The revision letter is what the author turns to first when they’ve received your edit to understand your overall feedback regarding what needs to be done in the revision. It guides the author’s revision. It can also be used as a standalone tool for conveying big-picture concerns to authors when they don’t have the budget…
A good rule of thumb for a fiction editorial query is to make statements, not ask questions. By focusing on making statements, rather than questions, in your editorial queries, you begin to unpack your assumptions about what literature is, what makes a story good, and so on. I often recommend using the three-party query template…
It’s very common for newer dev editors to write editorial queries that say things like, “What is Joe’s motivation?” but that does not give the author sufficient guidance to do the revision so it is not an effective editorial query. But it is a perfectly fine place to start. The first thing to do is…
Getting paid to do the work is how we stay in business. It’s very important to be prepared to handle potential client problems with payment. Payment in Full When working with indie authors, I expect full payment in advance, so I don’t have problems with people who don’t make a final payment, but not everyone…
As developmental editors, we use three main types of queries, and it’s important to distinguish among them so that the author isn’t confused about what needs to be done. What we don’t want to do is just write reaction queries: “John seems disappointed here.” Well, so what? What does the author need to do about…
After working with many authors, I have learned a crucial world-building tip for authors. World-building is a particular challenge in science fiction and fantasy, where the author has to balance the need to keep the plot moving with the need to give the reader a sense of context and direction in the wholly made-up world…
What does defensible mean? In copyediting, an edit can be defensible because it is correct: that is, because Merriam-Webster dictionary says that a word is spelled a certain way or because the Chicago Manual of Style recommends that a sentence be punctuated in a certain way or because a publisher’s house style requires a certain…
Why should we be informed of some of the common client red flags for freelance editors? Since we want to weed out potentially troublesome clients before they make our lives miserable, or at least I do, it’s a good idea to have some weed-killing processes in place. For example, requiring a nonrefundable deposit means that…
A question newer editors often ask is, “How can I edit a manuscript and suggest solutions to problems without turning my recommendations into ‘here’s how I would write it’?” And I have a lot of advice about that, including understanding editorial methodologies and frameworks, but my main piece of guidance is to use what’s already…