I suspect, but I do not know for certain, that other writers do the same thing I do when working on copy edits, which is to say, they talk back at the copy editor. “How *dare* you remove my italics,” I say (out loud). (This is an important moment for this character. It *requires* italics.) “No,” I say out loud, “I don’t *want* an em-dash there.” (God knows if I did I’d have put one in. I am not afraid of em-dashes. Or semi-colons. Or colons. Or serial commas.) And…