Editing Services
The words The End deserve cookies. Well, pretty much everything deserves cookies. But there’s still work to be done. What type of editing services do you need? Are you on your first draft, had a prior edit, or not sure what’s next?
If your manuscript has story, plot, and character issues, a developmental edit is a good next step. If that part is over and done with, you are ready for a line edit or copyedit.
Specialties: Mysteries, Urban Fantasy, Romances, Paranormal.
References: MW Collegiate, Oxford, Chicago Manual of Style; US, UK, and AU Fiction.
Member: Editorial Freelancers Association
Have a seat while I get the tea and goodies. Then we’ll work together on getting your story ready for your fans.
Developmental Editing
Next Step
You’ve had a beta read from a trusted friend, but there are still some plot and character problems. Your draft is ready for a DE. During the Developmental Editing stage, we’ll work on some necessary structure and content issues. After the analysis and commentary, you’ll have some revisions to make and sections to tighten and clarify. We’ll work together, so expect emails back and forth as we cover Strengths and weaknesses, Plot, Character, Dialogue, Reader’s experience, Goals and obstacles, Setting, Narration, Pacing. This is the heavy stage where we really dig into the story on various levels. There will be comments and marks all over the pages in lots of great colors, a lengthy editorial report, and helpful links and resources to assist with revisions. As there will be rewrites after this stage, I will not focus on grammar, punctuation, or sentence structure items that normally fall under line edits.
If you are ready to dive into your story or if you have questions about the process, drop me an email and let’s chat.
Plot and Character
Here are your PASTO ingredients to a good plot: Preparation, Attack, Struggle, Turn, Outcome. Are you off to a good start?
Preparation: The reader wants to know time period, genre, and location right away. Main characters are introduced here, and the reader learns why this story is happening at this particular moment in time.
The report will cover each step of PASTO with suggestions to strengthen the elements.
What do we find out about the characters? Are you just telling us? Walking in front of a mirror and describing the look? Let’s sprinkle description throughout. Show us if she is angry. Show us if that remark bothered the protagonist. Did her hand shake as she brushed away her auburn strand of hair? Does she have habits that give us insight into her thoughts and history? How well do you know your darlings? Invite your protagonist and your antagonist over for tea and cookies and ask them a few questions. On separate days though. There could be murder. Interview questions provided at time of booking your DE.
Dialogue
Do all your characters sound the same? Can you hide the names and figure out who is saying each line? I always suggest giving a few pages to your beta reader and hiding the names. Then see if she can figure out who said what based on speech pattern, accents, word choice, sentence rhythm, and style.
Examples of dialogue variety:
- “I presume her dissatisfaction was directly related to my lack of transparency.”
- “I assumed she was mad because I hadn’t been honest.”
- “She was probably just pissed off at me for lying.”
Theme, Melody, Setting
What is the underlying theme of your story? You want a pretty big deal here. Murder is good. Revenge. Redemption, Survival, Forgiveness, etc.
There are so many ways you can bring melody to your story. Not just background music such as night sirens, dogs barking, church bells in the distance, and kids’ toys in the game room. You can add musicality to your story through the rhythm of dialogue. Does a character speak with a Cockney accent or a Louisiana drawl? Essentially, the point of melody is to distinguish your character’s voices. I will help you refine each character’s voice so that your reader will be able to differentiate between the characters’ speech patterns. Whether the speaker is rushed and hurried or laid-back, creating a variety of melody adds flow to your story and makes for a much more interesting and engaging read.
How rich are your surroundings? Do we get a sense of spookiness? Calm and cozy? Is your story sprinkled with visions of silver, steel, chrome, and contemporary clean lines? Or do your characters live among rich textures, soft colors, and cluttered living spaces? What do we see when we read your story?
Narration, Pacing, Style
Narration, balancing narration with dialogue and white space, world-building, backstory, exposition, chapter endings, scene hooks, and more.
Q:
My editor has several margin comments about “stage directions.” I’m not writing a play, it’s a novel. What does she mean by too many stage directions?
A:
Your lovely editor is merely pointing out that showing a reader precisely how a character gets from one point to the next is perhaps not needed. When your main character gets home, how long does it take her to get from the car to the house?
Hopefully not long. Consider this:
Nessie turned off the car, unlocked the door, stepped out onto the hot sidewalk, closed the door, slung her purse over her shoulder, walked to the house, reached into her purse, got out her keys, put the keys into the lock, opened the door, went inside, closed the door, and sighed with exhaustion.
How about something like this instead?
Nessie arrived late and sighed with exhaustion as she stepped inside the stuffy house.
Sure, it’s important if a character encounters a necessary plot element when arriving home, such as fear that the door was already open or if she walked right by the murder weapon lying along the flowered path. But every step to getting inside the house or to another location is not necessary. Trust your readers to know she has to get out of the car first before going into the house. The reader will fill in those blanks, which will allow focus on that emotional moment of arriving in the house. And hopefully not encounter a lingering stalker who is looking for a knife.
Now put down your mouse, go to your kitchen, get out a pretty teacup, select a tea bag, add hot water, steep, add soy vanilla creamer, take said cup to comfy chair, reach for the top book on the TBR pile, open the book with a sigh, and read for the rest of the day.
Q:
I love excessive alliteration, okay maybe just a healthy dose of alliteration. Sometimes I’m not even aware I’ve done it until I see all the highlighted words from my editor. But why is it frowned upon in my fiction?
A:
While some alliteration here and there is perfectly acceptable, repetitive instances will take the reader out of the story and point to the possibility of potential pauses in the plot and prohibit a protagonist from pushing the point or progressing the preparation of parables or puzzling problems of persons presented. But two or three similar sounds in sequence is fine. So keep writing!
Line Editing, Copyediting
Line edit? Copyedit?
The developmental edit went well and you’ve gone over the monstrous editorial report. It’s time to step away again and hand it over for line editing. Returning authors will receive a complimentary formatted e-book file. A line edit will fine tune those paragraphs with word choice, sentence structure, dialogue issues, repetition, clarity, transitions, grammar, and punctuation. A copyedit will focus on the mechanics and rules from the Chicago Manual of Style and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Proofreading is an additional editing service and one of your final steps before hitting the Publish button.
The Chicago Manual of Style has so many delightful rules. I’m here to use them and my handy broom to sweep through your manuscript and fix errors in punctuation, spelling, sentence phrasing, dangling things, hyphens, em dashes, and verb tense agreement. And so much more!
Sentences, Structure, Consistency
Are the sentences in your paragraphs all the same length, or do you have variety for pacing and rhythm? I’ll look for construction variety and paragraph breaks.
Does Becky Sue have green eyes in chapter one but somehow has blue eyes in chapter four? Did your murderer use a jade knife, but the detective found the ivory-handled blade in a later chapter? Did Becky Sue have her back to the door while waving goodbye but somehow reached forward to turn the knob? Was your main character born in Akron but later on tells everyone it’s Arkon?
Copyediting: Punctuation, Spelling, Compounds, Hyphens, Grammar
Magazines, titles, songs, books, newspapers. I’ll make sure your Movie Titles are italicized and “Song Titles” are in quotes.
I’ll go through and correct hyphens for prefixes such as mid and self. Then I’ll check your en and em dashes to make sure they are properly placed. We’ll also have fun with half-hearted and lighthearted and coffeepot and coffee maker.
Other fixes: commas, smart vs. curly quotes, question marks placement, ellipses usage, em vs. en dashes, hyphens, digit vs. spelled numbers, speech tags, percent usage, spaces and tabs, etc.
Do you have wear when it should be where? I’ll also look for the times when the same word each time is used too many times in the same paragraph all the time.
We know that spell-check doesn’t catch everything. I’ll find when hi should be his or the is supposed to be they. I’ll make sure your past tenses are in the past, subjects and verbs happily agree, and adverbs and adjectives are properly connected.
Proofreading
Proofreading is your final step before hitting the Publish button. A proofreader will look for different things than a line editor. Here is what I’ll look for:
Spelling, punctuation, italics, overall visual layout, chapter numbering, margins, paragraphing, and removing extra spaces, tabs, and indents.
Pricing
My fee for editing services is based on the number of errors found. Expect a range from .006 to .015 per word for copyediting and .015 to .2 for line editing. The fewer corrections needed, the lower the quote. Send me three chapters, and I’ll look them over with a sample edit and provide a quote based on the number of corrections found. If the quote is not quite in your budget, I can offer a few ideas for you to work on that will lower a second sample quote, and we can go from there.
Business Stuff
After you’ve reviewed the tracked changes in the sample and you love them, I’ll send along a letter for us both to sign that details the project and our expectations. Once that business is complete, I’ll settle in with your manuscript and do what I love: guide your story to the best it can be.
Contact Me
Ready? The tea and coffee are brewed and cookies are in the oven. Send along your manuscript via the contact form and settle in the parlor with a good book. I’ll be right back with the sample quote and information on getting started with your masterpiece!