A Short Guide to Editing Fantasy

by Amanda Clarke

Fantasy fiction is known for its ability to transport readers to far-off lands and imagined worlds full of magic, unusual creatures, and lands that defy the rules of our world. Anything goes, limited only by the author’s imagination. A big part of the genre is world building, to the point that in some fantasy novels, the narrative takes a backseat to creating a new reality.

As a result, editing fantasy comes with its own special quirks. Because you’re editing in a world with its own set of rules, a big part of your job as an editor is to help the author create something that is believable and easy to understand for the reader, regardless of the type of editing you are doing. A style sheet is your best friend, much more than when editing other genres. Even at the developmental level, there are many things that need to be tracked. Most fantasy manuscripts will require keeping track of world building rules, including societal, physical, and magical, usually done with some combination of maps, detailed setting descriptions, family and political trees, evolutionary charts, and species lists.

While the author is the one who lays the groundwork, part of the editor’s job is to make sure that the narrative follows the rules of the world the author has created and that these are clear to the reader. A developmental editor works with the author to solidify these rules so the reader can immerse themselves in the story. For copy editors, it is important to understand the world they are editing in to help them make stylistic decisions at the sentence level that further support the developmental work.

While the details of the special considerations in a developmental fantasy edit are beyond the scope of a short blog post, here are some of the important things to keep in mind when copy editing fantasy.

Names: People and places

This is the place where most typos creep into fantasy writing, especially in high or epic fantasy where it is common for names to have lots of apostrophes and awkward consonant construction. Slowly go over every name to make absolutely sure it is spelled correctly. If the spell check is turned on, I like to have the software ignore the names that are spelled correctly. This doesn’t negate the need to carefully check each name, but it does help flag any names that either haven’t been checked yet or that are misspelled. This is where a style sheet is your best friend. Write down every name and take special care when doing so. Take a full 30 seconds to a minute to make sure that you have spelled it correctly and triple check.

It is not uncommon for members of a family or group to have names that are very similar to one another to signal their connection. The difference between Sh’an and Sh’en will matter, so make sure they haven’t been mixed up. This is where brief character profiles can come in handy. I recommend always listing a few important characteristics beside each name on the style sheet, such as physical characteristics and relationships, to help keep track, especially if there is a large cast of characters.

Specialized terms

Like with names, fantasy novels tend to have a lot of unique terminology that helps build the world. These come in three general categories: repurposed, invented, and constructed (conlangs).

Repurposed terms take existing words and give them a new meaning. These are most often verbs used to describe magical actions that don’t exist in the real world, or adjectives used to create slang, like the use of bubbly in Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series to mean a state of clarity and hyperawareness. Push is common, usually used to refer to some kind of mind control. Jump is also common, usually referring to some kind of teleportation. With repurposed terms, the goal is to make sure the reader is clear on what the meaning is and that the terms are being used in the correct place.

Invented terms come from the author’s imagination. These are usually nouns or verbs but can also be adjectives. They are used for things that don’t exist in our world, like cultures, professions, species of plants or animals, and settings. (For example, orogenes are people who can control energy, mainly earthquakes, in N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth trilogy.) They can also represent things, abilities, actions, feelings, or emotions (think of the spells in the Harry Potter series). It is important that the definitions of these terms are clear in the text. They are often placed in italics, treating them like non-English words. Copy editors can help make sure that these words are clear by helping with the phrasing and positioning of the words within a sentence. While including a glossary can be helpful, if the writing is good, one shouldn’t be necessary.

Conlangs (“an invented language intended for human communication that has planned and cohesive phonological, grammatical, and syntactical systems”) are the most complex and involved way of creating new terminology. Like invented terms, conlangs are something completely new. However, instead of just focusing on a few terms, they build entire languages, complete with their own grammatical rules. (For example, Elvish from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings or The Speech from Diane Duane’s Young Wizards series, best seen in the companion book, The Book of Night with Moon.)

Fully developed conlangs are more common in film and television (like Klingon from Star Trek) than in written fiction, but when they are present they pose a unique challenge for editors. If the conlang is a big part of the manuscript, then ask for any supporting documents the author created when developing the language. Be extra careful with conlangs since every word will need to be triple checked for spelling and grammatical construction. Where conlangs are heavily used, I recommend doing two passes in every case: one for meaning and a second for spelling and grammar.

For all specialized terminology, part of the copy editor’s job is to help the author with clarity and styling. Many authors choose to capitalize or italicize these specialized terms to make them distinct. Sometimes this works and sometimes it’s distracting. Include all specialized terms on the style sheet.

World building

Consistency and accuracy are both part of a copy edit, and when editing fantasy manuscripts, that includes consistency within the world building at the sentence level. It is very common for incorrect details to slip through as all the big picture things are being addressed. It is common for the rules to change as the author makes their revisions, especially when it comes to smaller details. Your style sheet should have a detailed section on any rules of the fantasy world that differ from our reality, including character abilities, species, magic, settings, political-societal structures, and vocabulary/slang. Anything that doesn’t fit into these rules (unless there is a clear story reason for something not to) should be queried or changed to fit. These small details are an important part of the reader not only engaging in the fantasy but also for them to understand the world. Every little piece is integral to creating an immersive world.

Conclusion

When it comes to fantasy, part of the editor’s job at every stage is to help the author make sure their invented world rings true for the reader. This means keeping detailed supporting documents at every stage to make sure that the text follows the rules laid out by the author. Even something as simple as capitalizing a term helps to build the new reality while  deviations can weaken the illusion and make the reader’s experience less enjoyable.

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Amanda Clarke is a freelance editor specializing in science fiction and fantasy with the occasional dive into other genres and film festival ephemera. She spends most of her time consuming stories, on the page and on the screen. When not immersed in other worlds, she can usually be found at the rink.

This article was copy edited by Emily Faubert, owner of MLE Style Editing and PhD student at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information.