The priority is to provide you with timely, thorough and encouraging feedback on your work. The approach is focused on courteous, constructive critique to make your personal style as strong as it can be to deliver the story you’re burning to tell.
In practice, what this means is:
- No editing on the basis of writing fads. For example, if you have a love of adverbs, then this will be respected. They would be highlighted as an issue if and where they become conspicuous, redundant, or intrusive, but they would not be stripped out on principle. Likewise, if you choose to write omnisciently rather than in deep 3rd person POV, there are plenty of reference materials on offer to help you get the most out of this narrative style.
- You will be told what you’re doing right as well as what needs further work. Positive feedback is just as important to the editing process as the focus on work yet to be done. You can’t replicate your strongest writing if you’re not told where your best writing occurs.
- Options will be offered where problems are found. The aim is to help you find your best solution to plot holes or inconsistencies.
What services are on offer?
All line edits and proofs are carried out in Microsoft Word, using the tracked changes tool. We are happy to save copies in Open Document Formats for writers who choose to use other programs, like Libre Office.
Let us know whether you want your proof or edit in US, AU/NZ or UK English. Total honesty time: I am still working on getting to grips with Canadian spelling and dialect variations. Watch this space.
Proofreading
By this point, all your editing should be done. This process is just to zap any last straggling mistakes that have survived all your drafts and made it to the finish line.
This is a final polish to catch things like:
- formatting glitches
- typos
- spelling or punctuation mistakes
- missing words
- missing or reversed quote marks
- consistency in format, numbering, times, and dates
- consistency in the author’s punctuation choices (using n-dashes or m-dashes for tangents, for example)
Line-editing service
The line-editing service is ideal for you if you are comfortable with the shape of your novel, and you’re committed to your characters’ reactions as the events of your novel unfold. You’re not looking for any more structural or high-level commentary on your story. You simply want to polish your delivery.
Our line-editing service combines two functions. We address the prose itself:
- grammar and punctuation
- paragraphing conventions (particularly where dialogue is concerned)
- word choice
- succinctness
- repeated words in close proximity
- other repetitions and redundancies
- sentence structure variation
There will also be annotation comments on the following:
- consistency issues (red scarf on page 22, green scarf on 24)
- excessive recap of information already revealed to the reader
- over-long (or abrupt) scenes
- dialogue voice, pacing and realism
- pacing and flow (looking particularly at disproportionate detail)
- successful delivery of foreshadows and/or red herrings
With your line edit, you also receive:
- A ‘clean’ copy of the edited document, which shows you how the MS looks if all the tracked changes are accepted.
- The chapter summary, which sets out key events.
Your clean copy doesn’t commit you to anything. Think of it as a cross-referencing document to make it easier to see the result of the tracked changes. Most clients find it helpful to use their clean copy as the template for their final draft before proofing.
The Editorial Assessment (Developmental Edit)
The editorial assessment is a critique document that covers the broader facets of your manuscript. These include:
- Plot
- Character
- Pacing and flow
- Perspective management
- Plausibility and suspension of disbelief
- Dialogue: format and content
- Recurring issues of grammar or punctuation
Where problems are identified, explanations will be provided as to why an adjustment might be called for and a choice of solutions suggested. We may provide appendices with examples of how particular writing issues can be addressed so that you have a concrete frame of reference.
This document can be anywhere between 20 and 70 pages, depending upon the number of issues we’ve addressed, and how many samples from your original document we’ve copied across for demonstration purposes.
You will also receive a copy of your manuscript with annotations picking out the great lines as well as comments which pinpoint specific issues raised in the critique.
Feel free to email if you would like to discuss a critiquing service at a gentler level of detail (such as alpha or beta reading) at a lower cost.
The Full Bundle
With the full bundle, you receive:
- The editorial assessment and annotated manuscript first
- And then you return for the line edit based on that advice
There is a degree of flexibility with this package. If you prefer, you can bundle a developmental edit with a final proofread. Or we can make an arrangement to follow a line edit with a discounted proofing service.
Cultural Edit
This is for non-British writers who have British characters or settings. While enjoying your story, we’ll use the annotation feature to show you if and here your Anglicisation has gone a bit awry. We’ll help you to be authentic. Here are some examples of where it can all go wrong:
- Settings and environment (road layout; topography; housing)
- Brands (Vauxhall rather than Opus; Walkers crisps, not Lays chips)
- Demography (suggested car makes and models appropriate to income)
- Legal and social culture (driving on the left-hand side of the road; legal drinking age, National Insurance numbers instead of SSNs, etc)
- Dialect, accent and slang (yes, I deliberately omitted the Oxford comma right there!)
The cultural edit will not include proofing or copyediting. We will also comment on parts of your story which we particularly enjoy (positive feedback is good for the soul!) but we’re purely looking to keep your manuscript authentic. Charges vary depending upon the length of the manuscript and how quickly you want it culturally proofed. Feel free to email us for details.
Contact us to discuss services or samples: