Developmental Editing.

Once upon a time...

You wrote a book. And you poured your heart into that book. It was like a small birth, a story that’d been gestating inside you all your life because even though your fiction isn’t about you it’s about you in ways no one may ever know.

Now you’ve hit the end and you want to know if your book’s ready to go out into the world. When you look close, you see everything you love about it and everything you wish you could change, and sometimes since you’ve been staring for so long these things just blur together.

You’ve written, revised, and polished. You’ve rewritten and revised some more. And even though most nights you’re exhausted and you don’t know where the words are coming from or if they’ll ever come again, you know you’ll keep going until the story’s right.

You’d do whatever it takes, if you only knew what that was.

We all get to that point. When we’re so close to the end but too close to the material to know what will make it shine. This is the point where a developmental edit can point you in the right direction.

It’s not so much editing as it is reading with a critical eye. It’s evaluating what you’ve already done and analyzing what you’re trying to do. It’s brutal, constructive honesty about the steps you need to take to align the vision in your mind with the one on the paper so they can unite in literary harmony.

This isn’t about whether everything’s spelled right or the commas are in the right places (for that, I offer copyediting and proofreading, but that’s something else entirely).

If you need someone to look at the bigger picture and give you feedback on your characters, your plot structure, your voice, your pacing, and all the other elements of fiction that make a great story, contact me.

The process.

It’s really fairly simple (isn’t that nice?).

For works of book-length fiction, I offer two types of editing services:

1. • For writers who are at the querying stage, I offer an evaluation of  
   

   your query letter + the first 30 pages of your manuscript.

1. • For writers who need a more comprehensive evaluation, I offer  
   

   developmental edits of your entire manuscript.

In both cases, I read the work twice: once to simply experience it as a reader would, once more to read it with the more critical eye of an editor.

1. • I never rewrite any of your words because they are all precious, even
   

   when they need work.

1. • I make comments and suggestions for changes along the margins of
   

   the page.

1. • I leave you notes at the end of a chapter or at a scene that truly
   

   moved me.

1. • I point out parts of the narrative that need work and parts that don’t
   

   work.

When I reach the end, I think about everything I just read and write you a letter detailing how you can make your book better. It’s rarely all praises and raves. It’s something even better than that—an honest assessment of things you can do (yes, actually do) to make this the book you’ve dreamed of.

Once you’ve read (or devoured) the feedback, we’ll have a 30-minute phone call to go over any questions you might have about my comments.

Should you decide to revise your manuscript and have me reread it in the future, I offer a discount on the edits (mainly because you deserve it for persevering, but also because I love seeing how my clients’ work progresses).

Let’s get started.

Because you’re so close to the end...

Email me and tell me briefly about your book.

Tell me what kind of editing you’re interested in (the query + first 30 pages or the full manuscript).

A query + 30 page edit is $250.

A full manuscript edit is quoted per page*, based on the length of your novel.

1. ✴ For a quote, please send me the first 30 pages and a total page count. Pages are calculated using 12-pt Times New Roman font, double-spacing, and 1-inch margins on an MS Word .doc
   

Writing and editing to make you look your best.

C.V.

Writing. Experience. Life.

I believe when you’re obsessed enough with something, you find ways to learn about it. This is how I learned to write: it started with curiosity and a tendency to read anything with letters on it, and eventually evolved into a desire to write and polish my skills at every opportunity.

As a result of this obsession I...

...received a Bachelor of Arts in English with a concentration in Creative Writing from the University of Miami, where I studied with authors and poets such as M. Evelina Galang, Mia Leonin, Maureen Seaton and Nick Carbo.

...took advanced fiction writing workshops with authors Rick Moody and Cristina Garcia.

...quit my job as a managing editor at a magazine in 2006 so that I could work on my fiction and freelance full-time.

...read submissions as an assistant editor for an online literary journal, known for publishing authors such as T.C. Boyle, Joyce Carol Oates and Robert Olen Butler.

...have written about the writer’s life and the importance of critique groups for Writer’s Digest and The Writer magazines.

....have worked with editing clients on their novels, non-fiction book proposals, short stories and feature articles to help them improve their craft and work toward publication.

...wrote, rewrote, polished and rewrote my first novel in an on-again, off-again period of four years.

...finally started querying agents in October 2010. In February 2011, I signed with Foundry Literary + Media. (There’s an interesting story behind that, which you can read here.)

...share my thoughts on the creative life and my journey to publication on my blog, Finding Truth Through Fiction.

For the long version of my bio, click here.

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