Traveling the Writer's Journey Together

Editing Services

Have you written . . . revised . . . workshopped . . . revised again . . . until you can no longer look at your manuscript? Take a breath; we can help. Whether your intention is to traditionally publish or self-publish, your opportunity for success increases greatly when you work with a professional editor. Around the Writer’s Table can support you with several types of editing services customized to your needs.

Types of Editing

Understanding the types and stages of editing is confusing! What?! There’s more than one kind of editing? Yes, and there isn’t common language about it either—even among editors! My advice: when you consider any editor, be certain you understand what services they offer and how they define them. Editors talk about developmental editing, content editing, substantive editing, line editing, copy editing! Aaawk! Then there’s also proofreading, which isn’t editing at all—but many people think proofreading is all there is to editing. Oh, if it were only so! To learn the truth, download this cool graphic, which illustrates the sequence, the differences, and the similarities among the stages of editing.

What We Do

Content Editing

Focuses on overall structure, organization, and purpose of your book. Making sure your intent is clear and consistent throughout the manuscript is vital to your book’s success. We assure the tone, style, and point-of-view in your manuscript are consistent and we check the organization and flow of the material for suitability to your genre and appropriateness for the intended reader. In fiction, we’ll also address character development and plot arc.

Line Editing

Focuses on writing style and language. We check for smooth transitions between chapters and scenes, consistent tone, point-of-view shifts, repetitive patterns in paragraph and sentence structure, bland language, repeated phrases, ambiguity, redundancy, digressions, clarity and sense, and appropriate word choice.

Copy Editing

Includes a check for any errors that may have been missed or introduced in the revisions you made based on the line edit. The manuscript is checked line-by-line, word-by-word for ambiguities, redundancies, digressions, and unnecessary or overused words. Typos, spelling and punctuation problems, and basic grammar issues are also identified.

Though we work in many genres, our special interests include literary fiction, Southern Gothic and other southern-themed fiction, women’s literature, middle-grade and young adult fiction, and the nonfiction genres of self-help, spiritual, memoir, and creative nonfiction. Around the Writer’s Table can provide you with a full-service editing package to prepare your manuscript for submission to an agent or publisher, or ready it for self-publishing.

For complete information about our services, email Gina@AroundTheWritersTable.com.