Fantasy Novel Editing Services

After months (or years) of planning, outlining, and writing, you’ve finished your fantasy novel. Now what? As much as you may want to send it out into the world, it’s not ready yet. All novels need to be edited by a professional to catch and correct mistakes that you may not have noticed. An editing service, such as that offered by Human Editing, can vastly improve the quality of your story and prose and can make your novel ready for publishing. For some more reasons why you should employ Human Editing for your fantasy manuscript, read on.

Structural Editing

The first thing your editor will look at is the structure of your novel. They will examine the overall plot and story arcs and determine if they make sense in their current form or if they need to be altered in some way. This could involve moving parts of the story around, for example, moving a flashback to later on in the story so that it’s more relevant and impactful, or it could involve reworking aspects of the plot or story that aren’t working well.

Sometimes entire characters or storylines are added in the editing process to tie different characters or plots together or to illustrate the impact of the events. Your editor will ensure that your novel’s structure makes sense and creates a coherent story that will keep readers entertained.

Content Editing

After improving the structure of your book, your editor will take a closer look at the content. They will look at smaller events within the overall story and at things like characterization, settings, character relationships, and more. In essence, your editor will be looking at what you say, not how you say it (that comes in the next step—stylistic editing). This may seem like a small consideration, but it can make all the difference to readers (and potential publishers!). The content of your story needs to be interesting, especially in the fantasy genre, where many novels use the same tropes and conventions.

Your editor will ensure that your story has your readers eagerly reading page after page instead of giving up because they’re bored or because they don’t like the characters, relationships, or setting.

Stylistic Editing

Every novel can benefit from stylistic editing, but fantasy novels can benefit even more than others. Fantasy authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien and George R.R. Martin are known for their unique prose styles, which shows how important writing style is in the fantasy genre. Each author has their own unique style, and your editor will never change yours, but they will sharpen it and ensure that your unique voice is properly captured and stands out among other fantasy authors. Your editor will ensure that your sentences flow and that your ideas are clearly conveyed, in addition to polishing your grammar and spelling where necessary.

Genre Expertise

An editor familiar with the fantasy genre can bring knowledge of conventions such as the hero’s journey. They can thus look at your story from a higher vantage point and see where you stray from typical genre conventions. Of course, if you intend to upend common tropes, as George R.R. Martin does in Game of Thrones, your editor will respect your choices and ensure that these tropes have been properly subverted. Whether your story follows every fantasy genre convention to a tee or forges its own unique path, your editor will have the expertise required to ensure that your story has been well executed.

Character Development

Characters are the crux of the story, and are a big reason why readers get invested in stories. Creating unique, likable, well-rounded characters is a difficult feat, and creating realistic development for those characters over the course of a novel is an even more difficult process that requires extensive planning and attention to detail. Your editor will be well-versed in common character profiles and arcs, and can help you craft characters that conform to fantasy conventions or tropes, such as the wise old mentor, or characters that are completely unique to your story.

Your editor will ensure that your characterization is consistent but will also track and help develop the arcs of your characters. A fresh set of eyes, particularly ones with extensive experience in fantasy literature, will be able to determine whether your character’s development is organic and realistic and whether it should be sped up, slowed down, or altered in any way. A strong editor can make your characters stand out and become readers’ favourites.

Writing a fantasy novel is only the first step to becoming a celebrated fantasy author. Editing is an important step in the book publishing process, and a Human Editing editing service will improve the structure, content, and style of your novel to make it stand out among the rest and improve your chances of getting published or getting readers if you’re planning to self-publish. Discuss your manuscript and the type of editorial support you need with Human Editing.