Personal Correspondence Editing and Proofreading Services

A letter arrives that asks how you are, mentions the weather, says it has been far too long, and signs off hoping to catch up soon. It could have been sent to anyone the writer has not spoken to this year. The recipient reads it once, feels vaguely fond of the sender, and has nothing to reply to, because nothing in it required them specifically to be the person reading it.

We edit personal letters written between individuals for no occasion in particular — letters to old friends and distant relatives, catching-up letters after a long silence, pen-pal and long-distance correspondence, letters written to someone going through a hard time, letters to someone in hospital, prison or far from home, love letters and letters between partners, and the letter someone drafts several times before deciding what they actually want to say. Our editors work on writing meant for one reader alone.

The specific memory or detail addressed to this one reader is what separates a real letter from a card with more words on it, and its failure is warmth so general it could be reprinted for anyone on the sender's list. Hope you're well and thinking of you say nothing that only this friendship could say. We work through these so the letter opens with something true of this particular relationship — a joke, a shared memory, an ongoing thread from the last letter — rather than a greeting that could open any letter to anyone; so a real question is asked, one with an actual answer the writer wants to hear, given that "how are you?" is answered in one word and a specific question about something the recipient mentioned last time invites an actual reply; so news is offered in proportion to how much the recipient would care, rather than as a full inventory of the writer's month, because a letter that reports everything reads as a diary entry addressed outward rather than a letter addressed to somebody; so a letter to someone unwell, isolated or far from home is not filled entirely with cheerful distraction, as an honest sentence acknowledging their situation is often what they actually want from the letter; so declarations of feeling, where they appear, are supported with a specific reason rather than left as an assertion, since "I love you" said with a reason attached lands differently than the phrase alone; and so the letter invites a reply by leaving something open, a question or a thread, rather than closing every subject it raises. Letters written this way get answered and get kept.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including personal circumstances, relationships and anything private to the correspondence. We are editors rather than counsellors or relationship advisors, and we offer no view on your relationships or what should be said. What we can do is help the letter sound like it was written to the one person reading it.