Why do I need an editor?

For businesses, click here.

For novels:

because it’s your story
you know what it’s supposed to say and reflect
you know how you want the reader to feel
you’ve lived with your characters for days, months – perhaps years. They’re family! You created them and know their likes, dislikes, their every emotion!
you see every setting right in front of you.

But, is that what the reader is getting? Or are you just read right through what it does say.

The only way to know is to have an independent, trustworthy, educated set of eyes read it and help you make it the best that it can be!

Ah yes, that would be an editor!

What does an editor do?

Let’s start with what we don’t do.

We won’t rewrite your document (business) or story (writer).

We will:

correct obvious errors and identify them by Tracking Changes in the Microsoft Word document
suggest changes to your document via Review Comments in Microsoft Word. Whether you choose to incorporate them or not is up to you
scan your pages for repeated words, multiple paragraphs that start with the same word, overused words and suggest replacement words.

For novels:

help you formulate your story, but we won’t write your story for you.
the name of your character fits the character you’ve described eg a character called Atlas should be big and strong (not puny and weak)!
character names are consistent eg Ralph remains Ralph and not turn into a Gerard half way through
dialogue fits the character and their background eg Daisy Mae from Texas has a Texan accent and doesn’t sound like a New Yorker
regional dialogue fits the location and the characters’ background eg use of mum in England but mom in USA
show don’t tell is used or suggested as much as possible ie eliminate adverbs
correctly punctuated dialogue.

An editor will ensure proper word useage and identify corrections where needed.