Before you pay an editor
The self-editing pass to run before anyone else reads it
A developmental edit runs into the thousands and takes weeks. Clearing the mechanical problems first means the editor you hire spends their time on the things only a person can see.
- Mechanical first
- Fix what a machine can see before paying for eyes.
- Per chapter
- Work through it in the order you wrote it.
- No lock-in
- Export your text whenever you want it back.
Self-editing fails in a predictable way: you read what you meant instead of what is on the page, and the fortieth read is worse than the first. Measurement does not have that problem. It cannot tell you whether the chapter works, but it can tell you that eleven sentences in a row start with "She" and that you have used "suddenly" sixty times.
Start with the countable
Spelling, doubled words, dialogue punctuation, unbalanced quotes. Fast, unambiguous, and nobody should pay an editor to catch them.
Then the habits
Crutch words, repeated openers, echoes, and pet phrases across the whole book.
Then the rhythm
Sentence length variation is the number most worth watching. Uniform length is what makes competent prose feel flat.
Leave the story to a human
Whether the midpoint lands, whether the ending is earned, whether anyone likes your protagonist: not measurable, and this product does not pretend otherwise.
How it goes
- 1
Import the draft
The whole book, not a chapter at a time.
- 2
Clear the mechanical findings
Accept or reject each one.
- 3
Look at the whole-book patterns
Pet phrases and crutch words are the ones you cannot see from inside.
Questions
Can this replace a human editor?
No, and it is worth being direct about that. It catches what is countable. Structure, character, pacing, and whether the book works are judgements a person makes.
What order should I edit in?
Structural problems first if you already know about them, since rewriting a scene throws away any line editing you did to it. Then mechanics and repetition, which is what this tool is for.
How long does a pass take?
The measurements are immediate. Working through the findings on a full novel is usually a few sittings, and you can stop and come back.