Writing.Com General Discussion

The internet has these people in abundance. Some are attached to publishing service websites and others have profiles at places like reedsy (at least I think that's how reedsy works).

An important part of the process is identifying what type of editing you need/want. I want to say there are three general and progressive types of editing: Developmental, line, and proofreading.

Back when i wrote my first novel-like document, i benefited from developmental editing in the crudest sense. "Bro, you need to tell a story here, not just have a mosh pit full of paper cut-outs." Now, developmental feedback is more specific to individual character arcs and enhancing the story's structure overall.

Line editing makes good the reading and voice characters n'stuff. If you've got a solid story, but dialogue is stiff/boring and the guy looked with his eyes and saw something no one else saw and locked eyes with someone else who got the idea .... Then line-editing helps. It's something a lot of us can do, but having an editor will make the prose *pop.*

Proofreading is (in my experience) fixing typoes. Copy-editing might fit in here, where I think, but am not sure, there is a heavier focus on grammar. Maybe it squeezes between line and proof.

Developmental editing usually costs a pretty penny. I want to ballpark it at $0.06 per word. For 100,000 words ... that's 6k. Copy or proofreading might be closer to $0.015 per word.

Anyone with a better handle on this, feel free to correct me. Just dropping what i seen and tasted.