Let’s start with the basics. What’s Copyediting? Your Copyeditor will ensure that you’ve used the right language to write your book. That means that you’ve used words that will reflect the type of story you want to tell. For example, Stephen King uses dark, ominous vocabulary in his horror novels because he wants to create an eerie and scary atmosphere for his readers.
The Copyeditor will also be checking for “readability”. When you pick up a book, if you’re struggling to get through the sentences because the phrasing is confusing, you’re just going to put it down again. No one is going to read a book that doesn’t make sense – this is why readability is so important. Copyeditors will help you to make your point in a more clear and concise way. You might have used a lot of technical words or jargon, but you want as many people to be able to read and understand your book as possible. A Copyeditor will make your book readable to the widest audience possible.
With this in mind, they’ll also be checking for anomalies. Writing a book is an arduous and long process and that means we can make mistakes. Sometimes we might get the character name wrong, or forget which setting they’re in – these are anomalies and the Copyeditor can spot these. Once again, it’s all about readability. If a reader doesn’t understand, for example, which character is speaking, then they’re going to get confused and less likely to keep reading. They’ll also check for incorrect facts and inconsistencies.