The Concierge (Blog)

The 3-Step Process for Developmental Edits The process for developmental edits is very straightforward and easy to follow. It includes these three basic steps: Step 1: First Read-Through The first step in the process for developmental edits is doing a first read-through. During the first read-through, I recommend just reading the ms for content. You…

Recognizing Story Pattern and Story Structure Let’s dive in to a discussion showcasing story pattern and story structure. One common story pattern in fiction is the quest, such as this example: Huckleberry Finn is a quester; Dante (The Divine Comedy) is a quester; Charles Marlow (Conrad’s Heart of Darkness) is a quester. A reader seeing…

People like to pretend that you can write a book and make passive income from it. You can’t. If you write a book and stick it up on Amazon and never do anything to promote or market it, you’re not going to sell any copies. Okay, you might sell three or four from people who…

As developmental editors, our goal is to help authors figure out how to revise their stories to make them better. To do this, we are essentially comparing the work in front of us to some ideal in our heads. That ideal should not be “how I would have written this” but should be instead an…

I’m often asked, “For beginning editors, do you recommend doing some edits for free to get a start?” To answer, I want to distinguish between a beginning editor who has no idea what they’re doing and needs to learn and a beginning editor who knows what they’re doing but doesn’t have a lot in the…

Setting expectations from the start helps keep the project you’re doing from becoming never-ending. If you agree to do one round of editing, that does not also include three hundred hours of personal coaching while the author is trying to finish the revision. So, you have to define the project parameters clearly. If one round…

Readers like to see character change, even if the change is small, and even if the change is negative. Often a character will be just the same at the start of the story as at the finish, and generally this is less satisfying to the reader than when a character is confronted with the need…

To help your author develop strong GMC, try to identify the goal and motivation for each important character throughout the arc of the story. You’ll often find that goal-motivation is clear for only some of the characters or for only part of the story. Conflict is usually sharpest and most compelling when all of the…