Copyediting sample 14:
How long ago?

In this mystery novel, I needed to keep track of each character’s vital statistics chapter by chapter. As you can see in the markup comment, it had been seventeen years, not eight years, since the death of Ruby’s son, Paul.

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Original
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“How long ago did Paul die?” Ruby didn’t answer right away. “It was eight years ago. Eight years. It’s hard to believe he’s been gone that long already.”

Markup
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“How long ago did Paul die?” Ruby didn’t answer right away. “It was eight years ago. Eight years. was seventeen years ago. Seventeen years. [In chapters 1, 2, and 9 we are told that Ruby is 85 in the narrative present. In chapter 8, Ruby said she got married at age 22 and she had Paul “right away” (maybe Ruby was 23). A couple of paragraphs from here, we learn that Paul was 45 when he died, so Ruby had to be 68 year old then, which would be 17 years, not 8 years, before the narrative present—which we must assume is July 2016, an election year (Andelfinger vs. Adler in the Democratic primary, the general election coming up in November). Paul must have died in 1999 at age 45, 17 years before the 2016 narrative present.] It’s hard to believe he’s been gone that long already.”

Result
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“How long ago did Paul die?” Ruby didn’t answer right away. “It was seventeen years ago. Seventeen years. It’s hard to believe he’s been gone that long already.”