Welcome to Seminal Edits. Offering professional copyediting, textual analysis and manuscript appraisal.
Professional copyediting for fiction and more...
What I do
What I work on
Common questions on copyediting
What is copyediting?
Very simply, copyediting is the refinement of the written word. A copy editor takes a text, be it fiction, academic or otherwise, and works through it with the goal of honing it into its sharpest form. The edit may follow various modes. It may be a very base operation addressing grammar, punctuation and spelling. Or, it may take a more in-depth approach, addressing syntax and even style. Whatever the process, a quality copyedit will always improve a text. And a text can always be improved upon.
Do I need copyediting?
In a word, yes. All written work, without exception, can use editing. As a writer and a self-published author of fiction, I am intimately familiar with the various stages of the writing, development and publication of a novel. The first time I read an edit of my own text was a shock and a revelation. Seeing your work through someone else’s eyes is frightening, devastating and marvellous all at once. I had no idea how rough my manuscript was in places, a manuscript that I’d thought was highly refined and polished.
What can professional copyediting do for me?
As I mentioned, it’s very difficult to have an unbiased critical opinion of your own work. The writing process takes one deep into a text on a variety of levels: theme, structure, plot, dialogue and characterisation are all things that the writer focuses on throughout the shaping of their work. What gets lost or overlooked are the basics. If writing is done from a place of creativity, then editing is done from a position of sober logic. That is not to say that editing will rip the beauty or the elegance from your words. All it will do is make sure that your narrative flow is not interrupted by the clumsiness that necessarily slips out during the creative process.
Speaking personally, working with a good editor did not only improve my work, it made me a better writer too. A copy editor is a pair of fresh eyes, shining a light into dusty corners that the writer cannot see.
