Developmental Work
Collaborative work with writers of fiction (short stories to novels), memoir, personal essay, and other genres for overall general improvement. Investigation of ‘could this happen’ (realistic fiction) or ‘did this happen’ (high-level fact checking) can be important for some work and may be included in developmental edits if it has the potential to change the work. I can evaluate an entire manuscript, work on sections (in order or out of order), or set a coaching schedule to help you get the story out of your head and on to the page. If you have a number of sections and don’t know how to fit them together, or if you have something that seems finished but it doesn’t feel quite right and you don’t know what to do next, you may want to engage a developmental editor.
Line Editing / Copy Editing
Depending on the nature of the writing, these tasks may be done together or separately, but only after developmental work is complete. You should have a completed manuscript about which you feel relatively confident, yet you are also ready to examine it with improvements and fine-tuning as your goal. Line editing dives into the essence of the style in which you tell your story (word choice, sentence structure, pace/speed) and copy editing addresses the details (spelling, grammar, fact checking and consistency).