Line edit

A line edit is a pass through the prose itself — rhythm, word choice, clarity, voice and the shape of paragraphs — aimed at how the writing reads rather than whether it is correct.

A line editor cuts filter words, breaks up sentences trying to do three jobs at once, flags the metaphor that fights the one before it, kills the construction you have used four times on this page, tightens dialogue to what the character would actually bother saying, and marks the paragraph where the voice stops sounding like the narrator and starts sounding like you.

The clearest way to separate it from the next stage: a copy edit asks is this correct? A line edit asks is this good? A line editor will rewrite a sentence that contains no errors at all, because it is flabby, or flat, or lands its most important word in the weakest position.

The two are often sold together as a line/copy edit. That is reasonable value on an already-clean manuscript, but it is two jobs, and you should know which one you are buying.

Order matters: after the structural work is settled, before the copy edit. Line editing a chapter that may be cut is wasted money.