The Concierge (Blog)

One of the first things I teach newer developmental/story editors is to focus on the big picture. That means looking for problems with a novel manuscript’s plot, character development, and setting. It means noticing perspective/point-of-view problems, flabby scenes, unnecessary exposition. It does not mean pointing out every unnecessary adverb or overused word. Don’t Overwhelm the…

If you’ve ever taken a class from me, you know that I have a pathological hatred of using questions in editorial queries. By this I mean asking questions like, “What is Joe’s motivation?” where you are, or think you are, asking the author to address the problem of Joe’s lack of motivation. Use statements instead…

Line editing (LE) and copyediting (CE) are related skills, as they both focus on the sentence level. Obviously there is significant overlap between the two skills. Basic Definition of Copyediting But copyediting is about ensuring consistency across a manuscript, correcting egregious errors, making sure the manuscript conforms to a specific style guide, and otherwise smoothing…

“How are you?” Jane asked. “I’m fine,” said Sandy. “Do you have any plans for the weekend?” Jane asked. “No, I do not,” Sandy replied. If your red pen is itching to do something about that terrible, terrible dialogue, you might be a line editor at heart. How to Line Edit Dialogue It’s common for…

One of the best ways to dip your toe into the developmental editing waters is by beta reading. This is basically reading a manuscript and responding to it: where you were confused, where you lost interest, what character you enjoyed the most. How to Beta Read When you’re doing a beta read, you’re not trying…

I’ve talked about how beta reading can be a great way to find out whether you might enjoy developmental editing, and of course the logical follow-up question to that is, Where do you find authors who need beta readers? How to Find Beta Reading Clients My main piece of advice: You have to go where…

Most of my work comes from referrals and word-of-mouth, and that’s true of most of the experienced freelance editors I know. I also solve a lot of problems that arise by talking them over with my colleagues. Because of that, I’m a strong advocate for having a network of colleagues. But I know networking intimidates…

If you have clients who offer ongoing work, such as publishers and packagers, there will occasionally come a time when you have to fire them. Sometimes this is because you ignored a red, red flag. Other times it’s because you’ve moved on to higher-paying clients, less demanding clients, more fulfilling work. Don’t Burn Bridges with…

I learn a lot about what not to do from the spam emails I get. For example, I get a lot of offers to help with my website, wherein the writer breaks the bad news that my site is not ranking on Google. But . . . not ranking FOR WHAT? Chinese restaurants near me?…