special editorial considerations

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Fiction  |  Poetry  |   Nonfiction  |   Business  |   Academic

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For works of fiction, particular attention must be given to:

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• the story arc, plots and themes

• settings and imagery

• timelines and chronology

• character- descriptions,  traits, motivations, behaviours, voices and believability

• point/s of view

• dialogue

• mood of the scene and emotional response

• the element of surprise

• cliché and awkward metaphor

• (and last, but not least) showing - not telling.

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My preferred fiction genres are historical, literary, mystery, humour, contemporary, memoir-based and science fiction.

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​For poetry, there is a strong focus on: 

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• form of expression

• mood, imagery, emotional core and impact

• punctuation, pauses and line breaks

• phrasing, rhythm and oral quality.

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​For nonfiction books, there are other aspects of the document to be considered: 

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• level of formality and authoritativeness

• assumption of reader knowledge and accessibility of complex information

• specialist nomenclature and terminology (and indexability)

• thematic transitions and logic of argument

• reader usability and navigation (including headings, subheadings, cross-references and footnotes)

• impact and memorability of key messages

• sensitive and contentious content

• permissions, copyright and plagiarism

• visual displays (e.g. extracts, lists, boxes, sidebars, forms, diagrams, graphs, charts, photos, tables, equations)

• bibliographic data (e.g. references, text citations)

• disclaimers (author opinion and reader responsibility for actions)

• cohesion of multi-author contributions

• other elements required e.g. figure lists, abbreviation lists and end matter (e.g. appendices, glossaries and index).

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Business documentation also requires consideration of factors such as:

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• adherence to internal style guidelines and streamlining (as required) with in-house teams and procedures

• adherence to strict deadlines

• brand/corporate identity and consistency within and across document types (e.g. websites and printed matter)

• the context, relevance and visual impact of displayed features, such as figures (diagrams, graphs, line-drawings, charts, infographics, photographs) and figure labelling and captions, and tables (design and content), lists, text boxes and sidebars, questionnaires and forms, and extracts, citations and references.

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Academic content in reports, theses, dissertations, journal submissions and essays, requires a very structured approach to:

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• layouts and sequence of sections (e.g. Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, References, and Conflict of interest statements

• abstract, summaries and executive summaries

• structure and navigability

• keyword selection

• logic of argument

• supporting evidence

• figures (diagrams, graphs, line-drawings, charts, infographics, photographs) and tables, and their labels and captions

• specialist nomenclature, terminology, abbreviations and acronyms

• scientific units, statistics, equations, mathematical and chemical symbols

• reference lists and in-text citations (e.g. Harvard vs Vancouver)​

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For purely bioscientific and medical documents, please visit my specialist company, Shoreline BioMedical.