Kate Hiester 

Freelance Editor

Services:

I offer multi-stage editing services for those preparing to have their manuscripts become publication-ready. While there is no industry standard for the number of editing stages each manuscript must go through, most editors will agree that a manuscript should go through four different editing phases (whether separated or combined into fewer editing rounds): developmental, substantive, copy editing, and proofreading. I have found that most of my authors are not thrilled with the idea of going through four rounds of editing, so I typically combine into two rounds: developmental and line editing.

Developmental (or content) editing analyzes a manuscript as a whole. I look at the big picture, considering whether or not the amount of dialogue is sufficient, the overall message of the story is clearly conveyed, if there is missing information that leaves the reader with questions, judge the integrity of a character by his actions compared with what we know of that character, and so on. 

Line editing is the meticulous work of going through a document's entire length sentence by sentence with a fine-toothed comb, checking for grammatical errors, inconsistencies, missing hyphens, and so on. At this stage, I focus on syntax and how to achieve optimum sentence fluency and readability.

Some grammar choices are subjective (such as deciding whether or not to use the Oxford comma), so I ensure the author stays consistent in his or her choices. If the author bounces between rules, I pick the rule I think is most closely aligned with the recommendations from the Chicago Manual of Style.

A first-round edit is typically a developmental edit. The manuscript will be returned to the author with a significant number of comments written in the margins of the story. After implementing as many of my suggested changes as he/she chooses to, the author can return for second-round edits (line edits) of the revised manuscript, and will receive this manuscript back with many more adjustments within the body and far fewer comments in the margins. I highly advise authors then get a professional proofread just before going to print.

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Although I have edited many different genres, my current focus is on Christian, historical fiction, and creative non-fiction. I accept manuscripts sent in Microsoft Word format (.doc or .docx) and use Track Changes so that all my suggestions are clearly visible and easy to navigate through.

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