SERVICES
Welcome to emergency services; which service do you require?
PROOFREADING, COPY-EDITING & RE-WRITING
Proofreading is the process of weeding out and correcting any spelling, grammar, syntax and punctuation errors but does not include any changes to the writing, style or structure. Ideal for CV’s/resumes, websites, documents, articles, books and scripts.
Even the best writers in the world make mistakes, so ensuring your project is as damned-near perfect as possible is vital when pitching to clients, agents or prospective employers.
Spellcheckers and Grammarly can help but cannot be relied upon for important projects. It’s a scientific fact that the more we double-check our own writing, the more our brains scan read and miss glaring errors. Stress, tiredness, deadlines, screen-blindness, and even our own ego can also cause mistakes, so a fresh pair of professional proofreading eyes is essential.
My diligent attention and decades of being the go-to guy for proofreading will provide the confidence you need.
Copy Editing is the process of proofreading AND creatively re-wording your project. It’s a much more extensive than proofreading, but not as thorough as a full rewrite.
Your project may need more than cosmetic corrections – better wording, restructuring or a little creative stardust to hook your readers in and keep them hooked. Most likely you’ve taken your project/documents as far as you can and need some help getting over the finish line. Don’t worry; that’s where I come in… if you get in touch, I’ll be happy to help.
Re-Writing is a dramatic overhaul of a document because of problems with structure or narrative or because it just isn’t working.
Perhaps your book or script suffers from the dreaded “Second Act Problems”, you need help polishing that business proposal, you’ve lost your way with that crucial presentation or, perhaps, you’re from Australia and English isn’t your first language.
Most of your favourite Hollywood movies will have undergone many re-writes by a procession of writers who just weren’t able to break the story. Enter The Script Doctors – highly experienced writers and re-writers who perform surgery on whatever isn’t working from polishing dialogue to Page One Re-writes whereby maybe the central premise and characters are kept, but the writer just took the script in the wrong direction.
You see – even highly experienced professionals lose their way!
Whichever type of writing you need help with, I can polish a lump of coal into a sparkling diamond so you can win that contract!
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)
If your website contains great content but isn’t receiving the traffic you feel it deserves, you need to think about Search Engine Optimization. In a nutshell, SEO makes sure that your website is speaking the same language as the people you want to attract.
My Keyword Research and Full On-Page SEO services will ensure your website ranks higher on search engines such as Google and, in turn, higher volumes of targeted traffic visit your site.
After a thorough read-through and determining your site’s intent and needs, I can fully optimize your pages with extensive keyword research, including:
WRITING & GHOSTWRITING
Writing is creating content, or “copy” for print, web and broadcast under my own name.
One of the hardest elements of writing is to keep your readers engaged. Luckily, I am blessed with an incredibly strong sense of story – and a natural gift for written storytelling. I’ve written all my life and am lucky to have made a living from creating exciting web content since 2009. From previews of football matches to film and TV reviews, technical writing, travel events and blogs.
As you will see from my TV news and reviews website, couchpotato.buzz my usual writing style is somewhat maverick but I can, of course, tailor to my style suit your tone and audience and needs. You’ll always be in charge and have final say.
Ghostwriting is creating content for print, web and broadcast under your name. It is not, as you’d be forgiven for believing, writing about Patrick Swayze’s ghost teaching pottery to Demi Moore.
Perhaps you have an amazing idea for a script and need someone with more writing and storytelling experience. Maybe you need a ghostwriter to begin your book from scratch because you’re not a writer yourself, or perhaps you’ve taken your project as far as you can and need some help getting over the finish line. Either way, that’s where I come in… if you get in touch, I’ll be happy to help.
My usual writing style is energetic and somewhat maverick and I can lend my Rockstar Voice to your project or, of course, tailor my style to suit your needs. Though compromise is always a part of the collaborative process, you’re the boss and you’ll always have final say.
Writing
When it comes to fiction, coming from a TV background, I can easily translate your ideas from your notes or brain onto the screen. I write very visually and “paint vivid, filmic pictures”, and create compelling, three-dimensional characters, motivation and realistic dialogue.
Equally at home with drama or comedy, as a creative, my left-field ideas leap off the page to hook readers in be that on stage, radio or film or TV.
Get in touch and let’s see what we can create together!
SCRIPTWRITING, PROOFREADING & EDITING
A vital part of the screenwriting trade is presentation and a professionally formatted script is the test you must pass to prove you are serious about entering the industry.
You could have just written the next Citizen Kane but no studio or production companies will consider unsolicited or non-professionally formatted scripts.
If you have an hour-long drama, half-hour comedy, feature-length screenplay, stage or radio play, I can format your script to industry-standard and help you get your foot in the door or find an agent. Please visit my scripts page for more information.
VIDEO
With 20 years’ television and a decade’s broadcast behaviour industry experience, The Word Doctor can also PROOFWATCH your video content to weed out errors and suggest improvements, RE-WRITE your video content, COMPLY for legal, privacy and ethical concerns to broadcast standard or RE-VERSION programming – cutting for length, pre-watershed or international versions…
PROOFWATCHING
Living abroad means I don’t have enough storage space or bandwidth to edit projects from rushes, but what I can do is utilise my incredible focus and impeccable attention to detail to PROOFWATCH your digital content and provide notes on how to best to improve it.
Just like proofreading, I’ve been the go-to guy to fix video content for decades too. Only last week (at the time of writing) a friend sent me his Kickstarter video for appraisal and I sent him valuable feedback. A year ago, I also proofread his high concept novella, too!
RE-WRITING FOR VIDEO
In addition to script-doctoring and complying scripts before a shoot, I can help you re-write or re-edit your edited output.
Whilst working as a Streaming Producer on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here and other reality shows, my reputation as a writer saw other producers draft me into their edit suites to re-write and edit their segments for ITV1 shows, reaching 17 million viewers.
COMPLIANCE
With over ten years’ experience at ITV, Channel Four, E4, Five, The Walt Disney Company, Endemol, Red Bee Media (for the BBC) and TVT (for UKTV) editing for broadcast behaviour I can provide compliance services to UK Broadcast Standard.
As Head of Compliance at Ostrich Media, I worked closely with Channel 4 and Five lawyers to ensure the fairness of competitions and spoke before Parliament during the media storm on Participation TV.
When broadcasters and production companies were being fined sums of up to £5.68 million for breaching OFCOM rules, under my watch, no OFCOM complaints were upheld against Ostrich, C4 or Five – nor were they fined a single penny.
RE-VERSIONING
With many years experience re-cutting programming under my belt, particularly for Channel 4, E4, TVT and Red Bee Media, I can provide expert cut-downs and re-version for length, pre-watershed or international versions.