This is a comprehensive, collaborative edit that focuses on big-picture issues such as plot, story structure, pacing, characterization, and tone and may involve scene contraction or expansion, character additions or deletions, plot revision, and significant reorganization. This edit builds on a full manuscript critique, going further to provide specific guidance for revision. In addition to a detailed editorial letter, I’ll assemble a style memo and character dossier. A developmental edit may include line editing, but it does not include copy editing.

Line editing considers your manuscript on a sentence level. This editorial pass is for a manuscript that is well developed but in need of some fine tuning. It may involve substantive rewrites and suggestions for enhancing narrative flow, style, vocabulary, characterization, and dialogue, while carefully preserving your unique voice.

This is a nuts-and-bolts edit, performed on a manuscript that’s already had a developmental and/or line edit. It’s a word-by-word pass that addresses grammar, syntax, usage, spelling, and punctuation, as well as consistency and continuity. I’ll make sure all the loose ends are tied up: subplots are resolved, supporting characters are all accounted for, the timeline tracks, and everything makes sense. Additionally, I’ll ensure your manuscript conforms to the guidelines presented in the Chicago Manual of Style, and I’ll build a custom style memo for your project. If requested, I’ll Americanize your spelling/grammar, check cross-references, and perform some surface-level fact checking.

The last step of the editing process, proofreading is a final review to amend any remaining errors before the work is submitted, published, or printed. Proofreading comes only after a more detailed edit has been performed; no structural editing is done at this step. Instead, the focus is on catching and correcting typos, egregious grammatical errors, misspellings, and errors in punctuation and capitalization. For works that have been typeset, additional areas of concern include page composition issues like word/line/page breaks, widows and orphans, running heads and pagination, etc.

This is a bird’s-eye assessment of your entire manuscript. I’ll give your manuscript a close read, evaluating issues like character and scene development, plot/structure, narrative flow, point of view, dialogue, and pacing. Comments are made directly in the manuscript, using Word’s Track Changes feature, and feedback is summarized in an editorial letter outlining what I think is working well in your manuscript and what needs a bit of finessing. I’ll ask questions to help you think about possibilities for revision and make suggestions for ways to improve trouble spots. No formal edits are made in the manuscript.

Follow-up critique of a revised manuscript

Copyediting and proofreading short works such as stories, articles, proposals, dissertations, application essays, et al.

Recipe development, formatting, and testing; cookbook consultation

Fact checking

Querying package: copy edit and proofread of query letter, synopsis, and/or proposal