Deb, I'd offer hugs but it sounds like you need brass-knuckle backup instead. I've heard horror stories like this before, often enough that I fear for my manuscripts if and when they get sold.

Seriously, this is a freelancer picked from a pool of copy editors. Even Ruth says it looks as though I got a crappy one. She doesn't pick the copy editor in pre-production editing; the production department does that, so it's totally luck of the draw.

How do you get that job? I can poorly copyedit as well as the next guy!

David, what's scary is that I've come across far worse editors than this person. And I have my publisher behind me. Nothing will get changed unless I ok it, but crikey, can we stress me any more than we've done already?

How do you get that job? I can poorly copyedit as well as the next guy!

Bwah!

How annoying and presumptuous. Admittedly I know very little about copyeditors, but isn't it bizarre to bring something like that up after something has been accepted for publication?

David, what's scary is that I've come across far worse editors than this person.

That is scary.

I recall a story about a midlist horror writer whose ms was actually rewritten by a copy editor, to the extent that he couldn't fix it in the galleys. He was no longer midlist after that. The novel tanked and he hasn't been able to make a novel sale since.

How annoying and presumptuous. Admittedly I know very little about copyeditors, but isn't it bizarre to bring something like that up after something has been accepted for publication?

Well, I'm a copy editor for a newspaper, and Lord knows I've said some nasty things about some of what comes across my desk--including the senior journalist who misspelled "Worcester" in a story--but yeah, there's a big diff between a finished novel and newspaper copy. Still, all editors are opinionated. It's kind of in the evil contract job description.

Susan, this is the faceless nameless writer wanna-be who is responsible for checking for typos, stylstic glitches, spellings (oh, we've had the jolly little war over that) and whatnot, before it goes to galleys. I think I posted Ruth's story to me about the so-called expert on China, who didn't know who Sun Yat Sen was?

To be fair, this one made a couple of good catches; I accidentally dropped a crucial word while I was restructuring a sentence, for example, and since the word was "after", it made it look as though I thought Waterloo took place in 1816. So, useful for catches of that sort.

Questions about the writer's (or, more to the point, the characters') take on historical interests, for example, is NOT within the purview, and I rather pointedly suggested that if they felt they wanted a character who thought differently, they might consider creating their own, because these were mine and that's the way it is, period.

Victor, I edit rather a lot as well for other people, but I don't stick my own views into someone else's character's brain.

That just truly pisses me off.

Susan, this is the faceless nameless writer wanna-be who is responsible for checking for typos, stylstic glitches, spellings (oh, we've had the jolly little war over that) and whatnot, before it goes to galleys.

That's what I thought the job was. It sounds like this guy is making comments of the sort that are appropriate in a critique group, even if one disagrees with them and chooses to ignore them, but not at this late stage.

I mean, there's a guy in my critique group who thinks he knows everything about the 19th century, and complains every time a male character treats my heroine like the intelligent person she is--e.g. the hero discussing business or estate management with her, or a solicitous servant backing off when she assures him she doesn't need any assistance. All I can say is his idea of proper 1810 male and female behavior would make for a hella boring story. So, I politely ignore his advice. But if I drew a copyeditor with his opinions and the gall to edit my story to match them, I WOULD go medieval on his sorry arse.