Davis Proofreading

Been thinking a lot about what I wanted to write for this month. All months seem like they go by way to quick, but as I count how many months are left I just want to beg time to slow down. I have way too much stuff to do.

We found out we are having another girl! Very excited for my oldest to have a sister like I did. I know my kid is way to young for me to really worry about this but I had such a great relationship with my sister I sometimes worry about how my children will form their relationships and if they will even be friends when they are older. But that truly is a worry for another day.

Now for the big thing that I want to write about.

I really want to hit up the different types of editing there are for authors. (I am by no means an expert, this is just from what I have seen and experienced)

There’s the big four:

• Developmental
• Line
• Copy
• Proofreading

But if you look into all the types of editing you’ll see that there are ones like structural, content, or stylized editing. Depending on the type of story you are writing you would want to evaluate if your story needs to go through that many edits or not.

Three questions I think that need answered for editing are:

• Does the story make sense?
• Did I forget details?
• Is it grammatically sound?

The first two typically get answered in the Developmental Edit. They look at the story, at the tale that is being woven. Are there important details that you dropped halfway through and forgot about? Or do there need to be details added earlier? They will also challenge you, in a good way, to expand if there are better routes to meet the same end goal.

I had my story evaluated recently and it turned out my heroin really didn’t save the day like I thought she did. I thought I was making her super active in the story but after looking through it again I realized she was kind of a bump on a log and needed to do more. Even if you don’t go for an editor at this stage, definitely have a friend, who you trust, to go through your story and see if there’s anything off.

Line and Copy get more to the technical side of editing. Line will make sure that the sentences make sense and are conveying what they need to. This kind of editing will also help you get to your point faster. Copy is the heavy grammar check. Copy also gets blurred with Proofreading but Proofreading also has a focus on the format of the story.

Proofreading is the last check to make sure any mistakes are taken care of. Is punctuation correct, has everything been capitalized consistently, are the margins even, did we forget an end quote?

It can be very costly to get every single kind of editor if that’s the route you choose, but even one editor I think can make a difference in the life of your book. Plus if you get the right editor, they love to cheer you on and encourage you as you are going through your story. If you ask them they might even recommend it to others as well! Its also a way they can show off their craft. Its a win-win for everyone involved!

Hope this has given you some food for thought!