But Jennifer, you may say, isn’t this counterproductive if you’re starting an editing service?

Not in the slightest.

I’m a big proponent of editors– be they paid professionals or critique buddies, it’s essential to hand your story to somebody else before you try throwing it in the shark tank that is publishing. As writers, we’re usually too close to our work to see it for what it is, and so we need a fresh pair of eyes to find all the things we couldn’t find.

But that doesn’t mean the gargantuan task of editing isn’t entirely out of our hands.

We can’t always zap all of the tiny nitpicky details on our own, but we can try to snag as many of them as we can, so our beta editors can focus more fully on the big picture.

To that end, I’ll be giving a how-to guide on some of the most common mistakes I’ve found over the course of my editing experiences, including explanations on what they are, why the common wisdom advises against them, and reasons you might be inclined to go against that wisdom.