The Very Real People Who Don’t Really Exist

Just the other day I was cced on an email sent by a proofreader to the writer of a serial.

“In this chapter I’m proofing, you mention a character named XYZ. Are you sure about the name?” the proofreader queried. “We don’t have it on our list.”

Yes, really. Our proofreaders actually keep a running list of the characters in every serial, and they check it religiously every time they proofread a new installment. Because as Mr. Refoel Pride, our chief proofreader, puts it, “If I’d make a Venn diagram depicting the skill sets that go into creating a serial, the skills of ‘being able to plot and write an entire serial’ and ‘being able to remember how to spell a character’s name consistently for 50 chapters’ would apparently not overlap.”

Spelling isn’t the only issue that benefits from a sharp-eyed proofreader. There are other kinds of inconsistencies too: the character on a diet who is indulging in a carb-heavy meal. The cherished einekel of Holocaust survivors who is way too young to have had a grandmother alive in 1939. The travel route that takes too many or too few hours, or the direct flight on an airline that always does stopovers.