The Nuts and Bolts Edit

A Stage 2 copy-edit on your novel

A Nuts and Bolts Edit focuses on the clarity and consistency of your novel’s language. It’s a technical edit that smooths and corrects your text line by line, attending to punctuation, grammar, repetition and style.

In a nutshell: A professional makeover, delivered to the same high standards demanded by my publisher clients.

Not to be confused with: A proofread, which happens after a novel has been copy-edited and formatted.

Best for: A novel that’s had its big-picture issues resolved and is ready for a serious polish.

As part of the Stage 2 copy-edit I will:

• Correct spelling, punctuation, grammar and syntax.
• Make spellings, capitalisation, hyphenation and punctuation consistent throughout: for example, if the text has both ‘recognise’ and ‘recognize’ or ‘the Internet’ and ‘the internet’.
• Ensure that dialogue is styled and punctuated correctly.
• Highlight unintended inconsistencies in narrative voice, point of view and tenses.
• Highlight unintended anomalies: for example, if your main character’s best friend has green eyes in Chapter 1 but brown eyes in Chapter 17.
• Highlight obvious factual inaccuracies or timeline impossibilities: for example, if your villain drives from Edinburgh to London in an unfeasibly fast two and a half hours.
• Highlight obvious plot holes: for example, if a character makes a decision based on information they can’t possibly know yet.
• Highlight unintended stylistic tics: for example, perhaps you’ve used the adjective ‘scary’ three times in a single page, or perhaps your two principal characters both ‘crack a smile’ rather too frequently.
• Query phrasing that’s unclear, awkward, repetitive or clichéd.
• Apply a set of basic Word styles to chapter headings and subheadings, first and subsequent paragraphs, dialogue and chapter breaks.

What you’ll get: 

• A manuscript that’s been polished to a high professional standard so that its language is clear and elegant and a credit to your storytelling.
• An edited file in which all the copy-edits have been made visible, using Word’s Track Changes facility, so that you can ‘accept’ or ‘reject’ each edit in turn should you choose to do so.
• A set of Style Notes listing decisions on style conventions that have been applied consistently to the manuscript: for example, regarding hyphenation, or the use of italics or quotes for a character’s thoughts. These notes will be useful for your proofreader.
• A Word List detailing spellings that are particular to your novel: for example, character names, place names and dialect words. This list will also help your proofreader.
• A summary of basic Word styles applied to your manuscript ready for your formatter to interpret: for example, styles distinguishing between a main heading and a subheading. This list will be helpful when it comes to formatting your novel for publication.

Price: Between £15 and £25 per 1000 words, subject to manuscript sample and total word count.

Request a quote: Please contact me to tell me about your novel and request a quote.

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