Keeping the audience engaged in your story while retaining your voice is the essence of doing your manuscript justice.

I offer three levels of editing:

• Detect and correct potential issues with plot sequencing. We may need to rearrange paragraphs and even chapters to ensure your story flows smoothly and logically.
• Ensure each character behaves as the reader might expect. A character with a military background might carry themselves differently from one who works on Wall Street.
• Detect and correct issues with pacing. Your story doesn’t need to always move at light speed, but it must keep the reader engaged. For example, when providing character backstory, let’s give the reader enough information so they understand the character’s motivations and emotion, but too much detail can slow your story down.

Rate: $.034 per word

• Ensure the text flows smoothly within each paragraph, from one paragraph to the next, and within each scene.
• Verify that settings and locations are described consistently and correctly. If yours is a science fiction manuscript, consistency is the key. If your suspense thriller has a scene or chapter set in New York City, your setting descriptions should be consistent and correct.
• Dialogue: does each character speak as the reader might expect? Characters from New York City vs. rural North Carolina, for example, would use different phrasing and dialect.
• Verify the narrative style (first, second, or third person) is consistent.
• Point of view: Does the reader always know who’s speaking? Who’s doing something?
• Show vs. tell: Rather than simply telling the reader a character is “cold,“ show the reader by saying the character is “shivering head to toe,” “shaking from the cold,” “pulling their collar higher,” etc. Showing paints a picture the reader can see.
• Verify that paragraphs begin and end when they should for clarity and maximum effect.

Rate: $.032 per word