Editorial Consultancy
The saying is that everyone has a book in them. Some people are happy to leave it forever dormant while others put pen to paper, mouth to dictaphone, and fingers to keyboard. Should you decide to write that book, then that’s where we can assist.
The contribution The Fine Line can make to your writing is twofold.
How our site can help
First, just browse the site. See what other writers say about how they write: heed their advice; disagree with them; see what people who make a living (and a life) from writing have got to say about technique, inspiration, routine, rejection, love, loathing, work, how they got there and why they stay. They are all out there doing it – exploring language; winning awards; seeing their work on shelves in anthologies, novels, and collections; acquiring rejection slips; and, most importantly, working at their craft.
Basic advice to get you started
The Blank Page is there to diffuse the myth of the white sheet as something to be feared and replace it with a perception of a page devoid of type as a thing of potential. A canvas, if you like. It will give you things to get you thinking, lifting your head from your laptop and, hopefully, realising that writing isn’t just a matter of putting words on a page. It is far more interesting, complex, infuriating, gratifying, and curious than that. Even in all its complexity, though, with enough will, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t pen your thoughts. The creative urge can be an unruly beast – obstinate, unreliable, sometimes unfathomable. The Blank Page will give you some pointers for commanding and putting it to good use.
Sharp views on classic texts
Bored of academics’ unfailing ability to render even the most vital of writers and works inert, The Criticess decided to revive them. In her periodic columns, you will find books and ladies you thought you knew (and some you’d never heard of but really ought to have). Her subjects are women whose backstory to their work was at least as dramatic as what they produced and whose creativity was of such an urgent, consuming, arduous nature that, where it didn’t cost them their lives, it did lose them husbands, their sanity and livers.
The Journal
If you’d like to hear about Fine Line goings-on – book launches, competitions, reviews, giveaways, articles and the like – pop over to The Journal page to sign up. We won’t plague you.
The Editorial Consultancy Service
The second way in which The Fine Line can contribute to your writing is through the Editorial Consultancy Service.
The aim of our service is to enable you to achieve the highest possible standard as a writer, to create work of a publishable calibre, by providing a technical analysis of your work.
The service will provide you with one-to-one, ongoing assistance and mentoring, working with the same editor throughout. Our feedback will be detailed and comprehensive, combining points on broader aspects of the work and specific comments made throughout the manuscript.
Click here to download a Sample Report
Our Editing Service will address such key issues as:
Character
• Are your characters intriguing?
• Are they original or do they contain elements of cliché?
• How well are they developed?
• Are they people or just caricatures?
• Are they well-observed?
• Is their tale absorbing?
• Are their interactions interesting? Do they serve a purpose?
• Even the most apparently ordinary people can be surprising. What evidence is there of you having explored this?
Plot
• The readers need to be absorbed. Are they likely to be?
• Is your plot well-paced and developed or is the reader likely to lose interest?
• Is it compelling?
• Is there material superfluous to the narrative? If so, what can be cut without reducing the overall impact?
• Is your plot original or does it appear contrived, borrowing heavily from other works of a similar genre?
• Does it surprise reader expectations?
Theme
• If you wish to explore themes through your novel, how well are they integrated into the narrative?
• Are they a part of the narrative or slightly laboured additions to it?
• Do they enhance your work or reduce its appeal, restricting it to a limited genre and audience?
Description
• How skilled are your descriptions?
• Does your use of language enhance the imagery or does it detract from it by, for example, crowding descriptions?
• Are your descriptions original?
• Do you make excessive use of such literary devices as simile and metaphor?
• Is your style excessively influenced by the work of other writers?
• It is perfectly acceptable to require the reader to use their imagination, but will your use of language make it necessary to decipher your meaning?
Dialogue
• Dialogue should be researched in order to be realistic. Is there evidence of you having done this? Is it realistic?
• Is it punctuated correctly?
• Do the language and speech patterns used reflect the way in which people actually speak?
• Is it appropriate to the setting?
• Is it clichéd?
PRICELESS INSIGHTS AT AFFORDABLE PRICES
For a fee of £50, we provide a Read-Through Report Service, intended to give you a valuable insight into your work without the cost of a full edit. Our Report will detail your work’s strengths and the areas with which we could assist. You will also be provided with a quote for a Full Edit of the full manuscript.
Should you go on to submit a manuscript of over 50,000 words for a Full Edit, the £50 paid for the Read-Through Report will be deducted from the fee.
Writers should submit a synopsis and three sample chapters or the first 10,000 words of the manuscript, along with a word-count of the completed work, using the form provided. If your work is uncompleted, provide an estimated final word count.
Please note, we deal only with electronic copies, enabling us to insert clear, concise, and detailed comments throughout the manuscript onscreen. They should be double spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman, with the title, contact details, and word count on the first page.
Once you submit your work, you will be sent an invoice requesting payment for editorial services. When payment has been received, your work will be edited. This procedure enables you to pay securely via paypal.
Submitting your work to agents and publishers
While we are delighted to provide assistance with submissions to agents and publishers, we are affiliated with neither.
Read-through Report
Based on 10,000 words – £50
Novel – Full edit
10,000 words plus synopsis – £100
20,000 words plus synopsis – £175
£4.50 per additional 1000 words
Short Story- Full edit
Up to 5000 words – £30
Poetry – Full edit
Up to 10 poems – £100
Up to 20 poems – £150
