Editing is often an overlooked and underrated process in the writing experience, but it's crucial.  With new editing apps and improvements to word processing software, it's very tempting to think your writing will be at a professional level without the expense of a professional editing process. Editing software and online apps won't alert you when your tense changes within your manuscript, deviations from your house style guide, or even offensive wording. It also won't flag that your protagonist had an orange tabby cat on page 32, but somehow, it's a black cat later in the novel.  The reality is that these programs and apps are not intuitive enough to catch narrative inconsistencies or specific grammar and syntax errors that ultimately degrade your writing— and that's not even touching what errors are caused by AI programs. 

 

For instance, take the following sentence:

 

The King and Queen of the neighboring Kingdom were enraptured that their first-born son was egret to abdicate the throne.

 

 You may have noticed a typo (egret—eager) and an incorrect word choice (enraptured). You may have even noticed a questionable hyphen (first-born). Did you notice anything else? Hint: There are three more errors.

 

There's nothing flagged, underlined, or suggested when you type that sentence into a word processing software. To a word processing program, the sentence is correct and as the author intended. To a professional editor, there are glaring errors. 

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Not only will I identify and correct grammatical, spelling, and syntactic errors that are not congruent with style guides such as CMOS (The Chicago Manual of Style), AP (Associated Press), Merriam-Webster and Oxford English Dictionaries,  but I will make suggestions that help you maintain consistent style and tone.  Lastly, I will ensure you maintain a strong connection to your intended audience through your writing voice.