Editing
Flow, tone, clarity
What’s the difference between editing and proofreading?
Editing is both a broader and a deeper process than proofreading. Proofreading just looks at the technical correctness of a piece of writing — spelling, punctuation, grammar and consistency of details. Editing covers everything from clarity to flow, style, tone, and suitability for the target audience.
Editing comes in two main forms, and you should have considered both of them before any stand-alone proofreading. In other words, someone (you, a friend, a beta reader or a professional) needs to go through all editorial stages, usually more than once.
Click for more about proofreading. For structural editing and line-editing, read on…
Structural editing: a ‘big picture’ assessment
Structural editing (also known as developmental editing) focuses on the order of events, the depth and pace of your writing, the relationship between sections and sub-sections, and overall suitability for the genre. If this is something you think you would like help with, it needs doing before any deep-dive into style or correctness, ie, before line editing or proofreading.
I offer a full structural assessment with chapter-by-chapter commentary. The assessment includes:
one complete read-through of your book (or other writing)
a detailed summary (eg, 2,000 - 3,000 words for a full-length novel) of what’s working well and what needs more work, with suggestions for how to resolve specific or recurring problems
advice for your next steps
This structural assessment does not usually involve making editorial changes directly to your text. I may make occasional margin comments if that’s the best way to explain a particular point. However, most of the commentary will be in the separate detailed summary. At this stage, any rewriting would be for you to do, as the decisions involve your overall vision for the plot or purpose of your book.
Fiction editing
Structural editing for fiction covers:
the overall flow of the story (including aims and development of plot)
narrative pace
character development & viewpoint
relevance and clarity of sub-plots
plot holes
Non-fiction editing
Structural editing for non-fiction focuses on:
effective structure of the whole work, sections and chapters
heading & subheading hierarchy
topic flow
content relevance
content depth and breadth
For up-to-date structural editing costs, please see my Prices page.
Line-editing: sentence-level detail
Line-editing operates at the level of paragraphs and sentences. It’s a more finely detailed process than structural editing, best if you are already happy with the overall structure of your writing. Line-editing is the most in-depth editorial service I offer; if you can only afford one round of professional input, this is likely to be of greatest benefit.
Line-editing follows the same principles for both fiction and non-fiction. I correct or flag up the following:
style & tone that suits your target audience
flow (paragraph structure, sentence structure, repetition, tautology etc)
whether facts are consistent & feasible
reading ease (including sentence length & vocabulary choice)
clarity
language accuracy (spelling, punctuation & grammar)
consistency of layout & spacing (including basic formatting if needed)
consistency of visual style (eg, treatment of headings, lists, dates)
A line-edit involves one pass through your complete text. There are often further changes needed after line-editing, so final proofreading is still recommended to pick up any small errors outstanding.
For up-to-date line-editing costs, please see my Prices page.
What is copy-editing?
I apologise on behalf of the editing world; despite our business being the use of words, we haven’t managed to agree on our own terminology!
Some editors use ‘copy-editing’ to mean something very similar to line-editing, above. Some say it mostly covers grammar fixes and other visible language errors (much like proofreading). Others specifically offer a process halfway between line editing and proofreading, covering bits of both, and call it copy-editing.
Because copy-editing means different things to different people, I don’t use the phrase. Everything it does is covered by ‘line-editing’. It may be that your work would benefit from more than one round of line-editing; any subsequent round is likely to be a quicker, lighter process. But I’d still call it ‘line-editing’!
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There’s a table comparing all my editorial services here. If you’re not sure what level of editing you need for your writing, you might like a sample edit. Or just ask me!