Developmental editing

• early or middle-stage writing

• large-scale changes: cuts, expansions, or reorganization

• very helpful for "stuck" manuscripts

Are you working on something with a stubborn argument or an intractable organization? Are you lost in the morass of your own ideas and unable to get your evidence to line up and play nice? I'm the most careful reader your work is likely to have; I'll offer comments and specific suggestions for reorganizing, restructuring, and rewriting the piece. I can also help you cut a 15,000 word draft down to a tight 10,000 word piece, or pare away the fat from a book manuscript to expose the focused, tight argument beneath. 

Developmental editing is most useful for drafts that are finished (I have to be able to make sense of the manuscript, so something beyond an outline) but that are not ready to go to their intended audiences. In a developmental edit, I'll do a round of suggestions and modeling, you'll take the piece back to implement the revisions, and (if needed) I'll look at it again to identify further improvements. 

Developmental editing is especially useful for pieces you have languishing in the back of your desk drawer—pieces that, for whatever reason, have never quite made it to the submission phase. I love to work these moribund pieces into something you're excited about again—just ask my clients!