I know this is not, technically, a 'Translation Thread', but it is directly related to the translation of a novel, so I think it counts... Anyway, I am having to take on a full time (+overtime) job that will prohibit me from editing. It takes about an hour to edit a chapter (the TL's Primary Language is Chinese, not English [but it is still very readable and understandable. You will just need to help the chapter 'flow' more cleanly.] Note: You will get a 33% cut of Ads and Patreon.
Are any of you willing to do so for a while, or are you offering temporary help (which is awesome, but I am looking to leave FruitFly with a more permanent fixture to edit for him.)
I'm an editor for a self-publishing house so I can only help temporarily. Though it may be prolonged. We'll see.
Wow, glad to see some professional help being offered. And to think I was going to off my meager help...
You should clarify on how the editing is done. Do you get a chapter every day "x" amount of times a week and are expected to have it edited and sent back to the translator A.S.A.P? Does the translator have a small backlog of chapters that you edit and then send back to him for a couple of releases. As an example you give him enough edited chapters for the week and during that week you edit the chapters for the next week at a more leisurely pace and that pattern continues. If it is the former you will need someone who can respond short notice whenever a chapter is sent to them. You'll probably get fewer responses if this is how it works for your translator. If it is the latter the editor doesn't need to be available on such short notice and can take more time to edit in batches when they are free. With this way you'd get more responses as people could give you their time to edit when they are free instead of being rushed by a daily schedule. It wouldn't interfere with their day to day lives nearly as much.
can you give out a sample unedited paragraph?? perhaps it will motivate more editors to see what type of chapter they have to deal with
We are using Google Drive. He translates and posts chapters to an 'Unedited' folder. I then Edit them and move them to an 'Edited' folder. Currently, I post chapters and then move them to a 'Published' folder. (I presume the TL will take over posting once I leave) We are releasing at a rate of 7/week. (Once we reach a Patreon goal, we will move up to 8/week)
(Chinese is included so that you can ask TL more easily. (I delete the Chinese when I am done with the paragraph) 至于格力姆这个唯一的初级学徒，则直接被他们排挤在了寒暄交流之外，就仿佛他根本不存在似得。作为十人任务小队的成员，格力姆的出现无疑会拉低他们整体的实力，所以对于格力姆，他们能有好脸色才怪呢！ As for Greem, the only beginner apprentice within the group, was elbowed out from their interaction and greetings, as if he never existed. As one of the members of ten men mission team, no doubt Greem's existence would lower their overall strength. Thus, when facing with Greem, no one would show him a good face. 格力姆也无从解释自己出现在此地的因由与原委，只能默默的倾听，顺便开启芯片偷偷收集他们的基础情报。 And there was no way Greem could explain what caused him to be here. So, he just kept his mouth shut and listening to their conversation, while secretly ordered the Chip to gather basic intelligent about these people. 10名任务学徒是分别乘坐3艘飞行船抵达此地的。最早那几个甚至2天前就来了。因此在巫师塔厮混了几日后，对这里也相对熟悉了很多。因此就由他们简单讲述了这个任务点的具体情况。 All ten apprentices were brought here by three different flying ships. The earliest few of them had arrived two days ago. So, after spent a few days in this Adept Tower, they were rather familiar with this place. Hence, they were now briefly talking about the details of this mission site. Edit: I am going to bed because I haven't slept in 32 hours. I will reply in the morning.
Well i don't have enough English skills to do editing but if you want i can help you with proofreading
@VeggieFly i can help as long as needed....and can also work on short notice...pretty much anytime of the day. Pm me if u want my help.
So, as I have not yet made 10 posts, I can't start a 'conversation with'/message anyone. If you are still interested in getting involved, please start a conversation with me, or email me at VeggieFly at gmail dot com. (sorry, but I don't want to be rude and spam forums. -_-; ) Edit: I'm heading out to deal with some stuff today. I will be back later, so don't fret if I don't quickly respond to your messages.
I'm making a discord. For the next 2 weeks I will (normally) be active between the hours of 8/9pm-2am (CST-DST == UTC-5) ... Why is discord blocked? I'm trying to make it easy to collaborate with people, but I can't even post a discord link. -_-;
Hey, could you link me to an editor's test by any chance? or an editing test your company uses to filter applicants along with the answer edits? It's really hard to get the exact english formal rules, especially on all of the possible english sentence structures. Usually only compound and complex senteces are shown, and I believe its a lot more nuanced than that. Plus info from an editing house would be really amazing, as it means there is a very low possibility of it being incorrect. I can help and do some freebie edits. I'm not a professional, but I'm a programmer and learn really fast. I have a lot of the rules of english and editing systemized. I have also edited for some major fanfiction authors, and have heavily edited for a dual-lingual scottish author with shakey english. Just from studying the before and after Chapters I can easily pick up the same quality level of editing.
A copy-editor test? There's not much you'll learn from one of those. Publishing houses/editorial firms/newspapers use them for first-line filtering. The idea is to get rid of any glorified proofreaders and other novices that don't have the bare minimum grasp over the English language needed to train them. What you're looking for is a style manual. There's a bunch of them on the internet now, or you can buy a copy on Amazon. MLA and Chicago Manual of Style are the preferred ones for fiction and literature. Personally, I think MLA is the better style guide but I'm a bit biased on that front. Being a fiction editor is also significantly more nuanced beyond "rules of grammar" and all that noise. You need a solid foundation in narratology, structuralism, literature and writing. There's no system for doing that, per say. It's instinct and experience. Any good writer will routinely ignore the rules of grammar and style to create a unique work that highlights their voice and narrative. If you try and systemize the rules and apply them uniformly, you're not making the writing better at all. You're destroying the very thing that makes the text transcend technical writing to become a work of art.