Copyediting sample 30:
Forty-plus years

An editor often needs to repair syntax, to prevent a momentary misreading that impedes reader comprehension. An editor also needs to be alert for an author’s occasional poor choice of words.

Note that the author preferred to italicize many words and phrases I would have left without italics; he insisted this was his stylistic choice, reminiscent of the works of authors Michel Houellebecq and Thomas Bernhard. Naturally, I deferred to his firm preferences.

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

Original
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At this remove, I didn’t feel any better for having met my daughter; frankly, I felt worse. I didn’t see any way for it to end. It is pretty superfluous to point out that after forty-plus years on this planet the only remaining conclusion for me, the only rational conclusion I’ve come to, is that suffering is the point of life. And yet to point this out again and again is a kind of comfort, a mantra which somehow helps to accept these dire circumstances or at least to cope with them. It is patently clear now that we were designed to suffer; that our creator, to speak in figurative terms, pieced us together with nothing in mind other than an acute sensitivity to all categories of pain. What are our emotions, after all, if not portals to realms of horror and derangement from which all of our neighbors in the animal kingdom are spared? We use whatever poorly crafted tools we have at hand in order to rise above this crepuscular world, and in some cases—rare cases, let’s say—we even leverage these weak and shoddy tools in order to improve the world itself. Which, on the evidence, has so far proven a lark.

Markup
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At this remove, I didn’t feel any better for having met my daughter; frankly, I felt worse. I didn’t see any way for it to end. It is pretty superfluous to point out that after forty-plus after my forty-plus years on this planet the planet, the only remaining conclusion for me, the only rational conclusion I’ve come to, is that suffering is the point of life. [My revision (insertion of “my”) is to repair a syntax problem: Narrator Gordon himself, not “the only remaining conclusion,” has spent “forty-plus years on this planet.”] And yet to point this out again and again is a kind of comfort, a mantra which somehow mantra that somehow helps to accept these dire circumstances or at least to cope with them. It is patently clear now that we were designed to suffer; that designed to suffer, that our creator, to creator—to speak in figurative terms, pieced terms—pieced us together with nothing in mind other than an acute sensitivity to all categories of pain. What are our emotions, after all, if not portals to realms of horror and derangement from which all of our neighbors in the animal kingdom are spared? We use whatever poorly crafted tools we have at hand in order to rise above this crepuscular world, [“crepuscular” (meaning “dim, like twilight” seems to be the wrong word here; I suggest “cruel” instead)] and in some cases—rare cases, let’s say—we even leverage these weak and shoddy tools in order to improve the world itself. Which, on the evidence, has so far proven a lark.

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

At this remove, I didn’t feel any better for having met my daughter; frankly, I felt worse. I didn’t see any way for it to end. It is pretty superfluous to point out that after my forty-plus years on this planet, the only remaining conclusion for me, the only rational conclusion I’ve come to, is that suffering is the point of life. And yet to point this out again and again is a kind of comfort, a mantra that somehow helps to accept these dire circumstances or at least to cope with them. It is patently clear now that we were designed to suffer, that our creator—to speak in figurative terms—pieced us together with nothing in mind other than an acute sensitivity to all categories of pain. What are our emotions, after all, if not portals to realms of horror and derangement from which all of our neighbors in the animal kingdom are spared? We use whatever poorly crafted tools we have at hand in order to rise above this cruel world, and in some cases—rare cases, let’s say—we even leverage these weak and shoddy tools in order to improve the world itself. Which, on the evidence, has so far proven a lark.