You might think a book is finished when the final manuscript goes to the editor, but a lot of back and forth still remains. The editor marks up the manuscript with suggestions that the author might or might not take–this is usually done digitally, via “track changes” in Word. Then, the manuscript is sent to copyediting and about a month later, back it comes hard-copy, in an old fashioned manila envelope with the almost paralyzing message that “This will be your only opportunity to review the typeset material, so be sure that all the changes you want to make are included.”
It was at this point (happily, not later) that I discovered an anachronism in the first chapter: a character dials a telephone. It’s not that this couldn’t have happened–rotary dials were in wide use by 1926 when the scene takes place, but the story is set in small town New England and a friend who lives in such a town informed me that back then, phones didn’t need dials because whenever you picked up a receiver, an operator was there to ask “which number?” Phone numbers were easy to remember because they were only one digit or two. If the person you were looking for wasn’t at the number, the operator would try other numbers until he or she could be found. My friend’s aunt had been a frequent recipient of these operator inquiries “because she always knew where everyone was.”
Seeing this vintage phone while visiting the old-timey Union Store in Dorset, Vermont reminded me of the change I was able to make, and how lucky I am to have friends who read manuscripts. Note next to the phone, an ink spot–another artifact from the past.
