For all my services, I must work from a completed manuscript–and it shouldn’t be your first draft. See 10 Things Your Freelance Editor Might Not Tell You–But Should.
With a basic structural edit, a line edit, or a copy edit, I point out obstacles that can tug your readers out of your story and send them swimming back to reality.
Basic structural edit
Tell-tale ripples on the surface of your story indicate obstacles that will keep readers from taking your bait. A basic structural edit points out
- Confusing or inadequate plot development
- Imbalance between back story and plot, between dialogue and narrative, between secondary/extraneous detail and plot-enhancing detail
- Inadequate, conflicting, or unclear character motivation and development
- Ineffective point-of-view strategy
Line edit PLUS coaching
Serious dangers lurk in the depths. A line edit provides
- Analysis of plot chronology (especially important for multiple or complex story lines and for mysteries)
- Suggestions for moving or recasting sentences/paragraphs/sections to improve clarity and flow
- Analysis of the following elements
- Words (provide more specific or vivid ones)
- Phrases (look at whether they are necessary, whether they are clear, whether they work at their location in the sentence or should be moved to improve clarity)
- Sentence structure (analyze and refine sentence length and variety to improve readability).
- Correction of sequencing errors in sentences/paragraphs.
I ALSO COACH YOU on fiction techniques that heighten your readers’ involvement in your story.
I point out
- Holes/inconsistencies/impossibilities in overall narrative, individual scenes, plot, and characterization
- Inconsistent or incomplete character development and/or action
- Inconsistent or incomplete plot development
- POV (point of view) errors
- Inconsistent POV (failure to adhere to one POV choice: first-person, third-person, omniscient)
- Head-hopping (failure to identify one character per scene/chapter through whose eyes the action unfolds)
- Character filtering (a form of author intrusion that distances readers from the immediacy of the story)
- Insufficient or missing motivation for actions and dialogue
- Related issue: missing or reversed cause and/or effect
- Ineffective pacing
- Telling, where showing is indicated, and vice versa
- Large sections of unnecessary or excessive information—info dumps
- Improper use of flashbacks
- Missing/unclear motivation for speech/action
Bonus services
I provide four hours of consultation to you via email following completion of the edit. This service provides time for us to discuss the edit.
Copy edit
Remaining crags and snags can tear your readers off the hook and away from your story. A copy edit addresses items like the following:
- Grammar, word choice, spelling, punctuation.
Resources used: Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction, Chicago Manual of Style, Garner’s English Usage, and Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. - Dialogue structure
- Consistency of spelling choices (t-shirt, tee-shirt, T-shirt)
- Terms/spelling for actual people/streets/organizations, etc.
- Consistency of spelling for places, characters, and fictional terms (especially important in fantasy fiction)
- Consistent description of character/setting
- Humdrum verbs, descriptions, etc.
- Missing/unclear cues needed to clarify
- Motivation for speech/action
- Character movement
- Location of the action
- Change in or passage of time
- Relative location/movement of characters in a scene
Bonus services
I provide four hours of consultation to you via email following completion of the edit. This service provides time for us to discuss the edit.
Branam Creative Services 