Story editing
2023 update: I am taking a break from story editing until later in the year.
I work with writers one-to-one, offering extensive editorial guidance on individual short stories.
If I’m working on your short story, I will read it closely multiple times. I will then provide suggestions and edits where I think they’re needed – be that with issues on the sentence level; point of view; structure, dialogue; pacing; volume; character motivation; drama – or lack thereof; etc etc.
You will receive from me: rigorous line edits and annotations in MS Word (using Track Changes), and a lengthy (and good-humoured) editorial letter offering an overview of how I think your short story can be developed and improved. I have no set idea in mind of how a short story should be written, and my feedback will be given in line what I think you’re trying to achieve.
I charge reasonable rates and I aim to send all feedback within a working week.
Also!
Building on the above, I additionally offer phone consultations (60–90 mins).
During these calls, the writer and I use their short story as a launchpad to explore more broadly the issues they’re facing in their writing.
For more insight into my attitude towards editing stories, you may want to read my editorial statement from when I became editor of The Stinging Fly.
Is my feedback for you?
The writers who benefit most from this kind of process are:
i) those who have already shared their work with others in the past and are familiar with receiving feedback and critique
ii) those who haven’t done the above, but who feel they’re now ready for it
If you sense there’s too big a gap between what you know you're capable of achieving and what you're actually achieving on the page; or if it feels like you’re writing with one hand tied behind your back, that there are places in your writing you’re not getting to, I think my feedback will help.
Beyond the sentence level, I will encourage you to push deeper and further with your story. Oftentimes, our writing is hinting to us about where it should go next, but we don’t know how to listen. My aim is to help you hear those hints – and to give you the permission to write the story the way it needs to be written.
I can’t promise that you’ll become a published writer with my feedback. Though I do know I can help you improve your work, and that I can help you better understand the mechanics of what you’re doing.
And if I don’t think your work is quite yet ready to benefit from the process – or if I don’t think I’m the right editor for it – I will be honest (and hopefully tactful) with you from the start.
More information about my editing experience