FICTION
The flow of fiction editing.
Fiction editors can be working on a creative project from its birth to its submission to the printer. Each stage in a manuscript's development is accompanied by a particular kind of editing. For the new writer who just wants to have their book improved, the array of processes offered can be utterly confusing, as can working out what your manuscript needs. Part of my editorial service is to help you to get the right editing for your creative project.
THE MAIN STAGES IN PRODUCING A CREATIVE WORK
MENTORING
Mentoring is one-to-one help to get you to wherever you need to be with your writing. It might mean
regular meetings and strict deadlines or gentle, encouraging writing sessions to help you get your words down.
More details here.
DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING
This edit looks at your manuscript as a whole, paying attention to your story structure, plot and characters. I offer two types of developmental edit: a full developmental edit and a manuscript critique.
More details here.
LINE AND COPY-EDITING
This edit works on the details of your writing from commas
to making sure that your protagonist's blue eyes are not brown on page 64!
More details here.
PROOFREADING
This is the final check where those tiny errors that have slipped past the eyes at all the other levels of editing. It also looks at page layout. I do not offer this service, but can point you towards a professional who does.
THE IMPORTANCE OF GENRE
To give you the best service possible, I prefer to work in genres that I know. This is most important in developmental editing and to a lesser extent line- and copy-editing. I am happy to mentor outside the I work in.
The genres I specialise in are:
Women’s commercial or upmarket fiction
Romance
Book-club books
Historical fiction (in select time periods)
Narrative non-fiction
Memoir
WHAT NEXT?
For all the practical aspects, such as costs and timescales, and to be taken through the process of hiring me as a fiction editor, please see The Practicals.