editing & critiquing services

In the fiction shed, it is understood that writing fiction is a difficult and often messy process, with many false starts and dead ends. How sometimes it feels as though your manuscript will never get there. That maybe there isn’t even a ‘there’ after all.

But the fiction shed is also a place where help is at hand - help in the form of the principles of good fiction which, like good tools, if applied correctly can enable your draft to find itself. Usually, this process isn’t about polishing a manuscript. This is about letting the thing buried in there to gleam through all by itself. Though I provide standard copy-editing and proofreading services to trade publishers and other organisations, I rarely end up providing these services to individuals who are trying to finish their manuscript with a view to sending it out to agents or publishers, or to self-publish. This is because in my experience, these manuscripts haven’t yet reached the point where they’re ready for such a service. They are usually in need of more substantive work, and so critiquing and/or a developmental edit is the best next step.

CRITIQUE AND DEVELOPMENTAL EDIT

This developmental editing / critiquing service is for novels or short story collections. It is an in-depth process, and includes:

  • detailed, in-depth and specific, page-by-page suggestions and comments throughout the relevant section of the
    manuscript, using Word’s track changes and Comments functions;

  • a c. 1,000-word report that identifies strengths of the ms. and that makes suggestions.

Due to the intensity of this process, a stage-by-stage approach is taken, whereby author and editor initially commit to the first 20/25% of the manuscript, depending on length. So the above process is undertaken for this first section of the manuscript, after which we have a face-to-face consultation (usually via Zoom), during which the author can ask questions or seek clarification.

What happens after that is up to the author. They can request a pause in the editing process, if following the feedback received they decide to return to the writing process themselves. Or they may choose to submit the next section of their manuscript to the same editorial process.

As an example, a ms. of c. 80,000 words might be critiqued it in stages of 20,000 words each, and the whole process might involve four consultations.

The author is charged on an incremental basis, for work already done, and with no obligation to continue beyond each stage of the process.

CRITIQUE ONLY

This service involves an in-depth critique of your manuscript, in which strengths are identified and suggestions are made regarding structure and plot, character and point of view, the treatment of time, as well as description and dialogue.

Please note that once I have conducted a critique or developmental edit of a manuscript, I never reread it following changes made by the author. Neither do I provide a critiquing service a second time to the same manuscript.

STANDARD COPY-EDITING & PROOFREADING

If you feel certain that your manuscript is almost finished, then you might want to consider my standard copy-editing and proofreading services. However, I will request to read the first few pages (usually the first chapter) before agreeing that these are the appropriate services for your manuscript and taking on the work.

Copy-editing and proofreading are two separate services.

Copy-editing includes:

  • ensuring accurate spelling and punctuation;

  • correcting errors in grammar and style;

  • identifying inconsistencies and querying or correcting as appropriate;

  • addressing ambiguities and repetition;

  • raising questions of factual accuracy and plausibility; and

  • improving clarity and tone.

These services are provided onscreen (using the Track Changes and Comments functions in MS Word) or in hard copy. 

Proofreading services really represents a final polish of the manuscript, and is usually carried out on a typeset (pdf) version of the manuscript - just before it goes to print. Services include:

  • correcting any remaining errors in spelling, punctuation and grammar;

  • querying obviously incorrect statements;

  • checking numbering of footnotes, endnotes, figures, tables, and pages;

  • checking the table of contents against chapter titles;

  • ensuring consistency of style regarding spelling, place names, etc.;

  • checking bad word breaks and column breaks; and

  • identifying erroneous font changes, misalignments and inappropriate line lengths, and suggesting corrected formats.