Editing glossary for fiction writers

A

Arc (Character/Story) — The trajectory of change a character or plot undergoes across a narrative, from initial state through transformation to resolution.

Author Query — A note left by an editor in the margin or comments of a manuscript, asking the author to clarify, confirm, or reconsider something.

B

Beta Reader — A reader who reviews a manuscript before professional editing to give feedback on story and reader experience, distinct from a professional editor.

C

Continuity Error — An inconsistency in details (eye colour, timeline, geography) across a manuscript, usually caught in a continuity or developmental pass.

Copyediting — An editing pass focused on grammar, syntax, consistency, and style-guide adherence, sitting between line editing and proofreading.

Critique — Structured feedback on a manuscript's strengths and weaknesses, often less formal or comprehensive than a full developmental edit.

D

Developmental Editing — Big-picture editing addressing structure, plot, pacing, characterisation, and theme — the first substantive editing pass.

Diacritic — A mark added to a letter (é, ü, ñ) that alters pronunciation or meaning; a common source of inconsistency in manuscripts with non-English names or terms.

E

Em Dash / En Dash — Punctuation marks of different lengths used for interruptions and asides (em dash, —) versus ranges and connections (en dash, –); frequently confused and a common style-guide flag.

Epistolary Narrative — A story told through documents such as letters, diary entries, or emails, requiring particular editorial attention to voice consistency across "authors."

F

Filtering (Filter Words) — Words like "saw," "felt," "noticed," or "realised" that distance the reader from a character's direct experience; often flagged and cut during line editing to bring the reader closer to the POV character.

First-Person Narration — A narrative told from a character's own perspective using "I." Offers intimacy and immediacy, but requires the editor to watch for POV boundaries — the narrator can't know or report what they haven't personally witnessed.

Foreshadowing — Narrative hints that set up later plot developments; assessed during developmental edits for effectiveness and subtlety.

Free Indirect Discourse — A technique blending a character's inner thoughts or speech into third-person narration without direct dialogue tags or quotation marks; requires careful line editing to keep clear and consistent.

H

Head-Hopping — An uncontrolled shift between characters' points of view within a single scene, generally flagged in developmental or line edits.

House Style — The specific style conventions (spelling, punctuation, formatting) a publisher, brand, or editor requires, which may override a general style guide like Chicago.

I

Info Dump — A large block of exposition delivered at once, disrupting pacing; commonly flagged in developmental edits.

L

Line Editing — A sentence-level editing pass focused on flow, word choice, rhythm, and clarity — more stylistic than copyediting, less structural than developmental editing.

M

Manuscript — The complete, submittable text of a book before typesetting or publication.

Markup — Editorial changes and annotations made directly on a manuscript, whether via tracked changes or margin notes.

Multiple POV (Multi-POV) — A narrative structure alternating between two or more point-of-view characters, typically by chapter or scene, requiring editorial attention to distinct voice and consistent transition cues.

N

Narrative Distance — The perceived closeness between the reader and a character's inner experience, ranging from close/intimate to distant/detached; adjusted deliberately through word choice and filtering.

Non-Native Fingerprint — Subtle grammatical or idiomatic patterns in prose written by a non-native English speaker (e.g. article usage, false friends), a specific editorial focus when working with multilingual authors.

O

Overwriting — Prose that is excessively dense, ornate, or repetitive, often flagged for trimming during line editing.

P

Pacing — The speed and rhythm at which a story unfolds, shaped by scene length, sentence structure, and information release.

POV (Point of View) — The narrative perspective through which a story is told. See First-Person Narration, Second-Person Narration, Third-Person Limited, Third-Person Objective, and Third-Person Omniscient.

Proofreading — The final editing pass, catching typos, formatting errors, and small inconsistencies after all substantive edits are complete.

Q

Quotation Style — The formatting convention (straight vs. curly quotes, single vs. double) applied consistently across a manuscript.

R

Readability — A measure of how easily a text can be read and understood, often assessed via sentence length, vocabulary, and structure.

Redline — A marked-up version of a document showing proposed edits, typically via tracked changes.

S

Scene — A single continuous unit of story action, typically bound by time, place, and point-of-view character.

Second-Person Narration — A narrative told using "you," positioning the reader as the protagonist. Rare in commercial fiction and edited with particular attention to sustained consistency.

Show, Don't Tell — A craft principle, enforced editorially, favouring dramatised action and sensory detail over direct statement of facts or emotions.

Structural Edit — Another term for developmental editing, emphasising the reorganisation of content at a macro level.

Style Guide — A reference document (e.g. Chicago Manual of Style) or custom style sheet governing formatting and usage conventions for a project.

T

Third-Person Limited — A narrative restricted to one character's internal perspective at a time, even though told in third person ("he," "she," "they"). The most common POV in commercial fiction.

Third-Person Objective — A third-person narrative with no access to any character's internal thoughts, reporting only observable action and dialogue.

Third-Person Omniscient — A third-person narrative with an all-knowing narrator who can access any character's thoughts and knowledge, potentially across the whole story.

Tracked Changes — A word-processing feature (e.g. in Microsoft Word) that records and displays edits for author review and acceptance.

U

Unreliable Narrator — A narrator whose credibility is compromised, intentionally used as a storytelling device; requires careful editorial attention to keep the unreliability legible without confusing the reader.

Usage — Conventions governing correct or preferred word choice and grammar, often codified in a style guide.

V

Voice — The distinctive stylistic and tonal signature of a writer, character, or narrator, encompassing word choice, rhythm, and perspective; a central concern in both developmental and line editing, especially in multi-POV work.

W

White Space — The visual breathing room on a page created by paragraph breaks, dialogue, and formatting — affects perceived pacing and readability.

Worldbuilding — The construction of a fictional setting's rules, history, geography, and culture. Editorially assessed for integration, consistency, and pacing of delivery, particularly in speculative fiction.

Z

Zeugma — A figure of speech in which a single word applies to two others in different senses (e.g. "she broke his car and his heart"), occasionally flagged in line edits as either a stylistic asset or an unintended oddity.