I turned out of an alley, around a corner toward a small bridge over one of the side canals, and there it was. I bought two oranges for 1.41 pounds when I passed it again on the way home.
Home is where the heart is -- so your real home is in your chest.
Services
What I Do
"You hire an editor when you are ready to spend money to hear that you have more work to do. That may sound obvious, but I've met many an author who hired an editor as a last step to validation, as the stamp of approval that would mean she could now safely publish. If you are not totally clear that hiring an editor means you will have more work to do, then you are not ready."
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-- A wonderful quote from
A Writer's Guide to Persistence
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There are several different kinds of editing, but the two that I do, and excel at, are line and content. Especially content.
My content editing is like getting a personalized workshop based on your story. When we're done, you'll get three documents from me: your MS with all my marks (using track changes) and notes in the sidebar, a chapter overview where I discuss the things that I saw going on chapter by chapter, and a critique letter with sections on plot, character, setting, conflict, pacing, and theme, followed by a general section with things you can apply to all your writing, a specific section related to just this story, and a grammatical section that can also be applied to all your writing.
As far as I know, nobody else does what I do.
Genre & Age Range
I work with genre fiction, specifically fantasy and science fiction and their sub-genres, but I also love horror.
I work on adult and young adult (YA), but middle grade (MG) and childrens' are not my thing.
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Types of Editing
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Line Editing:
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Line editing is editing for tone, style, and flow--focusing on polishing the author's words to improve the overall effect and suggesting improvements in word choice, sentence structure, and meaning to increase the impact of the writer's message. As the title suggests, a line editor meticulously goes through every single line of text. This is the kind of editing where you identify weaknesses in the way the story is written.
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Content Editing:
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Content editing (also called substantive editing), is more involved and more subjective. This kind of editing is bigger picture, checking for logic holes, inconsistencies, and weak spots in plot and story structure, character development, conflict arcs, setting, and pacing, then suggesting possible solutions for any issues found. This is the kind of editing where you identify weaknesses in the storytelling.
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Self-editing
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I will do my best work for you, but keep in mind that the more polished the text you send me is, the less time it will take me to work on it, and the less it will hurt your wallet!
From my experience you will get the most out of my time if you've given your MS a couple of self-editing passes, and have even passed it through beta readers already.
Note, it isn't a requirement that you find beta readers first, but you certainly should do your own editing passes.
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Other Services
Usually, I carry a backlog with a wait time, so to help counteract that a little, at least for smaller projects, I offer an afterhours rate for which some authors might jump the line. Space is limited.
I offer consultation calls to help you get your MS into shape before you start writing, or even during the writing process; I'll help you problem-solve and deliver a more polished MS that will take less time and money to have edited.
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I now offer a content-only option that I've finally figured out how to do quickly and efficiently without the temptation of the line editing interfering.
The content-only edit will include the same critique documents (letter and chapter overview), but only few marks and comments in your actual manuscript.
Turn around is much faster for this kind of editing project as well, a week or two in general, depending on how long your story is, as opposed to three or four weeks for a full content and line edit.
This option is for the author who is sure of their grammatical and writing (as opposed to storytelling) skills, an author who is uninterested in paying for line editing, or for the author who does not want to include line editing with content editing in a single step.
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Please contact me with questions.