Developmental and Line Editor
Manuscript Consultant
25 + Years as an Editor
I write novels and short stories myself, and also memoir, so I have an astute understanding and a keen appreciation for how narrative works, and this allows me to support clients in making decisions about structure, pacing, voice, point of view, character, scene, and dialogue.
One of my key strengths is that I am able both to make global suggestions, i.e., to intervene in your project in ways that address its breadth and its depth, but also to work at the level of the sentence, focusing on the minutiae in line edits.
I am as comfortable working with memoir or personal essays as I am with novels and short stories. As an academic, I am also able to support clients who are writing monographs, scholarly articles, or dissertations.
“I write to record what others erase when I speak, to rewrite the stories others have miswritten about me, about you.”
—Gloria Anzaldúa,
This Bridge Called My Back
The Big Picture
I think of this big-picture work as a process of tuning, homing in on the reigning metaphors and images in the manuscript, paring away repetition and digression, recommending alterations to some scenes or deletion of others, always with an eye to ratcheting up the dramatic tension and eliminating cliché.
The Line-Edit
While the big-picture work often entails asking the hard questions in order to get at the very heart of the narrative, the line edit is just as vital: if your prose is obtuse or flat or reveals sustained patterns of error, it doesn’t really matter how great your story is. Helping writers to enliven deadwood prose is, in my view, one of the great joys of this work.
The Details of How We Will Work Together
I work in Track Changes, and this allows me to carry on a “conversation” with you on every page of the document. My edit will include margin notes, page by page, line by line. When a potential client gets in touch, I start by providing an overview of the manuscript, in which I focus on the strengths and weaknesses. My review will cover structure, point of view, character development, and dialogue. I also provide a sample line-edit that highlights instances in which the prose is working beautifully and other areas in which it may be flat or unclear.
Should you decide to engage my services, before we begin, I will provide an estimate and a deadline for when I would be able to complete the work.
The Extras
I am very well prepared to help clients with Query Letters, the Synopsis, or a Proposal.
Get in Touch
We'd love to hear from you! Any questions about the course, please pose them here.