For writers polishing a draft
Line Editor: Tighten a Page in Your Voice
Paste a page. Get it back tighter, still in your voice, with cuts struck through, additions in bold, and a clean copy ready to use.
Free to start. No card needed.
The rain had not let up since Tuesday. Mrs. Ocampo, who was stubborn, kept the shop open anyway, and she kept the lamps lit and the kettle on, almost as if she believed that customers might somehow lamps lit, kettle on, as if customers might wash in with the weather. But as it turned out, in the end, no one actually came. No one came.
- Cut "who was stubborn": the open shop already shows it.
- Folded the list so the sentence keeps moving.
- Three hedges cut. The short line lands harder.
What you'll get
Your page, tighter, with every cut and addition marked
- Your page with cuts struck through and additions in bold
- A clean, tighter copy ready to paste back into your draft
- The main changes, each with a one-line reason
Before and after
Same story, same voice, fewer words.
Jonah slowly walked down the long, narrow hallway, and he could feel his heart beating really fast in his chest. He suddenly realized that the door at the very end of the hallway was slightly open, which was strange, because he was absolutely sure that he had locked it before he left that morning.
Jonah walked down the long, narrow hallway, his heart beating fast. The door at the end was open a crack, which was strange, because he was sure he had locked it before he left that morning. Cut "slowly," "really" and "he could feel": they slow the walk down. Cut "suddenly realized" so the open door arrives on its own. 54 words to 36.
Your sentences, minus the words they didn't need.
Why it works
What is a line edit?
A line editor tightens your prose sentence by sentence without changing your story, and River's free line editor does it one page or scene at a time. The Editorial Freelancers Association says line editors work at the sentence or paragraph level, with a main focus on improving language and style. You get your page back with every change marked, cuts struck through and additions in bold, plus a clean copy and a short list of what changed and why.
The fear with AI editing is losing your voice, and editors who have tested it share that fear. Iris Marsh found that ChatGPT often overedits, leaving prose flatter or more generic if you accept every change. River's editor is built to cut, not rewrite: filler, repeated ideas, stacked adjectives, hedges and throat-clearing go first. Your dialogue, dialect, deliberate fragments and rhythm stay. Paragraphs that are already tight are left alone, and nothing reaches your draft unless you copy it there.
Line editing comes after the big fixes. There's little point polishing a chapter you might cut, so get structural notes from the AI book editor first. Our guide to the types of editing shows where each kind of edit fits and what it costs. Before you send the book out, work through the cut-and-tighten checks in the self-editing checklist on every chapter, then line edit the pages that still drag, one at a time.
What lands in your doc
What lands in your doc
- Your page marked up, with every cut struck through and every added word in bold
- A clean, tighter copy of the same page, ready to paste back into your draft
- The main changes, each with a one-line reason, like cutting a hedge or a filter word
- A word count before and after, so you can see exactly how much tighter it got
- Your voice kept: dialogue, dialect, deliberate fragments and rhythm stay as you wrote them
- Your choice of a light touch, a firm tighten, or a hard cut when you're over length
How it works
From baggy page to tight page
Paste your page
Paste a page, a scene or a whole chapter, dialogue, dialect and all.
River tightens it
It cuts filler, hedges and filter words first, and keeps your dialogue, dialect and rhythm.
See every change
Your doc shows cuts struck through and additions in bold, then the clean, tighter copy.
Take what you like
Read the reasons, keep the edits you agree with, and copy the clean page into your draft.
What a line edit changes, and what it leaves alone
A line edit is about how your sentences read: clarity, rhythm, wordiness and voice. It differs from a copyedit, which the EFA describes as correcting spelling, grammar, usage and punctuation and keeping a style sheet. Much of a line edit is cutting. It trims filter words like felt, saw and noticed, doubled adjectives, hedges like somewhat and almost, and openers that warm up before the sentence starts. Each cut is small. Together they make a page move.
Not every awkward line is a mistake. A repeated word can be a deliberate echo, a fragment can be the beat you wanted, and a character's grammar is part of who they are. River keeps those, matches your spelling, and never changes your plot, point of view or tense. Because every cut is struck through and every addition is in bold, you can spot an edit you disagree with at a glance and keep your original wording.
A professional line edit is worth paying for when you're close to publishing, and tightening pages yourself first means that money goes further. River works on one page or scene at a time, which keeps every change easy to check. Start with the passages that drag: the opening pages, long stretches of description, and any scene a reader admitted skimming. Paste one, read the marks, and copy the clean version back into your draft when it sounds like you.
Questions authors ask
Common questions
What is line editing?
Line editing improves your prose sentence by sentence. The EFA says line editors work at the sentence or paragraph level and focus mainly on language and style, though they also correct errors. It comes after structural revision and before copyediting and proofreading, so you aren't polishing scenes you might still cut or move.
What's the difference between line editing and copyediting?
Line editing asks whether a sentence reads well; copyediting asks whether it's correct. A copyedit covers spelling, grammar, punctuation, consistency and a style sheet. Some editors do both in one pass. Reedsy, for example, doesn't offer line editing as a separate service, because its copy editors line edit and copyedit together.
How much does line editing cost?
Most line editors charge by the word. The EFA's 2026 rate chart puts the median for fiction line editing at 2.7¢ to 3.5¢ a word, or about $2,160 to $2,800 for an 80,000-word novel. Our guide to the types of editing compares Reedsy's rates and the other kinds of edit. River's line editor starts free.
Will an AI line editor change my voice?
It's built not to. It keeps your dialogue, dialect, deliberate fragments and rhythm, matches your spelling, and skips paragraphs that are already tight. It cuts before it rewrites. And because every change is marked, you see exactly what it touched and can keep your own wording wherever you prefer it. Don't accept edits blindly; read the marks.
How are the changes marked?
Your doc opens with the marked-up page. Words River cut are struck through and words it added are in bold, so you can read the old and new side by side. Below that is the clean, tighter page with no marks, ready to copy, and then the main changes with a one-line reason each.
Can I line edit a whole chapter?
Yes. Paste the whole chapter, or drop in the file; River reads it, edits a copy in a new doc, and leaves your file untouched. It edits up to about 3,000 words in one pass, so every change is easy to check, then says where it stopped. Say keep going and it carries on. Not sure which pages to tighten? The AI beta reader shows where a reader skimmed.
Do I have to tell Amazon KDP I used AI to edit?
No. KDP's guidelines call writing you created and then refined with AI tools "AI-assisted," and you don't have to disclose that. A line edit only cuts and tightens what you wrote, so the story, the sentences that stay and the voice are still yours.
Your next step
More for your book
Keep your voice. Lose the filler.
Paste a page, see every cut and addition marked, take the clean copy, then keep going page by page.