’s “I remembered” to “I would remember” but neglected to change “remembered” to “remember”). These types of errors are easy to make, but it is naturally an editor’s job to find and correct them. In this particular case, though, I suggested a word more appropriate than “remember.” Also, I ensured that the author’s syntax properly conveyed contrast when that was clearly his intention.

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

Original
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My daughter tried to contact me in December. It was a shock to hear her voice on my answering machine. I hadn’t heard it in nineteen years. Inasmuch as she was nineteen years old, what I’m really trying to say is that I had never heard it. In a sense—a very general, abstract sense—I had been aware of her existence all along. It was only when dropping the child-support checks in the mail each month that I would remembered she was alive. And then, upon her eighteenth birthday, when this financial yoke was finally lifted from my neck, she faded from abstraction into sweet oblivion. I don’t often celebrate anything—least of all my birthday—but on the night my biological successor legally entered adulthood, I tried my hand at baking for the first time in my life with a tres leches cake. (Alas, in both structure and flavor, the cake was a disaster.)

Markup
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My daughter tried to contact me in December. It was a shock to hear her voice on my answering machine. I hadn’t heard it in nineteen years. Inasmuch as she was nineteen years old, what I’m really trying to say is that I had never heard it. In a sense—a very general, abstract sense—I had been aware of her existence all along. It was only However, it was only [revision okay? “However” is needed, to demonstrate that the “only” clause contrasts with the narrator’s being “aware of her existence all along”] when dropping the child-support checks child-support check [only one check “each month”] in the mail each month that I would remembered would acknowledge [“would acknowledge” rather than “would remember”; the remembering would have happened before dropping the check in the mail; the narrator’s writing the check would have been a demonstration of his remembering] she was that she was alive. And then, upon her eighteenth birthday, when this financial yoke was finally lifted from my neck, she faded from abstraction into sweet oblivion. I don’t often celebrate anything—least of all my birthday my own birthday—[insertion of “own” okay? (to contrast with “her eighteenth birthday”)] but on the night my biological successor legally entered adulthood, I tried my hand at baking for the first time in my life with a tres leches cake. (Alas, in both structure and flavor, the cake was a disaster.)

Result
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My daughter tried to contact me in December. It was a shock to hear her voice on my answering machine. I hadn’t heard it in nineteen years. Inasmuch as she was nineteen years old, what I’m really trying to say is that I had never heard it. In a sense—a very general, abstract sense—I had been aware of her existence all along. However, it was only when dropping the child-support check in the mail each month that I would acknowledge that she was alive. And then, upon her eighteenth birthday, when this financial yoke was finally lifted from my neck, she faded from abstraction into sweet oblivion. I don’t often celebrate anything—least of all my own birthday—but on the night my biological successor legally entered adulthood, I tried my hand at baking for the first time in my life with a tres leches cake. (Alas, in both structure and flavor, the cake was a disaster.)