The Editorial Process

I encounter a lot of novelists and fiction editors who use movies as examples of various storytelling techniques they want to discuss. I understand this impulse: it is easier to assume that everyone has seen The Matrix or can easily find the two hours to sit through it than it is to assume that everyone…

Many freelance editors work for indie authors, but some of us also work with (or only work with) publishers. Occasionally I get an email from a freelance editor who wants to know if you actually can make a living freelancing for publishers. Here’s an excerpt from a recent one: “I’m finding it really, really hard…

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. It’s very common for the scope of an editing project to change,…

I’m Katherine Kirk, and I proofread, copyedit and line edit fiction and tabletop role-playing game content (like fanzines, game modules, and kickstarter copy). I started editing at the beginning of the pandemic, and I threw myself into learning as much as I could, as fast as I could, so I could build it into something…