Rhythm
Where the line rushes, stalls, or repeats a beat the paragraph already made.
Line editing is the pass over sentences once the book knows what it is. We tune rhythm, cut the explanation, and keep the voice you already have. This is not proofreading, and it is not a new plot.
Where the line rushes, stalls, or repeats a beat the paragraph already made.
The thought a reader has to read twice, named and rewritten so they do not.
The habits that sound like you, protected while the slack comes out.
Adjectives, hedges, and restatements that were doing the work of nerve.
The brief
Developmental editing asks whether the book holds together. Line editing starts after that answer is yes. We work the sentences: the ones that explain a scene the action already showed, the ones that sound like a press release in the middle of a kitchen, the ones that are correct and still dead.
You get the manuscript with the line worked, plus notes where a change was a judgment call. We do not impose a house voice. If a sentence is odd because the character is odd, it stays. If it is odd because the draft was tired, it goes.
How the pass runs
We hear the drag. The eye forgives a line the ear will not.
Repetition, explanation, and the sentence that arrives late to its own point.
We list what must not be smoothed: a syntax, a habit, a word you mean.
A chapter edited in full, so you can accept the temperature before we continue.
The same standard, page after page. Proofreading is a later pass.
Before you send the manuscript
No. Copy editing makes the manuscript consistent and correct: grammar, facts you can check, a style sheet. Line editing makes the sentences do their job. A book can be grammatically clean and still be dull. We will say which pass you actually need.
If the middle repeats the opening, a beautiful line edit will only polish the problem. We will read a sample and tell you if the structure has to move before the sentences are worth this much attention.
We will take out what is not style. Padding, explanation, and a sudden formal voice in a plain book are not style. The way you actually hear a sentence is. You approve that distinction on the sample.
You do. The edited file and the notes stay yours. We do not put our name on the jacket, and we do not reuse your pages as a sample that could be traced.
When you are ready
Those two pages tell us whether a line edit is the right pass. Call (833) 688-4166 or write [email protected].
The shelf
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