Revise
Take your draft from “The best I can do” to “Better than I expected” with professional revision services. These are the things you usually talk about when you talk about editing.
Contents:
Ghost Revision
Book Doctoring
Developmental Editing
Line Editing
Copy Editing
Ghost Revision
Sometimes a book needs so much help that it’s almost like rewriting it. In a ghost revision, I open your MS next to a blank document and begin rewriting, taking as much as I can from your original draft and making judgment calls about the rest.
This produces a MS that most authors feel is better than they could have done on their own but still feels like their own work.
Book Doctoring
When your book needs more than a line edit but less than a complete revision, you’re looking at book doctoring. We begin with a developmental edit to assess the structure, logic, tone, plot, characters, etc. Once we agree on what the manuscript needs, I go off and make the necessary changes for you, pulling some stuff out and adding in some new stuff.
Developmental Editing
You have a manuscript, but is it a book, yet? That’s a developmental question. This edit takes a hard look at what you’ve written and assesses where you need to make large-scale changes such as improving the logic, reordering parts, and adding or removing material.
KEY TERMS
- Focus
- Purpose
- Audience
- Thesis + Argument
- Organization
- Support
- Transitions + Connectors
Line Editing
When everything that needs to be there is and nothing is that should not be, you’re ready for a line edit. Here we review every paragraph and sentence to be sure the language is clear, concise, and compelling.
KEY TERMS
- Syntax
- Diction
- Key sentence
- Paragraph
Copy Editing
Before you send your manuscript to an agent, publisher, or layout editor, you need to do a copy edit. This is a last sweep through your work with a fine-toothed comb to root out any remaining errors and infelicities. The hope is to not do much rewriting at this stage, but it’s still easier to revise now than in proofreading.
KEY TERMS
- Grammar
- Punctuation
- Usage
- Typos
- Style guide
- Consistency
Feature image by Rafael Garcin on Unsplash
Background images by Ussama Azam on Unsplash