WELCOME!
“Good writing is essentially rewriting…” Roald Dahl.
“To write is human, to edit is divine.” Stephen King.
Writing a book is hard, but a thorough and thoughtful edit will make your hard work sparkle. All my editing is collaborative — I would love to work with you to elevate your writing to the divine! My favourite way to work is through the Guided Self-Edit or Mentoring (see below), but standard editing packages are also available.
Structure
I specialise in making sure your structure is properly serving your story. Are you hitting key plot beats? Has every scene earned its place? Do they start and end in the right place? In a developmental edit, I will help you pull apart your plot, analyse it, and put it back together again.
Character
Character is the heart of story, in any genre. Are your main character and antagonist coming alive on the page? Do they each follow a satisfying arc? Does your dialogue/description/narrative viewpoint consistently serve your character development? It’s worth making sure your characters are unique, believable and compelling and I can help you do that.
Language
When characters and story are in place, then it’s time to work on the prose. Time to dig out all the filtering, exposition, redundancies, repetitions etc and to pin down when you should be showing and when telling. Are you getting the right balance of action, introspection and description? In a line edit, I will help you clean up your prose and look at your writing on a sentence level.
Pitching
When you’ve got your book as good as you possibly can, it’s time to reach out to agents. It’s true that you only get one chance to make a first impression, and it’s surprisingly easy to undermine a great piece of writing with a poor query letter or synopsis. There’s an art to the query, and a format that works. I can also advise on twitter pitching — which is how I first got an agent myself!
SERVICES & RATES
Mentoring
I love mentoring un-agented writers through the editing and submission process. This can be whatever you want it to be; moral support, read-as-you-write feedback, brainstorming, feedback on plans etc. Choose the level of mentoring you want from the options below, then decide month by month what support you need.
Level 1 - choose from: 10k edit OR 3 x 1hr zoom (support/brainstorm/check in etc) OR 5k edit and1.5 hr zoom (depending on needs month by month) PLUS up to 4 emails of chat/support.
Level 2 - choose from: 5k edit OR 2k edit and 1 hr zoom OR 3hrs reviewing docs, plans etc , (depending on needs month by month) PLUS up to 4 emails of chat/support.
Level 3 - choose from:1.5k edit OR 1.5hrs reviewing docs, plans etc (depending on needs month by month), PLUS up to 4 emails of chat/support.
Edit includes margin notes and general feedback on developmental issues, not detailed line edits.
Level 1: £90 pcm
Level 2: £45 pcm
Level 3: £20 pcm
To be paid by monthly, can be cancelled anytime.
Guided Self-Edit
This is a bespoke, in-depth service specific to your manuscript and working on your own strengths and weaknesses. A guided self-edit takes you through all aspects of the developmental edit, one at a time.
For each session, I provide general advice on how to approach editing that aspect of your book, as well as targeted feedback, and examples from your own work on how to strengthen that area.
You can space the sessions of the self-edit however you like. I recommend you edit your book three times during the course; firstly, incorporating feedback on overall structure, character arcs, pacing and world building, secondly concentrating on scene structure, and finally refining language, dialogue and style.
Recommended duration: 10 sessions over 6 months to 1 year.
Approx £200 for a full manuscript read (dependent on word count), plus £100 per session. (minimum 3 sessions after read through.)
Developmental Edit
This is an overview of the whole manuscript, looking at pacing, character arcs, overall structure and tone, as well as general strengths and areas for improvement. It includes a line edit of the first three chapters, covering elements such as word choice, filtering, dialogue, sentence structure, balance of dialogue and action, exposition, etc.
£100 for opening 10k, plus £6 per 1,000 words after (10k rate + €7/$8 per 1,000 words after)
Submission Package
Includes line edit of your first three chapters, as above, as well as an edit of your query letter and synopsis for readability, style and appeal — everything you’ll need to make your first impression on agents.
£150 (€170, $190)
Query And Synopsis Workshop
Only for customers who’ve already had a developmental edit with me, as I would need to know the full MS myself to help workshop the very best bits for the submission pkg. I can provide a suggested template to start from and will re-work both the query and synopsis up to three times each.
£100 (€115, $130)
Query Quick Look
Edit to make your query letter as concise, clear and catchy as possible.
£30 (€35, $38)
Synopsis Quick Look
Edit for flow, style and clarity.
£30 (€35, $38)
Non-Fiction Proposal / Blog / Article / Presentation Edits
Non-fiction editing also available. Edit for structure, clarity, focus and style. I can help put together a non-fiction book proposal, looking a target market analysis, chapter summaries, samples and bios.
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ABOUT ME
My debut middle grade children's novel THE OCTOPUS, DADU AND ME was published by UCLan Publishing in January 2023. It’s contemporary realism with a dash of the unusual, and is about a girl who forms a special relationship with an octopus as she tries to process her feelings about her grandparent’s worsening dementia. I’m represented by Emily Talbot at United Agents.
My professional background is in journalism. I was an arts journalist at the BBC for 10 years, mostly for BBC 6 Music. I wrote and edited both my own work and that of others, for broadcast and the BBC website.
I have tutored children and young adults in creative writing as part of the 826 Valencia writing programme in San Fransisco, and regularly edit and consult on blog, article and presentation writing.
I reviewed literary and book-club fiction for the blog Those Precious Stolen Moments, discussing writing with the likes of Sally Rooney, Jesmyn Ward and Nicole Krauss.
Having lived in both North and South America, and all around the UK, I’ve now settled on the Sussex clifftop, from where I can gaze out to sea and think about words.