Every author, no matter how skilled or accomplished, maintains a particular emotional connection to their writing. The role of the editor is to offer a different, more impartial perspective, along with the technical experience and knowledge to bring out the best in your prose. Our expert editing services encompass proofreading, copy editing, and structural editing, each executed with precision and care. Whether it's refining grammar and syntax, enhancing clarity and coherence, or sculpting the very framework of your content, we ensure every word resonates and every idea shines. Trust us to elevate your work to its highest potential, leaving an indelible mark of professionalism and polish.
You’ve left it all on the page. Now what?
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Proofreading is our most basic service, typically a single-pass edit intended to catch any issues with your final draft. A proofread will:
• Provide a full, personalized grammar, spelling, and punctuation check
• Fix inconsistencies in capitalization and usage
• Point out errors in formatting or typography
• Apply advice from your chosen style guide (if applicable)
In short, our proofreading service is about ensuring your writing is technically perfect without changing its content or meaning. This makes it great for putting a final polish on your work.
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Copy editing, sometimes called line editing, is designed to address the content of your work, focusing on consistency, correctness, accuracy, clarity, and organization. Copy editing will:
• Correct more complex grammatical issues, including problems with sentence structure, tense, and voice
• Query issues of usage and the accuracy of information
• Develop or follow a style sheet, and apply a consistent editorial style
• Highlight issues of clarity in the text, and suggest improvements in word choice and tone
• Provide feedback and suggestions about style and content
Editorial advice is intended as constructive criticism, and your editor will be careful at all times to preserve your authorial voice and communicate edits clearly and respectfully.
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Maybe you’re just starting out with an idea, and need help finding a direction. Maybe you’ve completed a first draft, and your manuscript needs a major overhaul. Or maybe you need to take your masterpiece to a whole new level. Structural editing, sometimes called substantive or developmental editing, is the most in-depth of the services we offer.
In fiction, a structural edit will evaluate elements like point of view, character development, and plot. In nonfiction, the focus might be more on organization, the logical progression of ideas, and an appropriate narrative flow. Whatever your medium, a structural edit involves a deep professional relationship between editor and author that allows for a more extensive exchange of insights and improvements.
Brock Peters, an Editors Canada Certified Professional Editor (CPE), can help you polish your writing and get it ready for print. Our editing services range from basic proofreading to comprehensive stylistic editing.
Brock is a quadruple-certified editor. He is certified by Editors Canada in proofreading, copy editing, stylistic editing, and structural editing.
Why Do I Need an Editor for My Book?
I jot down the title of this post and already I can visualize groans and eye-rolls. Because I’m an editor - writing about why you need an editor. It’s like a mechanic writing about why you need a new transmission, or a plastic surgeon writing about why you need a nose job. Right?
Introducing Structure
I recently came across a thought-provoking article by Thomas C. Foster, which in reality was an excerpt from his brand-new book on writing. Foster is perhaps best known as the author of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, which I admit is lingering unread on my bookshelves somewhere. He’s prolific as both a teacher and author, and seems like as high an authority as you could hope to appeal to about writing.
The Question of Purpose
In among all the offers of SEO optimization, lucrative bank-transfer schemes, and actual emails from lovely clients that end up in my inbox, I’ve noticed the same question, or genre of question, cropping up recently. Though it could be chalked up to a certain amount of stir-craziness, especially in those of us who endure more polar climates, I think the question is an interesting one; not only that, it’s a question I had to figure out how to answer, not once, but a few different times for a few different people. The emails went like this: