Things I Believe About Editing
"After reading the essay, I wanted to tell you that you're great at what you do, and I'm glad I trusted you with this book. You have so much great information, and exactly what I needed from a developmental editing perspective. Your feedback and suggestions are extremely helpful and exactly what I'm looking for to improve my writing."
-J, thriller
Leveling Up Your Whole Book
Here are some things I really believe in my heart of hearts:
First, I don’t believe that most writers want to pay for a Developmental Editor, a Line Editor, and a Copy Editor. That takes forever and you could end up paying thousands.
Second, I truly believe that I’m not helping you as much as I can if I’m not pulling your book up as many levels as I can. This means that I don’t think it’s terribly useful to you to know where your plot falls apart but not get told that you use the word ‘furrowed’ 205 times in your book. (Hey, it happens!)
I am in agreement with other editors that there is often enough content to do a full edit on line, developmental, and copy. I could absolutely fill separate essays with, well, two of the three. (I would make a terrible copy editor, so I can’t do that!)
But I believe that my job is to help you on as many levels as I can at once, so you have a complete, whole, and better book than what you started, instead of a book that is perfect plot-wise but a mess on the writing level.
What You'll Get in an Edit
In a full edit from me, you’ll get back an Editorial Essay and your original document back with comments on every page. These comments can range from clarifying questions, rephrasing examples for awkward language, and style suggestions. Often these comments will focus more on line issues like awkward or repetitive words (but not always!)
The Editorial Essay will be at least a 4,000 word essay. It will have a section about what you’ve done well, a section detailing the most pressing and common line issues in your manuscript, and then a section about the developmental issues. This is where I will discuss things like character arc, plot holes, pacing, and other big picture items. In most full edits I deliver, this developmental section will take the most room in the essay, simply because I don’t have room to talk about them at length in the comments on the page.
If you’ve paid for a manuscript review, you will receive only the essay. But it will still focus on both line and developmental issues, with examples from your book, so your whole book is still made better. That way you will still have a clear path forward to strengthen both your writing on the line level and the structure of the book itself.
