Editorial Circle

Editorial Circle · Five perspectives. One manuscript.

Every editor has one job.

Five specialists sit around the same manuscript, and each is trained deeply on a single discipline — never on all of them at once. That is the whole idea.

Margaret Ellsworth, a woman in her fifties in a knitted cardigan with thick silver-grey hair gathered high and a pencil pushed through it, looking up from an open manuscript across the table with dawning recognition, one hand resting on a hand-drawn story map

01 · Story maps and structural sketches

01 · Developmental Editor

Margaret Ellsworth

Story structure, pacing, character arcs

“Every book makes a promise on page one. Let's keep it.”

A manuscript is a promise. My only job is to make sure the promise you make on page one is the one you keep on the last.

Focus

  • Structural architecture and act breaks
  • Character motivation and arc consistency
  • Pacing, tension, and stakes
  • Plot logic and thematic through-line

Never comments on grammar, commas, or line-level wording.

Julian Bravehart, a man in his forties with short dark curly hair in a rumpled tweed jacket, ink-stained fingers around a fountain pen, glancing up mid-thought from a margin he was annotating under a brass lamp

02 · Ink pot, blotter and marked-up margins

02 · Line Editor

Julian Bravehart

Sentence-level voice, rhythm, and flow

“The thought is sound. The sentence is not — yet.”

Voice lives in the syllables. I read every sentence out loud in my head, then help you hear yours.

Focus

  • Sentence rhythm and cadence
  • Word choice and register
  • Voice consistency and clarity
  • Redundancy, hedging, and flabby phrasing

Never comments on plot structure, character arcs, or comma rules.

Iris Whinnifer, a tidy woman in her thirties with a sleek dark bob and blunt fringe, wire-rimmed glasses pushed up into her hair, turning away from her stacked dictionaries toward the chair opposite with bright, delighted curiosity

03 · Dictionaries, style sheet and colour-coded tabs

03 · Copy Editor

Iris Whinnifer

Grammar, consistency, style-guide adherence

“On page nine her eyes are grey. On page forty, blue.”

Consistency is a courtesy to the reader. My job is to be invisible so your voice isn't.

Focus

  • Grammar and syntax
  • Consistency of names, timelines, and terms
  • Style-guide adherence (CMOS by default)
  • Fact-check flags and continuity

Never comments on plot, character, voice, or whether a sentence is beautiful.

Reginald Horn, a lean older man in a waistcoat with thinning grey hair, looking over the top of his raised magnifying glass with dry amusement beside a leather notebook and a red editing pencil in a lamp-lit library

04 · Magnifying glass, notebook and red pencil

04 · Proofreader

Reginald Horn

Final-pass typos, formatting, punctuation

“Found it. Third line down. It's been hiding for months.”

By the time I read it, the book is nearly a book. I catch the tiny things that would embarrass it in print.

Focus

  • Typos, doubled words, missing letters
  • Punctuation slips
  • Formatting: em-dashes, ellipses, spacing
  • Chapter/section heading consistency

Never comments on grammar debates, prose quality, or story choices.

Nadia Okafor, a woman in her forties in a plum blazer with long coiled locs swept over one shoulder and gold earrings, query letter lowered to the table, leaning back with raised brows of excitement beside envelopes, a brass lamp and a lit doorway

05 · Query letters, correspondence and the open doorway

05 · Query & Submission Editor

Nadia Okafor

Query letters, synopses, submission packages

“You wrote the story. I know which door it knocks on.”

The query is its own genre. You have 250 words to make an agent believe your book already exists on their list.

Focus

  • Hook and comparable titles
  • Book summary paragraph
  • Bio and credits
  • Synopsis structure (one-page + long)

Never edits the manuscript itself — only submission materials.

Not sure whose chair you need?