Copy Editing
Once you have a working draft—one where all the story elements are in the right place, the story is told from a consistent point-of-view, and the characters are consistent, distinct and believable, and you’re confident you won’t be adding new content or cutting much of the text—then you are ready to polish the writing with a Copy Edit.
A Copy Editor can help your writing to sing by giving you an outside eye and ear on how your prose reads and sounds. Some of the things they might help you identify are these:
making sure that the voices of characters are distinct and consistent and don’t all sound like the author.
unconscious patterns of repetition that most writers have—default words that or go-to images that we rely on in the flow of writing, but become noticeably repetitive to a reader.
sentence fluency—the variation of sentence length and complexity that creates cadence and keeps readers rolling through the text.
places where you are using more language than you need. “The bottle that had been painted with blue and white stripes” communicates the same thing as “the blue and white striped bottle,” but which is best for the flow of your story?
hitting a target word count that you are near, but can’t quite get down to (if you have a target word count).
major issues of formatting.
Although I am not a Proofreader, it might be helpful to understand the difference between Copy Editing and Proofreading. Once you have revised your manuscript based on the feedback from a Copy Edit, you might consult a Proofreader to find all of the typos and spelling errors and missed commas and formatting mistakes, just before you publish. A Copy Editor may correct some of these errors as they go, but it’s not the primary purpose of the revision. It’s often a good idea if your Copy Editor and Proofreader are not the same person, as it is harder to spot your own mistakes and habits.
Pricing:
Copy Editing : $150 CAD/10,000 words
Examples:
If your manuscript is up to 10,000 words, it would cost 100x1 = $150 CAD.
If between 10,001-20,000 words, 2x150 = $300 CAD
If between 60,001-70,000 words, 7x150 = $1050 CAD
The fee will be payable in three instalments via PayPal payment request. The first will be due when we agree on a booking, the second when you send me your manuscript, and the third before I send you the edited manuscript.
Booking:
To book, use the Get In Touch form in the footer to reach out.
If writing a book were like building a house …
… Copy Editing would be like consulting an Interior Designer, once the construction is complete. The Designer will advise you on how to bring cohesion to the house by making sure that the palette of colours all work together to create the desired feel for the house, and that the flooring connects the spaces of the house in a way that increases the feeling of flow. They will check that there is light in every space that illuminates the details without being garish or drawing attention to the wrong things. They may curate the available furniture, decoration and textiles to enhance the overall impression established by the home’s construction, and so that they work together to create a feeling in each room that everything fits, and that every room belongs to the whole.
I am not doing any Proofreading at this time, but in the interest of understanding the difference between a Copy Editor and a Proofreader, the building equivalent of a Proofreader wouldn’t offer much creative advice. They would check all the practical details, like making sure the doors are hinged on the correct side and open the right way, and that the dimmer switches are bright when the slider is up and off when it’s down. They’d check that the baseboards and moldings meet at 45° angles and match the trim at the door frames. That there aren’t any bath towels hanging in the kitchen or tea-towels on the bath rack.
These are finishing stages. When the Designer is done with your house, you are ready to move in. When you have revised your drafts with the suggestions of your Copy Editor and Proofreader, you are ready to publish.
