Will I succeed as a freelance editor?

When we write editorial queries for the author, we need to identify what the problem is and why it’s a problem for the manuscript—in other words, we can’t just slap generic slogans on a manuscript (“Use fewer adverbs!”) and think that’s editing. Effective Editorial Guidance Part of the editorial guidance we need to offer in…

Conflict drives narrative, as I don’t need to tell you. But a problem with the conflict is probably the number one issue I see in the manuscripts I edit. Yet it can be difficult to identify conflict problems. Outside of the most formulaic of approaches, we don’t have a lot of rules about how the…

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…

Developmental editing is the art of looking at a manuscript to identify big-picture concerns. For nonfiction, this would include helping an author make a clear argument; showing an author how to reorganize disorganized material; pointing out where they need to support the points they make with data, examples, and/or case histories; making sure terms are…

There are two kinds of freelance editors: those who have pissed off a client and those who will piss off a client. It’s inevitable. No matter how competent you are, someday you’re going to have a client who’s unhappy with your work. This can feel awful, even soul-killing, the first time it happens. It can…