FAQs
What category of books do you work on?
Fiction: Romance, detective thrillers, action thrillers, military thrillers, and a dash of romantic suspense. Any romance or thriller willing to explore the experiences of queer peoples across the spectrum. Other genres are taken on a case-by-case basis.
Nonfiction: Sociology, psychology, political science (especially U.S. general history and U.S. racial history), U.S. military history, language/linguistics, and philosophy and religion. Other genres are taken on a case-by-case basis.
What category of books do you specialize in?
Fiction: Queer romance and detective thrillers featuring queer protagonists. Those are the books I read most often, the ones I most enjoy analyzing, as both an author and editor. There’s something special about the juxtaposition between love and danger (whether physical or emotional).
Nonfiction: U.S. history (racial, military, politics) and narrative nonfiction. Knowledge truly is power.
What are the different types of editing?
Developmental Edit
This edit primarily addresses structure, plot, characters, and stakes/conflicts. It can also make note of point-of-view issues, inconsistencies, and settings/worldbuilding.
Line Edit
Focusing on the language as a delivery method, this edit looks at word choice and usage, sentence structure and paragraph length, and overall flow of sentences, paragraphs, and chapters, and how they each play off or misalign with each other.
Copyedit
Turning to the mechanics of language, the copyedit primarily addresses things like spelling, punctuation, grammar, and sentence structure. Queries of new terms, possibly wrong facts, or even copyright violations can be expected.
Proofread
The final look-see at a formatted book before it goes to print. Only the most egregious errors are addressed (e.g., obvious misspellings, incorrect end-of-line breaks, line spacing misalignment, header and footer information, consistency between the table of contents and internal chapter titles and page numbers).
What’s the difference between a cold readthrough, editing pass, and editing round?
Cold Readthrough
A front-to-back reading of a manuscript with no intention of deep analysis, only high-level impressions as a casual reader and editor.
Editing Pass
One read through a manuscript for editorial analysis.
Editing Round
One or more editorial passes through a manuscript. The final deliverable returned to the author will include either 1) the marked-up manuscript (and Style Sheet or Editorial Letter, as appropriate), or 2) the Manuscript Evaluation letter.
Is a beta read the same as a manuscript evaluation?
A beta read is a reader’s review of your work from that reader’s standpoint. They are your target reader (though only one person) and thus are well-versed in your genre from that perspective. With guided feedback questions regarding principles like story and character consistency, internal and external conflict, and even dialogue and POV, you get an overall feeling for how your story might be received by your larger target audience.
A manuscript evaluation is a professional service provided by an experienced editor with special knowledge of your genre. What I like to call a Developmental Edit Lite, a manuscript evaluation provides tangible solutions to the areas of concern for that specific manuscript. Those solutions may be on rearranging plot events into a more causal arc, delving deeper into your characters to make them more relatable to your readers, or even using your setting to explore potential themes that appear throughout the manuscript.
When should I hire an editor?
As soon as you feel you’re ready. As shown above, there are different levels to editing, and they don’t necessarily follow a linear path. Just when you’ve gotten through a copyedit, you might realize—or your copyeditor might even point out—some glaring plot holes that should probably be fixed if you want readers to come back for your next book. That may mean seeking out a manuscript evaluation or developmental edit, or you can keep going to the proofreading stage. No one can tell you a precise time in your publishing journey when you should hire an editor, not even me.
How can I prepare for an edit?
The biggest thing is to deliver as clean a manuscript file as possible. That means self-editing until you’re sick of looking at the damned thing. You’ve narrowed the gaps between plot events, your characters jump off the page, your prose is worthy of a Pulitzer Prize (in your eyes). Like knowing when to hire an editor, how you prepare your file for a professional edit is a journey unique to the story you want readers to experience.
What types of authors do you usually work with?
Authors who have at least two years of experience in fiction writing. That can be fanfiction, short stories, flash fiction, or full-length novels. You have a base understanding of how a story’s puzzle pieces shape a reader’s experience. You’ve written for someone other than your parent(s), neighborhood friends, or high school English teacher; in short, you’ve written for an audience that doesn’t personally know you. You’re also willing to learn new ways the pieces that make up a good story might fit together to create a whole different experience than you were initially thinking of exploring.
What training and experience do you have?
You can check out my professional credentials here. To summarize, though, I’ve been reading and writing for 90% of my life, especially fiction. I discovered queer romance almost a decade ago, and I haven’t looked back, as reader, writer, and lately as story coach, developmental editor, and manuscript evaluator.
Alright, I’m convinced! How can I start the process of working with you?
On each of my Services pages, you can reach out for a free consultation. You can also email me directly at shannon@sageediting.com to get the writing ball rolling on the two of us “reflecting on your story one word at a time!”
Reflecting On Your Story One Word At A Time!