My Approach To Editing
As your editor, my primary job is to act as advocate for your future readers, ensuring they receive the clearest, most concise, complete, and smooth-flowing story possible. Your story. At its finest. I want your words, your ideas, and your voice to shine. My contributions must be invisible.
That means I will be as light-handed as possible. I will not make changes based on whim or personal preferences. Every edit will have one purpose: to make your story stronger. I will explain my reasoning behind any revisions I do suggest.
All edits will be tracked, and you will be free to accept or reject them. I will not make any changes that you are unaware of except minor formatting corrections (deleting extra spaces, fixing line breaks or margins, etc.). However, some of my clients prefer that I also make minor punctuation corrections without tracking to lessen the number of items they need to look through later. That is your choice.
I use the Chicago Manal of Style as my guidebook. However, these “rules” are only a starting place. Sometimes writers have very good reasons for breaking them. Fiction lends itself to a casual tone and allows for this kind of freedom, and your preferences matter. Consistency across a book is more important than absolute compliance with any set of rules.
Lastly, you will always have the final say over every particular of the editing process. This is your story. Let’s get started and make it sparkle!